Quote

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

• Carl Jung

I got a call recently from a man who’s small dog bites his wife. Repeatedly. He struggled to understand the point in signing up for the membership package. “He’s fine with everything else, it’s just this one issue. Can we just do one private lesson to fix the issue?”

After spending a considerable amount of time explaining the importance of digging deeper into other aspects of their lives together, he relented, though I think it was more so from the pressure from his wife to fix the issue than my persuasion skills.

Once we got on a call, the questions I asked, poked holes in his theory that this was somehow an isolated issue. (Guys, it’s never an isolated issue.)

• He has no boundaries - physical or communication-wise

• The husband thinks he is perfectly fine and gives him as much food as he wants when he’s home

• He has never been kennel or potty-trained

• He listens to the wife, but only when the husband isn’t home

• He gets in fights with the other dog in the house

• etc etc etc

At the end of the call, I could tell that the wheels were at least starting to spin and he was eager to have the behavioral analysis to hear more of what could be playing into this little guy’s aggressive behavior.

So, so often owners fail to see all the other areas in which a dog is struggling because they focus on the one, most inconvenient problem behavior to them. However, dogs are sentient beings with personalities, histories, perceptions, realities, and relationships; they do not exist in a vaccuum. Their behavior is rarely precarious or unwarranted.

But once you see it, you know better, and you do better.