It will take a minute for me to get to the dog lessons… stay with it…
Here’s a cute picture to whet your appetite…
Leadership and Dog Training
Forbes Magazine recently named baseball executive Theo Epstein the World’s Greatest Leader. Epstein most famously built the long-suffering Boston Red Sox and then Chicago Cubs into World Series Champions.
Put aside the argument over whether a sports executive deserves this level of acclaim (he narrowly beat out Jack Ma, one of China’s most successful business titans; Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church; Melinda Gates, co-chair of the philanthropical Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and Jeff Bezos, the Amazon kingpin).
Theo probably didn’t deserve such a rank, but the point is that he’s a very effective leader.
Managing the ultra-intense, constantly scrutinized and openly ego-ridden environment of pro sports has chewed up countless high achievers who thrived in other industries. Every struggling sports franchise has a billionaire owner behind it who used to be successful and is now largely reviled.
Sports may be viewed as non-essential, but they are undeniably brutally competitive.
Theo Epstein is a Yale grad with USD law degree, a guy who rose up the ranks quickly (earning huge responsibility at age 28), and someone who has lived up to his impressive early promise. He excels in one of the most alpha-obsessed environments out there…
Hold on, we’re about to get to DOG TRAINING.
And yet… amidst this praise…
He had to admit that, despite being one of the world’s most acclaimed leaders, he couldn’t train his own dog. In fact, according to Epstein, “Um, I can’t even get my dog to stop peeing in the house.”
Nice humility and humor. You can see glimpses of why he’s a good leader.
But there are other lessons to be learned from this. This is a man who thrives in high-stress situations and can command any room he enters.
And yet his dog doesn’t listen to him.
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Training Your Dog
There’s an appealing and pervasive myth going around that all we need for the problem-free dog is Alpha leadership.
The REAL truth is, dogs communicate differently than people, and dog training is a specialized skill that we are not born knowing. Some of the most successful people in the world can’t get their dog to behave because it’s a craft they’ve never developed.
There’s nothing wrong with that. We all have to prioritize. I wasn’t born understanding dogs and I’ve made every mistake out there. This is not an attempt to hack down people’s heroes.
But I do want to emphasize that it’s important not to take your dog’s “bad” behavior personally. A misbehaving dog is not an enemy. Disappointing behavior is not necessarily an affront to your leadership, or your competence.
Leading Your Dog to Better Behavior
This is not to say that our actions, our approach and our leadership do not affect our dogs. They absolutely do. Dogs are constantly learning. Often the WRONG LESSONS. To get changed outcomes, we have to change our approach. You will have to learn what works with dogs and what does not. We need new actions, not a new personality.
We become better leaders by better understanding dogs (which is not the same thing as being more permissive OR being more forceful).
The changes are not always obvious. This is why we haven’t yet made them. Often we’ve been given misleading advice. The world, including the dog training world, is rife with cliches that get us nowhere.
But as we move beyond them, we become amazed at how our dogs can learn. At how well we can lead.
When we succeed in this journey, we will not get awards from Forbes Magazine, but the gratitude we get from our dogs might be just as good.
Need help with your dog in the Fresno or Clovis area? Drop us a line to see if our programs can help. Then when a magazine writes a profile of you, they can comment on your wonderfully behaved dog…
Nate Hess is a dog behavior specialist and the owner of Dogspring Training, which provides comprehensive dog training and behavior resolution services in Fresno and Clovis, California. He is a graduate of Stanford University, a member of the International Association of Animal Behavioral Consultants (IAABC), and an evaluator for the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen (CGC) and S.T.A.R. Puppy programs. He also consults with dog rescues across the country.