What is your dog story?

Victoria Devine of the She's on the Money podcast speaks a lot about money stories and how our life experiences have shaped our beliefs around money. I recently had a reel blow up and was inundated with comments from all different schools of thoughts - some had me feeling like 🤦🏻‍♀️! But that got me thinking about how our perspectives are shaped by our experiences (and yes - how they interact with our genetics/who we are as an individual 😉), and how when we can understand where these beliefs have come from (ours and others) it makes it a lot easier to build bridges and actually have productive conversations.

Because I don’t care how many science papers there are on any certain thing, I’ve yet to meet a person who said “well this paper said xyz which conflicted with everything I’ve ever experienced in the real world and I changed my entire approach to dogs overnight” or “this one person harassed the shit out of me online because I do abc thing, so I suddenly decided they were right and I should do things entirely differently”. Our beliefs exist for a reason.

So here’s a few aspects of my dog story that might help you understand where my views on dogs have come from, and help you think about how your life experiences have formed your views on dogs, dog ownership & training.

🐮 I was born into a family of farmers & spent the first 25 years of my life working stock dogs on bulls. This gave me insight into how important genetics are when choosing dogs for certain jobs, how resilient dogs can be, and how food and toys are not the only way to reinforce a dog. Taking that experience and applying it to the pet dog world was a learning curve.

🐶 I was involved with rescue for many years. This gave me insights into how much some dogs lives can be transformed with training, and how others might not be saveable no matter what training you do with them. It gave me some pretty strong feelings on the way money is used in charities begging for donations, and also insight into the vast spectrum of dog ownership and what “good” can look like. And it gave me some truths to face such as the toxicity of the “adopt don’t shop” mindset and the harm that can do to dogs and society overall.

🦃 I had a special Huntaway X farm dog who liked to maul turkeys, and none of my other approaches were working. So with an ecollar I was able to avoidance train her around turkeys, saving her career as a working dog and letting her continue living her happy life doing what she loved best - working stock. You bet that made me pretty passionate about the value of ecollars, and ready to fight anyone who would see them banned and dogs like Brooke dead instead.

📚 I met some really excellent trainers, and they put me onto the likes of “Dog Training Conversations” and “The Canine Paradigm” podcasts. I was welcomed to a lot of in person training opportunities with trainers from across the entirety of the dog training spectrum, and not made to feel welcome at some others. I learned online from trainers who critiqued the science with an open mind, as well as trainers who had some pretty strong opinions for and against certain styles of training. That wide spectrum of exposure to different thought processes impacts the types of trainers I chose to learn from, and therefore how I train today.

❤️ On a more personal note, when I was 16 my mum was killed in an accident and overnight I took on responsibility for our many dogs, among other things. I sacrificed a lot for them and leaned on them a lot to get through hard times. I had to work hard to find a healthier balance in many aspects of life with them and in my work.

That’s just a handful of experiences that have shaped my views and approach as a dog owner, trainer and human.

📺 Maybe for you your first exposure to training as watching Cesar Milan or Victoria Stilwell on TV and that’s what your view on good training became.

🧑‍🌾 Maybe you had a terrible farmer locally whose dogs were chained, skinny and in terrible conditions and now you don’t think any dogs should be working dogs.

🐕 Maybe you went to an obedience class when you first got your dog and learned things a certain way, which is now the “right” way in your mind.

😟 Maybe you had your childhood dog attacked by a certain breed and that leaves you feeling some big feelings about them as a whole.

😡 Or maybe punishment for you as a kid meant being hit or yelled at, and now you can’t even think of punishing your dog for anything.

📱 Maybe your current dog is your first dog ever, and your only exposure to dogs has been through a certain influencer who does things a certain way and now that’s what you think dog ownership should always look like.

This post isn’t to debate the rights and wrongs of any of the above (provided dogs and people are not being objectively harmed by what’s happening). But it is to encourage you to have a think about some of the beliefs you hold around dog ownership, training and maybe other areas of your life and start questioning where that came from, and whether there may be value or lessons you can take from other peoples experiences and insights too.

Dogs have been living with humans for some 40,000 years (depending on who you follow), dog ownership has looked like a lot of different things over that time and no singular way has been the “right” or “perfect” way. It’s all a matter of perspective and your individual dog story. The more we recognise that, the more we can get on with continuing to learn and do better for the dogs in our lives.

Would love to hear from you in the comments - what is one experience in your life that has given you a certain belief around dogs? No right or wrong answers.