​When I was young, I remember waiting in line at the grocery store behind a mother and her young child – probably between 3-5. The kid, bored from a long trip through Kroger, found a glimmer of hope in his day when he saw the brightly colored candied section at the checkout aisle. The aisle, as they tend to be, was filled with Snickers, Sour Patch Kids, gum, Skittles, and any other mainstream candy you could have imagined.

“Mommy, can I have some candy?” the child asked politely as his tiny hand grabbed for some Peanut Butter cups.

“Not today, honey” the mom responded without even thinking.

And then it began.

The child, sensing his mother’s distraction and lack of conviction to her “no” began to escalate.

“PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!” he said.

“I said not today,” she said.

“BUT I WANT CANDY!!!” he said.

The mom then glanced around the store, feeling the impending doom of a full meltdown, and changed her tune.

“Okay honey. Since you were good in the store.”
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This scene is something we’ve all either been a part of – whether as the parent, the kid, or a bystander thinking about we’re happy we don’t have kids or how much better we would handle the situation if we did have kids ( was the latter before I had kids myself and gained a massive amount of empathy for parents put in that situation). 

When I work with a dog, the change in the dog is almost immediate. It's part technique and strategy. But more importantly, I present myself in a way that allows nervous, anxious dogs to immediately feel comfortable and safe. 

When making changes in your dog, you have to start with yourself. I'm not just talking the behavior changes at home, I'm talking having the ability to shift your state and to create confidence. 

This isn't just experience. Being a stable leader, in and of itself, is a skill you need to learn. You might be reading dog training books, when you really need to be reading Tony Robbins books. 

Get more details about what you're missing here in the video:

When shopping for a dog trainer, you will be overwhelmed by the choices and conflicting information for even the most basic questions in dog training. 

Unlike other trades like plumbing, there isn’t a consensus on the right way to do a particular task, instead there is a million dog trainers and each one has “their way.” So much so that dog trainers sum up the training community with one cliche: the only thing two trainers can agree on is that the third trainer has no idea what they are talking about. 

As a trainer, this creates a large amount of stress. Every trainer I meet loves dogs and wants the best for them, but the dialogue has broken down over the best way to move forward with dogs. 

Our community is fractured along partisan lines, much the way our nation’s politics are divided. Two sides yelling at each other about what is right and that leads you, the consumer, to be confused and forced to pick a side as well. 

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In my other job as a life coach, the most common advice in the entire field, to the point where it’s basically a cliché, is to set clear goals. This advice manifests itself in a thousand different ways in the coaching world, but still people, even myself, have a hard time of taking it really seriously to the point where we make our goals clear.
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But if you don’t set a goal and plan for it, then you’re really setting yourself up for a much higher potential of failure than would be the case if you had a clearly defined vision for what your success looks like. In other words, have a plan and a goal, or you’re going to be following someone else’s plan – your spouse’s, your parents’, your boss’s, and, yes, even your dog’s!

I remember back before I knew what I was doing with dogs, I was out walking my dog through my busy neighborhood - I’m being generous by saying “walking,” because it was mostly being pulled, getting frustrated and getting blown off by my dog.

Towards the end of the walk, I was doing so terribly that someone took a minute out of their meal and stepped out of a restaurant just to heckle me. I remember very clearly a man opening the door across the street and yelling:
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“It’s called dog training. You need it.”
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If you’re rehabilitating your dog, there is a good chance that fear is wrapped up somewhere in your dog’s behavioral cocktail.

Teaching something like a basic “place” command (requiring a dog to step up onto a short platform) teaches you a lot about your dog’s personality. Some dogs will bound over any and everything to get to a treat. Others will greet anything new has a potential life-threatening danger.

Sophie, and many of the dogs I work with, fall into the second camp. Sometimes it’s not so obvious in their day to day life, but when you put the smallest new thing in front of them, they show you who they are.

If you ever want to successfully help rehabilitate a dog, or even train a dog, you’re going to have to feel comfortable dealing with fear. In this video, I discuss the two major approaches to dealing with fear: the slow gradual, dog-friendly approach and the “ripping off the Band-Aid” approach. I thought that Sophie was going to be resistant, but she ended up giving us an awesome display of why it’s sometimes good to go easy, have fun, and let the dog make choices rather than asserting yourself and making the choices for her.

If you have a fearful dog in your life, then it’s important that you learn how to navigate these moments confidently in a way that helps move the dog forward. Too often when a dog shows some trepidation with something, owners just manage it out of their lives. Sometimes, that is the right decision, but overcoming these little fears is going to manifest itself in your dogs as pure, new confidence.
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Also, overcoming little things like this is a GREAT way to build trust with a dog so you can overcome the bigger fears in life later.  
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So maybe you can’t walk, or you’ve just resigned yourself to the fact that you’re not going to – for whatever reason.

Your dog still needs to walk, though!

Luckily, there is an awesome and easy way to solve this dilemma.
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Training your dog on a treadmill is a great way to close the gap between the exercise your dog is getting and the exercise your dog needs. It also comes in handy when it’s icy, sub-zero, or the Colts are on TV. Yes, it is possible to exercise your dog while you watch football or read a new book!
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A structured walk is the backbone of your relationship with your dog. And for your dog, it is the most important part of his day.

​Firstly, positive dog training is great. Dogs should have fun doing their work and the more fun they are having, the sharper you can make their obedience look. With the breakthroughs in food / reward training, competition dogs look far sharper today than they did 30-40 years ago.

That’s a fact. That’s why you see me often using food, positive energy, and enthusiasm when I am training a dog.

The big HOWEVER here is the fact that we need to separate that simple fact from the army of trainers who sell their services using common marketing terms like “all-positive,” “science-based,” “rewards-based” and other terms designed to make you feel good about buying training services from someone who eagerly wants to sell them to you.
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It’s really a genius sales pitch. Why use “harsh” or “outdated” tools when you can get the same, or even BETTER results having nothing but a good time and saying "yes"?  Why do people continue to prefer trainers who take a balanced, all-encompassing training approach?