New Inspiration for a New Year: How Teaching Dogs Makes Us Better People

Prioritize seeking serenity with your dog in 2023. photo: AdobeStock

I’m one of those people who likes to consider new possibilities when the New Year rolls around. And when undertaking something new, there’s no doubt that a little inspiration can go a long way. 

Of course, even without inspiration, you can make practical changes that are very effective. To change your dog’s behavior, for example, you’d start by making a list of your dog’s behaviors - those that need work, those you’d like to stay the same, those you’d like to strengthen, and those you’d like to see go bye-bye. Then you’d create a plan of action to get the job done. If this practical approach is all you need to make changes with your dog, please take my simple words of wisdom and run with them. 

Unfortunately,  for most of us, making changes isn’t that easy. If it were, positive change would abound for everyone in every area of their lives. 

Like me, many of my dog training clients are finding life to be more challenging than ever these days. With the complex, serious issues we face both at home and around the world, resources like energy, time, and money may take on new meaning. Given what sometimes feels like an neverending onslaught of crises, it can be hard to make doing more with our dogs a high priority. But I’ve recently experienced an insight that has inspired a better reason to train, one that’s not just about enhancing my dog’s behavior.

Seeking to bring more peace and joy into my life, I realized I had to make that a priority. And I found that many life enhancing practices teach the same message: learn how to live in the moment. Embracing the moment allows a sense of gratitude and appreciation for life to replace the negative emotional baggage that can too often plague us. Yoga, meditation, spiritual practices, and community involvement work for me - almost as well as spending time meaningfully engaged with my dogs does. 

When I connect with my dogs, I receive the same rewards as I do with the other practices that help me stay centered and in a place of gratitude. That’s what now inspires me to train them, not just the rewards of improved behavior. 

If you experience the serenity that being with dogs provides, you can experience much more by training them, which I prefer to call teaching. I know that when my students and I teach our dogs, we also grow as people. We cannot be on the road to accomplishing a task with our dogs without being solidly in the moment and fully engaged. By default, we are practicing patience and compassion. We experience gratitude for our dogs’ efforts and for our dogs’ abilities to express how the experience is affecting them.

When my dogs tell me they love what we are doing or when they tell me they do not, I get the gift of understanding them more fully. It feels good to want to understand them. This is opposed to the negative feelings that come from making selfish demands or having unrealistic expectations for them to understand me before I understand them (I try to apply this approach to the people in my life as well, though I admit it is a bit harder).

Through my relationships with my dogs and by approaching dog training as dog teaching, I get the gift that meaningful, heartfelt teaching can give to any thoughtful, loving teacher. I’m able to see what my dog - my student - needs for me to learn from them, so that I can teach them more effectively. 

Our dogs can reach their higher potential when we reach our own higher potential as good teachers to them.  Improving together creates a joy that positively impacts us both. 

So take this inspiration and make that practical list. Get an action plan in place.  Join an obedience class, get that second dog, or dive into a new dog sport. Know that your time, effort, and money is very well spent. 

You won’t just be making your dog a better dog.  What we teach our dogs helps make us better people - and who's to say how far that ripple might travel in the wider world?