Hi {{first_name}} ,

People choose dogs the way they choose partners.

By how they look. By how a dog appeared in a movie or a YouTube video or someone else's Instagram post. 

That handsome Malinois doing incredible things on screen. That beautiful Husky with the ice-blue eyes. That powerful Corso standing in someone's front yard looking like exactly what you thought you wanted.

That is how shelters fill up.

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The dog that ends up in a kennel at 18 months old is almost never a bad dog. Most often it’s a dog that did exactly what he was bred to do, in a home that had no idea what they signed up for.

The herding dog chasing your kids around the yard is not aggressive. He’s herding. Border Collies, German Shepherds, Australian Shepherds, they were bred for one purpose: to move livestock through movement, eye contact, and relentless drive.

That drive does not leave the dog. A trainer cannot remove it. It has to go somewhere. If you do not give it somewhere useful to go, the dog finds its own outlet. And the outlet is usually your children, your cats, your bicycle, your ankles, or anything else that may catch the dog’s eye.

The Labrador tearing through your house is not defective. It was bred to run a long distance in a field to find a bird and bring it back. A 30-minute walk is not that. A yard is not that. The drive is still in there looking for an outlet.

The Malinois that is making your life unmanageable is not broken. It was bred for work that almost no civilian home can provide. I have watched people buy Malinois after seeing what these dogs can do in protection and military work.

What they did not understand is that the dog in those videos was handled, trained, and bred by people who knew exactly what they were doing. You are not a Navy SEAL.

The dog you bought is not the dog in that video. And within 18 months, a lot of those dogs end up in a shelter.

Before you choose a breed, you need to understand the group it belongs to and what that group was designed to do.

Herding dogs need a job. Not a walk…a job. Border Collies, Shepherds, Collies, Sheepdogs, if you cannot give them structured daily work, do not get one.

Sporting dogs, Labradors, Golden Retrievers, Setters, Pointers, need real activity. They were bred to run long distances in fields alongside hunters. They need more than a backyard.

Terriers were bred to hunt and kill vermin. They have low tolerance for other animals because that is what the genetics require. That does not go away because you live in a suburb.

Non-sporting dogs: Bulldogs, Shar Pei, Bichons, Poodles, were bred without a specific working function. They are generally a better fit for a quieter lifestyle. They still need structure. Every dog needs structure. But they are not going to tear your house apart because their prey drive has nowhere to go.

The dog is not the problem. The match is the problem.

Here is what I tell everyone who calls me after a situation has gone sideways with a dog they got for the wrong reason.

From the day you get him until the day he takes his last breath. This dog is your responsibility.

Not until it gets inconvenient. Not until you move to a place that does not allow dogs. Not until the puppy phase ends and the dog becomes a two-year-old with full drive and no structure because you thought everything it did was cute.

Better the dog does not have a home in the beginning than to be in the wrong home and shuffle through for his entire life. That is a hard thing to say.

But I have seen what happens to dogs who cycle through wrong home after wrong home before they are two years old. The damage compounds every time - and it usually lasts a lifetime.

Choose the dog for the life you actually have. Not the life you imagine. The life you actually live, with the time you actually have, and the ability you actually possess to give that animal what he or she needs for every year of its life.

That is the question to answer before the dog comes home. Not after.

1. Watch the work, not the highlight reel

The Dog Training Videos on my YouTube channel shows full sessions, not edits. Dogs that don't cooperate. Sessions that don't go smoothly. Real training, start to finish. That's the playlist that will actually teach you something. 

[DOG-TRAINING VIDEOS]

2.  Ask me directly

Every week inside my online membership I run a member Q&A. Members post questions, I answer them on camera. If you want to see how training really works, the stumbling blocks, the adjustments, the resolution, that's where it lives. [MEMBERSHIP]

3. The Corrections in Dog Training Masterclass: If you don’t already have it, I recently launched this course for the person who has been working with dogs long enough to know corrections matter, but hasn’t had anyone sit down and walk through exactly how they work. - [LEARN MORE]