Ty The Dog Guy On The Daily

In today’s post, I’d like to tackle a topic that comes up a lot among my clients: developing realistic expectations for our dogs. On one end of the spectrum of expectations is the dog owner that doesn't realize the great accomplishments and successes they’ve had. For instance, say someone is dealing with an aggressive dog. When they come back to us after a few sessions, they’re down in the dumps. But as we dig deeper, we find out that before they couldn't even go on a walk because the dog was lunging. The dog used to be a nightmare, but a few months into the training he’s doing way better. Unfortunately, the owner’s complaint then becomes: “We’re doing fine on walks, except when another dog charges at us! Then we’ve got a problem.” That’s totally valid, and we have to fix it. But it’s not uncommon to see someone make huge strides and solve 80% of their dogs’ problems, yet still focus on the problems. From a mindset perspective, that’s an issue. It’s hard to get the ideal dog if you’re constantly nitpicki