01/31/2026
I love this!
Controversy alert. Training your dog isn’t necessary at all.
You can live a perfectly happy life with a dog without ever formally training them. You can exercise them, meet their needs, socialise them, enjoy them for exactly what they are, and coexist peacefully. You can manage behaviour rather than shape it. You can choose the right temperament, roll the genetic dice, and very possibly avoid many of the challenges dog owners face, such as reactivity, separation anxiety, resource guarding, aggression, apprehension, and so on.
And honestly, all power to you. There are millions of people across the world, who take this approach, and as often as not, have an amazing life with their dogs.
If you end up with a dog who arrives with a natural understanding of how to navigate a human world, who self-regulates well and finds modern life relatively easy, that’s fantastic. You absolutely do not have to train that dog. But you also may want to buy a lottery ticket, as you just struck gold!!
However, for me, training changes everything.
I’ve lived with over 30 dogs of different breeds, backgrounds, and sources. I’ve bred dogs, bought dogs, rescued dogs, rehomed dogs, and found dogs. Every origin you can think of. And the dogs I’ve trained, educated, challenged, and actively engaged with are the dogs I’ve had the deepest relationships with by far.
I have only ‘co-existed’ with one dog…. And she would have been that anomaly that innately knew how to behave… she was a ‘lassie’. One of those dogs who could navigate life despite us, not because of us.
Every other dog has been taught something beyond ‘just life skills’. Obedience. Tricks. Play. Nose work. Sport foundations. Competition skills. Something that challenged them, confused them at first, stretched them, and then helped them succeed. And more importantly, something that challenge me, confused me, stretched me, and ultimately I succeeded at.
Training isn’t about control or perfection. It’s not about turning dogs into robots.
Training is exposure with support. It’s forming a connection. It’s creating a bond. Its learning about them, with them and through them.
It’s inevitably placing dogs in situations, often unintentionally, that are mildly uncomfortable or unfamiliar and then teaching them how to cope, how to think, how to problem-solve, and how to try again. That’s where confidence comes from. Not from avoiding stress altogether, but from learning that they can handle it.
It’s presenting enrichment for their very core of who they are. It’s satisfying their most primal instinct in a way that is gratifying, safe and fulfilling.
Through training, I’ve watched dogs become more confident, more stable, more socially appropriate, more resilient, and more secure in themselves. Not because I managed their world smaller, but because I gave them the skills to navigate a bigger one. All in pursuit of a endeavour and ambition they were totally unaware of.
Teaching my dog to have focus and engagement in an environment with hundreds of dogs, and people, is a heady goal that has far more impactful benefits then ‘sports’.
Training also creates something I can only really describe as intimacy.
I know my dogs. I know how they think, how they feel, and how they see the world as individuals. I can tell you what they’re going to do before they do it. I know what will challenge them, what will overwhelm them, what will motivate them, and what will shut them down. And because I know that, I can adjust my training, my handling, and my expectations to help them succeed.
That depth of understanding doesn’t come from coexisting. It comes from doing things together.
Whether it’s obedience, agility, IGP, working trials, scent work, tricks, or something informal, the activity itself doesn’t matter. What matters is the shared endeavour. Training gives you a common language, a shared problem to solve, and a way to grow together.
You don’t have to train your dog.
But if you choose to educate them, engage with them, and challenge them, your relationship will go somewhere you probably didn’t even know existed.
Train your dog. Not because you must, but because of what it gives both of you.
Mark my word, once you have that connection, you won’t look back!
