THE PET TEACHER
In-YOUR-Home Dog Training
248-232-3655
I don't have the time to practice!  

I hear it all the time from people, along with a laundry list of everything their dog is doing
wrong,  They call, sometimes at 11pm even 3am, leaving messages at my office about how
they have a dog emergency ... how they've had it with their dog ... how they've tried
everything and still the dog misbehaves.  I do what I can to re-arrange my schedule in
order to accommodate their needs as quickly as possible in order to help them get in
balance with their dogs.  We meet for sessions and when I return after 1, 2, even 3
weeks they tell me that they haven't had time to practice.  When I give them suggestions
on how to incorporate the training into their schedules they rebut with how it won't work,
how busy they are, how they don't sit down from 5am until midnight, and how they've
never had to do any of this with their previous dog - and so now they are resentful toward
this dog.  Y'know what - that's all wasted energy that won't take them any closer to
success with THIS dog.

If you truly want to change your relationship with your dog it will take practice and
consistency and commitment.    Yes, there are tools and techniques that will help you
toward your goals, but they must be used along with practice, consistency and
commitment.  You're teaching behavior modification to a totally different species!  Your
dog is a dog, not a little human in a fur suit.   Your dog is a scavenger, not a hunter.  Your
dog will play the odds, is an opportunist, and will repeat what works in his mind -- so be
sure that you set up your environment to ensure that all opportunities result in the
success you want.  In other words - put away your shoes, clean off the kitchen counters,
give your dog required exercise every day, teach your dog new life skills.   Only YOU can
control the environment as well as when you practice.  Only YOU can control how
consistent you are, and if you are truly committed to doing what's necessary to ensure
success.  Blaming the dog for lack of progress is wrong.  It is up to you!

It's interesting that we will make time to go to the gym, play the piano, meet our friends
at a restaurant, go for a bike ride, enroll the kids in a hobby, decorate the house for a
holiday, plant flowers, wash the car, read a book, go online, visit the neighbor.  But we
can't make time to practice with our dog, yet we can still take time to grumble and be
frustrated with behaviors we don't want that keep repeating.

You will meet success when you MAKE TIME TO PRACTICE.  Even board & train sessions
require that you make time to practice what the instructor has invested the time to
accomplish on your behalf.  Dog training instructors can't practice for you, and we hope
that you want success enough to invest at least as much time with your dog as we do to
teach you.

Dogs have been equipped by nature with a different set of skills to handle a different set
of tasks in a world that doesn't require living in a house with counters full of food, floors
full of kids toys, expensive furniture, carpets that are not meant for urine, tidy gardens
full of wood chips, and neighboring yards with similar challenges.  Dogs do what is natural
to their species, their inherent skill ability and their inquisitive scavenging.  Don't blame
your dog, make time for your dog!

MAKE TIME TO PRACTICE - your dog will be grateful and you will make yourself happy.  
TAKE TIME OR MAKE TIME?