Ty The Dog Guy On The Daily

Someone asked me an interesting question recently, and I wanted to share it with you. The question was this: “You have over 20 years of experience working with dogs, so you’ve seen a lot of things. Given that, if your experience and knowledge was erased, but if you were able to keep mastery of one dog training concept, what would it be?” I thought this was an intriguing question when it came up, but it actually didn’t take me very long at all to determine exactly what that one concept would be. For me, it’s the ability to create focus. Focus oftentimes is looking at the owner. Now, I’m not talking about the kind of focus that is created when your dog looks at a treat you’re holding. Rather, I’m talking about a level of focus where the dog is engaged with you, trusts you, and defers to you. That focus, the more I think about it, is at the root of solving 99% of the problems we deal with. Aggression, anxiety, bad manners, lack of obedience, destruction—so much of this either goes away entirely on its own or g