Anyone remember the best-selling memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie?  It recounts sports columnist, Mitch Albom’s, weekly visits with his 78-year-old sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying from ALS, and the life lessons gleaned from their candid conversations.

Today, Bark & Swagger is kicking off its own Tuesday series, containing great lessons on how to be the best dog parents we can. We’re tackling the Top 10 most common dog training problems as identified by TV celebrity trainer and dog guru, Justin Silver and his partner, Dave Donnenfeld, from the more than 500 dogs they’ve trained.

Each week, Justin will tackle one training issue, explain his philosophy behind why it happens, and then give us the fix to do our dog training at home. They will surely give us food for thought about our own participation in the problems we have, and solid tips to move beyond.  Sounds good, right?

And, each week we’re giving away a copy of Justin’s new book, The Language of Dogs, a great read chock full of easy to follow techniques, training tools, tips, and more. We won’t get to cover everything in the book here, so winning a copy will give you all of the information you need to train your dog. See how to enter at the end of this post.

A training series like this is at its best when it’s interactive. So, feel free to comment, tell Justin and Dave what issues you’re experiencing, what you think of their advice, and we’ll see how many we can address.

So, let’s roll up our sleeves, find a comfortable seat and get ready to learn how to have a well-balanced, well-behaved dog.

Tuesdays With Justin – Week 1 – Self Awareness or Why does my dog pull on the leash?

Guest post by Justin Silver & Dave Donnenfeld

Justin Silver & Dave Donnenfeld

Training, problem solving and philosophy. These intimately connected elements comprise the foundation for all dog training. And for the next ten weeks, I’ll see if we can blend these magical herbs and spices into a readable elixir of doggity goodness.

To begin, I’d like to tackle the question that gets posed more than any other- why does my dog pull so much on leash?

The first thing I look at when dealing with a difficult dog is how an owner responds to an undesired behavior. Stressed owners beget stressed dogs and what I often see are dogs reacting to owners, not the other way around.

While many people understand the basics tenets of training, I often implore dog owners to slow down and practice a little self-awareness. With practice, they can often see the fix staring them in the face.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

 So, “why is my dog pulling me on the leash?” Now it’s my turn to ask a question: How do dog owners typically react to a pulling dog? They pull back. Now both parties are doing the exact same thing, effectively turning a Sunday stroll into a tug of war.

When dogs pull and people follow, nobody wins. Once this frustrating dynamic locks in place, the next move conscientious people make is to buy collars or harnesses that make pulling less painful for the dog. Thoughtful though it may be, these concessions don’t help.

In Your Face

Aren’t we the ones who initially started pulling our dogs on leash? It would take a black belt in Buddhism to have never pulled on a dog’s leash. Having set this precedent for pulling from walk one, is it our dog’s fault for responding in kind?

The Fix Is In – What To Do

When a dog pulls on leash- stop walking! The dog will eventually look at you as if to say, “Your world buddy. What’s next?” Simply halt when a dog pulls and resume only after your dog looks to you for instruction.

Expect to lather, rinse and repeat quite a bit. It may take a lot of reps to undo an owner’s history of pulling.

Sum Final Advice

It’s not often one gets a chance to quote the Bible in dog training, so here goes: “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?” How many dogs get to jump on people as puppies, only to get scolded for it later in life? How many pulling dogs get pulled around themselves? Barking dogs get barked at in the form of yelling and the list goes on. We’ve certainly been guilty of all of these things, at one point or another. 

Try a little self-awareness and see how your behavior, energy and actions impact upon your dog. When your dog pulls, stop walking, take a breath and wait it out. Next week, we’ll go from shouting what we don’t want, to getting what we do.

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The Giveaway!

To enter the giveaway to win a copy of Justin’s new book, The Language of Dogs, you have to be a member of the SwagTeam or join the SwagTeam. That’s it!

What’s your biggest training problem?