Hi {{first_name}} ,

Somebody asked me recently why so many people never finish a single training class with their dog.

It is a fair question. And I have thought about it a lot over the years because I come from a world where finishing things is required.

The short answer is this: people do not have follow-through, or they do not think they need it. Those are the two reasons. Everything else is a variation of one of those two.

In This Issue

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I spent over ten years teaching martial arts in Los Angeles. I had a school here for a long time. The discipline I built through that, the ability to focus, to stay with something difficult, to watch and wait for the right moment, shaped how I approach dog training at every level.

The people I see who have the easiest time training dogs are martial artists. Athletes. Military people. Business people. People who have trained themselves to do something hard and consistent over time.

Because if you have built that kind of discipline, you can transfer it onto another being. The skill is the same. The dog is a new application of it.

The people who struggle most? They have usually never held themselves to a standard in any other area either. The dog reveals it faster than most things do.

Watch someone who actually knows how to train a dog. They are watching the dog the way a fighter watches an opponent.

They are looking for an opening. An opportunity to praise. To condition a behavior. To correct a negative one before it completes. They are not tuning out. They are present for every single thing the dog does.

That is exactly what you see in martial arts. A fighter waiting for the smallest opening, one small window where they can get the strike, the choke or the submission. The timing is everything. The vigilance is everything.

Dog training is that same skill. You are reading what the dog is doing before he finishes doing it. That takes practice. Most people never develop it because they are never fully present during the session.

Your dog must complete a command on the first try.

Most people hear that and nod and then go home and say the command four times before the dog moves. What the dog learned is that the real command is the fourth one. The first three were optional. That is what the owner trained, whether they meant to or not.

Here is why it matters beyond the inconvenience of a dog that tunes you out.

At some point, a door will open that should not have opened. A gate will be left unlatched. A car will be coming. And you will say one word. The dog either stops or he does not.

Most owners only understand the weight of that first-try obedience after the moment has already passed.

Think of your dog the way you think about a car. You need to change the oil. You need to tune it up. You need to put the right things in and maintain it over time. Skip that consistently and it breaks down. Then people say the car was bad. The car just was never taken care of.

Give your dog the training he needs. Give yourself the discipline to see it through. Those two things together will change what you have.

1. Free Training Content on My Website

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Until next Tuesday,

- Robert