Having All The Answers

My last blog post got a lot of attention and comments, which is good.  That means it accomplished its purpose, which was to get your attention and get you started thinking.  Some comments focused on crate training, and while this concept certainly carries over to teaching a puppy to be comfortable in a crate, it is not exclusive to it.  My post was focused on teaching a puppy to accept separation, in whatever form that might be – behind a gate, in a puppy pen or room, in a crate, or just home roaming the house alone. 

My book Through A Dark Silence goes into how I start crate training for blind and deaf puppies (and other puppies as well). 

Some comments focused on why I didn’t give all the answers in my post.  While I have other posts planned to help offer suggestions, I wanted to first address the general idea and way of thinking.  The purpose of my post was not to give all the answers of how to do something.  Each individual situation and puppy is different.  Techniques and ideas are meant to be adjusted to meet each individual’s needs.  So, no matter what ideas and techniques I write about in my blog, they are not the only way or the only answer for each and every dog.  But those ideas can be adjusted to meet any dog’s needs.

Dog training is not about having all the answers.  Many of us have been teaching dogs (and other animals) for a long time.  We can never have all the answers.  There are always new possibilities to discover, ponder and try.  A wise person once told me – there are many answers to the same question.  But the problem is that we usually stop looking for the other answers when we find one that works.  That limits our learning and traps us in our box.  If we think that our answers are the only ones that are right and can work for a certain situation, we aren’t seeing the whole picture of many possibilities. 

 

If we remain open to learning and exploring new ideas, we can create a much better life for our dogs.  As we learn better ways, we can do better.  Just because an idea is not discovered yet, doesn’t mean it’s not an amazing one!