Dog to Dog Introductions

If only all dogs could get along! But they don’t… Dogs are similar to people in that they may get along fine with many people, but there is the one person that sets them off. No matter how friendly a dog is, there will always be one particular dog that will ruffle them. Then there are some dogs that can’t get along with any dogs.. EXCEPT for that one. Bottom line, each dog is different and should be accepted and appreciated as an individual.

BUT.. we live in a world where dogs will come across other dogs and if they can’t be social / cordial to another dog, they should at least be neutral. In fact I opt for neutrality over cordiality. WHY?

Dogs that are very friendly think that every dog is friendly, and if they think all dogs are friendly they will feel free to engage every dog. Instead, my focus is that “You are my dog, you’re with me… you don’t need to say hi to any other dogs.” Why is that so powerful? Because a dog that focusses on me instead of other dogs will never be disappointed (or put at risk) when a dog is not friendly.

You will do every dog you train a huge service to teach them that paying attention to you is the key to their success. My dogs don’t meet other dogs, they NEVER go to dog parks, the only dogs they get to play with is my other dogs and dogs I know are safe.

Neutral dogs RULE!

Isn’t that cruel? Dogs are social and pack animals! I will tell you that Louis and I brought playgroups and playgroup training to one of the most difficult municipal shelters in the US. We held groups of up to 20+ dogs consisting of a majority of pit-bull type dogs, dogs no one else was able to bring together. How did we do that? Through structure. That structure is almost un-attainable by normal people, but we did it. You’ll see that in Section 11. After years of doing that, we both came to the conclusion that dogs that were trained through structured engagement training were better off, more adoptable and better members of society.

This section you are about to embark upon, may be one of the most important because it gives you VERY practical knowledge. The information contained is not easy, in fact it’s DAMN HARD! You’ll see students fail before they succeed. It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it.

Buckle up… it’s about to get real hard.. and real rewarding! ~Robert