08/23/2026
💃👏🏻🕺Clean up or shut up🤐
It’s one of the hardest things to watch as a trainer or just a dog lover. A pup desperately trying to do what you want, but you haven’t taught them. They did it once so you think they “know better.” They don’t, so the human gets louder, maybe forces what they want, the dog remains confused and both leave the interaction frustrated.
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A new dog barks in your face repeatedly, you say “dude what? What do you want?! Stop! Enough already.” WORDS they don’t understand just like barks you don’t understand if you haven’t yet learned to communicate fairly.
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Fostering deaf puppies taught me that speaking actually hinders their initial learning. They didn’t have to sift through all the babble. They just did what worked and avoided what didn’t. It’s OK if you talk too much but holding them accountable for something they don’t know is just cruel. We’d never ask a snake not to bite us expecting it to understand. Maybe it’s Disney movies but no idea why we do it to dogs.
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Clean up what you’re asking so it’s crystal clear. What does “down” actually mean? Sure they can eventually figure it all out but why not make it easier. We owe them that much.
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If you’re getting frustrated, loud or demanding, it may be time to take a step back and ask yourself if they can be held accountable for something they aren’t sure of. There’s no right answer, just a right way to proceed. We say this all the time with training clients. At first, we almost always take the dogs side, but once they understand, we’ll take the humans side. In the famous words of drop the ego before you pick up that leash Grateful 💚
