How to train your human

A lesson for dogs?

If dogs could read, and were the only ones to read this post, my work here would be redundant. Dogs, you see, are born with an instinctive ability to train humans.

They know we can't say no

“But isn’t it the other way around?” I hear you ask, “Don’t the humans train the dogs?” The short answer is no. And yes. Sometimes. While many of us share our lives with dogs, and put varying amounts of time and energy into shaping their behaviour (with varying levels of success), our training efforts are far from instinctive.

Humans have been cursed with excessively large brains and a need to understand and rationalise everything. This can actually be a hindrance when trying to motivate nature’s perfect hedonist.

Dogs on the other hand, just seem to know how to get what they want. If a dog wants a pat, he knows he just has to go and drop his head in a human’s lap. If he wants his belly scratched he just has to roll over and stick his feet in the air. If he wants to be chased around the park, he knows to run away from his human.

Even when we are training our dogs, they still have the last laugh, “I’m only sitting because I want the treat/pat/toy you’re going to give me when I do.”

So now that we know how our dogs have trained us, how can we use this to our advantage? As in the sitting example above, the dog learns to do what the human wants in order to get what he wants. Now that we know this, we can see what the dog wants by how it behaves. Once we know what the dog wants, we can use this to reward the dog for doing what we want.

If your dog puts his head in your lap and stares lovingly into your eyes, he obviously wants a pat. Before you give him what he wants, make him do something for you (it doesn’t have to be hard). Once he does it he gets his pat. Everybody wins.

If you practise this, you’ll get used to making your dog work for his reward and he’ll be more inclined to follow your instructions.

Obviously there’s going to be some days when you just need a big furry cuddle and that’s one of the great joys of dog ownership. But by making him work for your affection whenever possible you’ll both enjoy a more mutually rewarding relationship.

Fortunately dogs can’t read so I’m writing this comfortable in the knowledge that my furry friends will never find out that I’m the one who blabbed.