Before You Trust. Question.

5 days ago

12 min read

I've spent quite a lot of time recently questioning some of the biggest names in dog training.

I've picked apart television programmes.

I've questioned social media trainers.

I've talked about equipment, methodology, science, marketing, editing, decontextualisation, quick fixes and the rather uncomfortable habit we've developed of treating dog trainers like football teams.

I've told people not to believe somebody simply because they're famous.

I've told people to look at the evidence.

I've told people to watch the dog.

I've told people to ask why.

So, in the interests of fairness, I suppose I should probably turn the same microscope on myself.

Because if I'm going to tell you to question other dog trainers, you should absolutely be allowed to question me.

Actually, I'd encourage it.

And if I'm going to do this properly, I don't want this to become one of those wonderfully humble articles where I spend 2,000 words telling you how imperfect I am before explaining how marvellous I actually am.

So let's be genuinely honest.

Who the hell is Ruff Start?

I'm the person behind Ruff Start Dog Training.

I'm based in South Wales and I work predominantly with dogs and their humans in their own homes and environments.

I don't have a huge training facility.

I don't have a team of trainers.

I don't have a television production company following me around.

I don't have thousands of followers hanging on my every word.

And I'm certainly not claiming to have discovered the One True Way of Dog Training™.

I'm a dog trainer.

That's it.

And even that needs a bit of qualification.

I'm not a veterinary surgeon.

I'm not a clinical animal behaviourist.

I'm not going to pretend that my experience somehow makes me an expert in every area of canine behaviour.

What I am is somebody who drinks too much coffee, has spent a considerable amount of time learning, working with dogs, continuing to educate myself, researching questions I don't know the answers to and trying to become better at what I do.

And I'm still learning.

My first question is usually “why?”

This is probably the biggest thing I want people to understand about Ruff Start.

When somebody tells me:

“My dog does this.”

My first thought usually isn't:

“How do we stop it?”

It's:

“Why?”

Why is the dog doing it?

What's happening immediately before?

What's happening afterwards?

What does the environment look like?

What's the dog's history?

What has the dog learned?

What is the dog experiencing?

Could there be fear?

Frustration?

Arousal?

Pain?

Confusion?

Genetics?

Learning history?

Something in the environment?

Something we're doing without realising it?

Something we're not doing?

And if I can't immediately answer that?

I start digging.

It's probably why I do an unreasonable amount of my writing at three or four in the morning when everybody else is asleep and I finally have time to myself.

But here's the uncomfortable bit.

Asking “why” doesn't mean I will always get the why right.

I can make an educated assessment and still be wrong.

I can miss something.

I can become attached to an explanation because it makes sense to me.

And that's something I need to remain conscious of.

I'm not a mind reader.

Dog trainers sometimes talk about behaviour with an alarming amount of certainty.

“This dog is doing X because…”

Sometimes we genuinely have strong evidence for that explanation.

Sometimes we're making an educated hypothesis.

Those aren't the same thing.

I can look at a dog and make an assessment of their body language.

I can use their history and the context to build a picture.

But I cannot climb inside that dog's head.

I don't know exactly what they're thinking.

And neither does anybody else.

That doesn't mean we know nothing.

It means we need to be honest about the difference between:

“This is what I think is happening.”

and

“This is definitely what is happening.”

I don't always get that distinction perfect either.

I don't know everything

Obviously.

I don't know everything about dogs.

I don't know everything about behaviour.

I don't know everything about training.

I don't know everything about every individual dog.

And I don't think pretending otherwise would be particularly responsible.

If I encounter something outside my experience, I'd rather say:

“I don't know yet.”

Then go and find out.

That might mean reading research.

It might mean taking a course.

It might mean speaking to another trainer.

It might mean asking a more experienced professional for their opinion.

It might mean referring to a behaviourist.

It might mean suggesting a veterinary check.

And sometimes it might mean admitting:

“I'm not the right person for this case.”

That's something I try not to see as a failure.

I try to see it as knowing my limitations. I hope to believe myself one day.

Yes, I ask other professionals for help

I have a qualified behaviourist I can seek advice from when I need another perspective.

I don't see that as embarrassing.

Quite the opposite.

If somebody knows more than me about something, why on earth wouldn't I ask them?

Dog behaviour is complicated.

Sometimes another pair of eyes catches something you've missed.

Sometimes somebody with a different specialism sees the problem differently.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for a client is refer them to somebody better suited to their case.

That's good professional practice.

But it also means I have to be honest about it.

If somebody has materially contributed to my thinking, I'm not going to pretend I developed the answer in a mysterious flash of dog-training genius.

“I wasn't sure, so I asked someone who knows more about this.”

is a perfectly respectable sentence.

But I have biases

Here's something I've become increasingly aware of while researching other trainers.

I have opinions.

Some of them are quite strong.

And pretending I'm completely objective would be bollocks.

I've had experiences with dogs that have shaped how I think.

I've worked with rescue dogs.

More recently I fostered a dog that completely shattered many of my views.

I've seen dogs who have been frightened, overwhelmed, mishandled or simply misunderstood.

I've seen things that have made me angry.

I've seen things that have made me question my own approach.

Those experiences inevitably influence what I notice.

If I already dislike a particular method, am I more likely to notice the part that confirms why I dislike it?

Absolutely.

That's called being human.

It doesn't magically disappear because I've read a research paper.

So when I'm criticising another trainer, I need to ask myself:

Would I judge this the same way if somebody else did it?

And:

What evidence would actually change my mind?

If the answer to the second question is “nothing”, I'm no longer critically evaluating something.

I'm defending a position.

And I don't want Ruff Start to become an identity I have to defend at all costs.

I'm emotionally invested in rescue dogs

This one is probably worth admitting too.

I care deeply about rescue dogs.

Some of the dogs I've worked with have stayed with me long after the session finished.

I've seen dogs arrive frightened, under-socialised, shut down, reactive or carrying histories nobody could fully explain.

That has influenced me.

It has probably made me more cautious in some situations.

It may also mean that I'm sometimes more sympathetic towards a behaviour than somebody else might be.

That's not automatically a bad thing.

But it is a bias.

And recognising that is important.

Because “I care about dogs” doesn't make me automatically right about dogs.

I have my own philosophy

I'm not a blank slate.

I have preferences.

I have things I believe are generally helpful.

I have things I don't agree with.

I don't use e-collars.

I don't use prong collars.

I wouldn't use them even if it were legal where I work.

I have reasons for those decisions.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend somebody who uses a different tool automatically knows nothing about dogs.

And it certainly doesn't mean I am immune from making mistakes with the equipment I do use.

A harness can be used badly.

A lead can be used badly.

Food can be used badly.

Your voice can be used badly.

Even something as apparently harmless as withholding reinforcement can become part of a poor interaction if you don't understand what you're doing.

So I don't want Ruff Start to become:

“My equipment is good because I use it.”

The question is always:

What are we doing, why are we doing it, and what is it doing to this dog?

I can get things wrong

This is probably the least glamorous part.

I've made mistakes.

I've misunderstood dogs.

I've tried things that didn't work.

I've probably occasionally been too confident in an assessment.

I've looked back at things I've done in the past and thought:

“I wouldn't do that now.”

And I hope I continue to have moments like that.

Because if I look back in ten years and think I've done everything exactly right, I suspect I haven't learned very much.

My knowledge should change.

My experience should change.

The evidence should change my thinking.

And sometimes a dog will change my thinking too.

That's one of the reasons I like the phrase:

“I don't know yet.”

It leaves room to learn.

I overthink things

This probably won't surprise anybody who has seen the length of some of my posts.

I can overthink.

I can research something to death.

I can fall down a rabbit hole looking at papers, arguments, counterarguments and somebody's 47-page dissertation about something that started with a dog refusing to sit.

Sometimes that's useful.

Sometimes it probably isn't.

There is a point where research stops helping you make a decision and starts helping you avoid making one.

I'm still learning that distinction.

And yes, sometimes the answer really is:

“Try something sensible and see what the individual dog tells us.”

I don't have all the resources

There's another reality that isn't particularly glamorous.

I'm a small independent business.

I'm awful at the business side of things.

I work other jobs to help pay the bills.

That means there are things I simply can't offer.

I don't have a training centre.

I can't have a trainer available at every hour of the day.

I can't work with every dog.

I can't solve every problem.

I can't make my services affordable for absolutely everybody.

And that's uncomfortable because I genuinely want to help people.

But wanting to help everyone doesn't mean I can.

Sometimes the ethical answer is:

“I'm sorry, I can't provide what you need.”

That's something I need to be willing to say rather than stretching myself beyond what I can realistically provide.

I don't want to make you dependent on me

This is one of the things I feel quite strongly about.

If you need me forever to tell you what to do every time your dog looks at another dog, I haven't really achieved what I want to achieve.

My job isn't to become the person standing between you and your dog.

It's to help you understand your dog well enough that you can make decisions yourself.

That's why my sessions can involve a lot of talking.

A lot of explaining.

A lot of:

“What did you notice there?”

And:

“What do you think happened?”

Because if I get your dog to behave while I'm standing there, I've demonstrated that I can handle your dog.

I haven't necessarily taught you anything.

You're the one who has to live with the dog after I leave.

I don't have a magic training ground.

There's another limitation to the way I work.

I work in people's homes and real environments.

I actually think that's important.

But it also means I don't have a controlled training environment where I can eliminate every variable. If I did I could offer far more.

Your house is your house.

Your neighbours are your neighbours.

Your dog has a history I don't share.

Your family has its own routines.

Life happens.

Sometimes that's messy.

And while I think that messiness is valuable because it's real life, it also means I can't control everything.

Neither can you.

And that's something we have to work with rather than pretending we can create perfect conditions.

I don't promise miracles

I don't believe most behaviour problems are fixed in one afternoon.

Sometimes one small change can make an enormous difference.

Sometimes an owner simply needs somebody to explain what's happening and suddenly everything starts making sense.

But meaningful behavioural change can take time.

There are good days.

Bad days.

Backwards days.

Days when you think you've finally cracked it.

And then your dog loses their mind because a plastic bag had the audacity to exist.

That's dog training.

I would rather give somebody realistic expectations than sell them a miracle.

My social media is curated too.

This one is particularly important given everything I've been writing about television and social media.

I criticise television for showing a carefully edited version of reality.

Guess what?

My Facebook page is edited too.

I choose what I post.

I choose which photographs I use.

I choose which stories I tell.

I choose the words.

You don't see training sessions. (Because the god ones are boreing).

You don't see every failed attempt.

You don't see every time I think:

“Well, that didn't bloody work.”

You don't see the conversations with owners that take twice as long as expected.

You don't see every mistake.

And you certainly don't see my dogs having an existential crisis because I gave them their tea ten munities later than normal.

So if I tell you to be sceptical of polished dog-training content online, I have to include myself in that criticism.

I am also presenting you with a version of reality.

My dogs aren't proof that I'm right

You might look at my dogs and think they are wonderfully trained.

You might look at them and think they're complete lunatics.

Both opinions would probably have some supporting evidence.

But my own dogs aren't scientific evidence that my methods work.

They're individual dogs.

They have individual genetics, histories, personalities, environments and experiences.

If something works with my dog, that doesn't mean it will work with yours.

And if something doesn't work with my dog, that doesn't automatically mean it won't work for yours.

I need to remember that too.

I can become part of the problem

There's something else important. I talk about it a lot. Probably to the point you go "here we go again, he's going off on one."

Dog training has become incredibly tribal.

Positive versus balanced.

Food versus corrections.

Harness versus collar.

Trainer A versus Trainer B.

And once you've picked your side, it's remarkably easy to start treating the other side as the enemy.

I've been guilty of getting caught up in that.

Especially when something genuinely makes me angry.

The villain persona is fun.

I enjoy the sarcasm.

I enjoy poking holes in ridiculous claims.

But there's a danger.

If I'm entertaining enough while criticising somebody, people can start cheering for the argument rather than thinking about it.

And that's the exact opposite of what I'm asking people to do.

So I need to keep myself in check too.

Being funny doesn't make an argument correct.

Being angry doesn't make it correct either.

Watch the dog

This is probably the biggest thing I wish more people would do.

Watch the dog.

Not the trainer.

Not the equipment.

Not the label.

Not the number of followers.

Not the dramatic before-and-after.

The dog.

What's happening with their body?

Their eyes?

Their mouth?

Their ears?

Their breathing?

Their posture?

Their movement?

Can they disengage?

Can they eat?

Can they think?

Are they recovering?

Are they becoming more relaxed?

Are they choosing to approach?

Are they avoiding?

Or are they simply becoming quieter?

Because those things aren't necessarily the same.

Body language isn't a magic decoder ring either.

A tucked tail doesn't automatically mean one thing.

A wagging tail doesn't automatically mean another.

Context matters.

History matters.

The individual dog matters.

The whole bloody picture matters.

Why comes before how

This is probably where the whole Ruff Start philosophy comes back together.

Before asking:

“How do I stop this?”

I want to ask:

“Why is this happening?”

Because sometimes the answer is training.

Sometimes it's management.

Sometimes it's changing the environment.

Sometimes it's giving the dog more distance.

Sometimes it's changing what the human is doing.

Sometimes it's giving the dog time.

Sometimes it's referring to somebody else.

And sometimes the answer might be:

“Take the dog to the dam vet.”

Not everything is a training problem.

And not every problem needs to become a training exercise.

Sometimes making a dog's life easier is the most useful intervention you can make.

So what actually is Ruff Start?

It's not a magic formula.

It's not a secret technique.

It's not a promise that your dog will become Instagram-perfect.

It's not:

“Bring me your badly behaved dog and I'll fix it.”

It's an attempt to understand the whole picture.

It's about dogs and humans.

It's about relationship.

It's about understanding.

It's about helping owners become more confident.

It's about rescue dogs and the humans trying desperately to do the right thing for them.

It's about asking why before deciding how.

It's about recognising when management is appropriate.

It's about recognising when something might need veterinary attention.

It's about knowing when I need another professional.

It's about accepting that some cases will be difficult.

And it's about accepting that sometimes I will get things wrong.

So, should you trust me?

Honestly?

Not automatically.

Don't trust me because I've written a convincing Facebook post.

Don't trust me because I've got testimonials.

Don't trust me because somebody else says I'm a good trainer.

Don't trust me because I sound confident.

And definitely don't trust me because I've got a dramatic villain soundtrack.

Instead:

Question me.

Ask why.

Look at the evidence.

Look at the dog.

Ask what I actually know.

Ask what I don't know.

Ask what my limitations are.

Ask whether I'm willing to change my mind.

And if I tell you something that doesn't make sense?

Challenge me.

Because if I expect you to do that with every other trainer you encounter, I have absolutely no right to expect special treatment for Ruff Start.

The villain's verdict

I've spent quite a lot of time recently asking:

“What are we actually watching?”

It seems only fair that I ask the same question about myself.

Ruff Start isn't perfect.

I'm not perfect.

I don't have all the answers.

I have biases.

I have preferences.

I've made mistakes.

I'll make more.

Some of my views will probably change.

Some things I believe today may look very different to me in five years.

And hopefully that's because I've learned something.

I don't want people to follow Ruff Start because they think I'm the authority.

I want people to learn how to think critically about dog training — including mine.

Because the minute I start believing that I am beyond criticism is probably the minute I need somebody to throw a bucket of cold water over my head.