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I didn't want to say that, but, you're 100% correct. Dog trainers do MOST of their work training the trainer.

jasonboyd 3y ago
As somebody who has put a dog through training, that tracks with my experience. As I recall, the first lesson did not involve our dogs at all. It was just a long list of all the ways we had failed our dogs. Everything after that was addressing those issues.
saghm 3y ago
I could tell that you knew this as well! I mostly just wanted to explicitly state it because of how strongly I feel about it, and I honestly held back how strongly I wanted to state it as well. My much more raw take is that barring abuse or specific training to be aggressive, most dogs are actually predisposed to try to please people because they've literally been bred for hundreds of generations to be friendly and value human companionship. If a dog is acting out, it's much more likely to be fixable by changing human behavior because it's easier to communicate with them. If a dog acts out, it's not because of some deep, inscrutable reason; they act out because some need of theirs isn't being met, and their needs are straightforward enough that a good trainer will be able to see their environment and tell the humans involved what they need to do to rectify it.
- AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
  :) Some breeds have different drives. Virtually none of them have innate drives to attack or harm humans, but for some, they can definitely enter what I will call almost akin to a fugue state where they revert to much more primal instincts. For example the greyhounds are like this if you wake them from sleep. My first greyhound slept on my bed precisely once -- when I kicked her in my sleep in the middle of the night I got woken up by a dog clamped on my leg, fortunately through a comforter so there was no real damage. Within seconds she was incredibly apologetic. But, it's a known thing with that breed. Dogs absolutely want to please their owners. Most of the training I've done as a dog owner is around communication to let my dog know A) what I want and B) that they did it right. For the vast majority of dog owners, if they are just careful with selection, it's not a huge amount of work to train yourself and your dog.
  - saghm 3y ago
    Yeah, I think the larger point is like you said, the main exception to just doing what they can to please humans is "primal" instincts, which aren't something that can be changed with some basic training. It's _far_ easier for people to just be taught how not to trigger those, which very often tends to be following some simple rules. One of my cats gets very feisty when she's playful, and she often will bite my hand somewhat hard once she gets into the "chase" mode (which sometimes can happen from her just noticing my hands move a lot when I type or something). She's extraordinarily sweet otherwise though, to the point where I can literally pick her up and hand her to people the first time she meets them, and she happily purrs and will continue to seek out their attention after they put her down, and I've continued learning in the few years since I adopted her how to avoid triggering her instincts like that (and to make sure to give her ample play time where she can direct her aggression towards toys instead of my hands). I think a lot of people would just see a cat who bites sometimes and assume she's unfriendly or mean, but she's so sweet the vast majority of the time that I know her temporary "reversion" to her primal instincts doesn't indicate any actual malice.

As somebody who has put a dog through training, that tracks with my experience. As I recall, the first lesson did not involve our dogs at all. It was just a long list of all the ways we had failed our dogs. Everything after that was addressing those issues.

saghm 3y ago

I could tell that you knew this as well! I mostly just wanted to explicitly state it because of how strongly I feel about it, and I honestly held back how strongly I wanted to state it as well. My much more raw take is that barring abuse or specific training to be aggressive, most dogs are actually predisposed to try to please people because they've literally been bred for hundreds of generations to be friendly and value human companionship. If a dog is acting out, it's much more likely to be fixable by changing human behavior because it's easier to communicate with them. If a dog acts out, it's not because of some deep, inscrutable reason; they act out because some need of theirs isn't being met, and their needs are straightforward enough that a good trainer will be able to see their environment and tell the humans involved what they need to do to rectify it.

AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
:) Some breeds have different drives. Virtually none of them have innate drives to attack or harm humans, but for some, they can definitely enter what I will call almost akin to a fugue state where they revert to much more primal instincts. For example the greyhounds are like this if you wake them from sleep. My first greyhound slept on my bed precisely once -- when I kicked her in my sleep in the middle of the night I got woken up by a dog clamped on my leg, fortunately through a comforter so there was no real damage. Within seconds she was incredibly apologetic. But, it's a known thing with that breed. Dogs absolutely want to please their owners. Most of the training I've done as a dog owner is around communication to let my dog know A) what I want and B) that they did it right. For the vast majority of dog owners, if they are just careful with selection, it's not a huge amount of work to train yourself and your dog.
- saghm 3y ago
  Yeah, I think the larger point is like you said, the main exception to just doing what they can to please humans is "primal" instincts, which aren't something that can be changed with some basic training. It's _far_ easier for people to just be taught how not to trigger those, which very often tends to be following some simple rules. One of my cats gets very feisty when she's playful, and she often will bite my hand somewhat hard once she gets into the "chase" mode (which sometimes can happen from her just noticing my hands move a lot when I type or something). She's extraordinarily sweet otherwise though, to the point where I can literally pick her up and hand her to people the first time she meets them, and she happily purrs and will continue to seek out their attention after they put her down, and I've continued learning in the few years since I adopted her how to avoid triggering her instincts like that (and to make sure to give her ample play time where she can direct her aggression towards toys instead of my hands). I think a lot of people would just see a cat who bites sometimes and assume she's unfriendly or mean, but she's so sweet the vast majority of the time that I know her temporary "reversion" to her primal instincts doesn't indicate any actual malice.