Your Dog Is Obedient. Is That the Same as Trusting You?

We spend a lot of time teaching dogs to listen to us. Perhaps we should spend a little more time asking what they're telling us.

We love an obedient dog.

The dog that sits when asked. Comes back when called. Walks beautifully on a lead. Ignores distractions and makes its owner look as though they've got this dog-training business completely figured out.

Lovely stuff. Stick it on Facebook. Get the likes. Everyone's happy.

But here's a question I'd like us to consider.

Is a dog that does what you ask necessarily a dog that trusts you?

I'm not suggesting obedience is bad, boundaries are unnecessary or every well-trained dog is secretly terrified of its owner. That's a ridiculous conclusion, and we have quite enough ridiculous conclusions in dog training already.

I'm asking whether we sometimes confuse the behaviour we can see with the relationship we think it represents.

Because a dog can learn to sit for all sorts of reasons. It can walk beside us because doing so is rewarding and comfortable. It can also walk beside us because moving away has consequences it would rather avoid.

The behaviour might look identical in a photograph.

The experience behind it might not be.

We don't get to know the difference simply by looking at a tidy heel, a perfect recall or a dog that never appears to question its handler.

This is where I think we need to get a little more curious about our dogs, and perhaps a little less impressed by appearances.

Not because obedience doesn't matter. But because the dog is more important than the performance.

The problem with judging by appearances

Imagine two dogs.

The first responds to every cue immediately. It sits, stays, recalls and walks neatly beside its owner. It looks fantastic on camera. If we're judging training success by obedience alone, this dog is a winner.

The second dog sometimes takes a moment to respond. It occasionally disagrees with its owner, wants to investigate something interesting and makes its own decisions when it's safe to do so. It also voluntarily checks in with its person, explores its surroundings confidently and seeks reassurance when something worries it.

Which dog would I rather work with?

The second one.

That doesn't mean I'd turn down the opportunity to help the first dog. I would want to understand it before deciding what it needed. Perhaps it is perfectly happy and confident. Perhaps it has simply been taught to respond beautifully. Or perhaps there are things happening beneath that polished exterior that deserve a closer look.

We cannot determine a dog's emotional state from obedience alone.

A dog that follows every instruction might be relaxed, engaged and enjoying the interaction. Another might be worried, inhibited or reluctant to risk getting something wrong. A dog that hesitates might be confused, distracted, frightened, uncomfortable or simply occupied with something else.

We need context.

We need to look at body language, the environment, the dog's history and what happens before and after the behaviour.

Most importantly, we need to be willing to admit that we don't automatically know why a dog has done something just because we've seen it happen.

That requires curiosity. It also requires us to put our own expectations to one side occasionally.

And that, as it turns out, can be harder than teaching a sit.

What happens when things go wrong?

One of the things I'm particularly interested in is recovery.

Not just whether a dog responds to a cue, but how quickly it settles after being startled, re-engages with its owner after encountering a trigger, or returns to sniffing, exploring and behaving relatively normally after something stressful.

I believe the relationship we have with a dog can make a difference here.

Consider a dog that encounters another dog at an uncomfortable distance. It becomes tense, perhaps barks or lunges, and struggles to cope with the situation.

Its owner asks it to sit.

The dog sits.

Excellent obedience, perhaps. But has anything actually changed?

Look at the dog's body. Is it still tense? Is it staring at the other dog? Is it holding itself rigidly, struggling to disengage or remaining hypervigilant?

The cue has been followed, but the dog may still be struggling.

Now imagine a dog that notices the same trigger, looks towards its owner, accepts some encouragement and gradually begins to relax. It starts sniffing again, looks around, moves more freely and eventually returns to exploring its environment.

That's useful information, too.

Neither example tells us everything about the dog or the relationship. There are many reasons why dogs respond differently, and recovery depends on the individual, the intensity of the experience and what else is happening around them.

But I think we should pay attention to the difference between a dog that can perform a behaviour and a dog that has recovered sufficiently to carry on.

Compliance and recovery are not the same thing.

A dog can obey while still being stressed. We shouldn't mistake the absence of visible resistance for the presence of confidence.

For me, how a dog recovers is one of the things worth observing when we're trying to understand how well it's coping.

Can it think again? Can it engage with us? Can it return to the ordinary business of being a dog?

And if it cannot, perhaps we need to change something about the situation rather than simply repeat the instruction more loudly.

Loki, Evie and the freedom to be individuals

Living with dogs reminds you rather quickly that they aren't interchangeable.

My dogs have different personalities, different needs and different ways of navigating the world. Treating them all as though they should respond in precisely the same way would be a fairly effective way of ignoring the individuals I'm supposed to understand.

Take Loki.

In certain situations, he looks at me, moves closer and waits for encouragement. I see a dog looking to me for reassurance because he trusts me to help him navigate something difficult.

That doesn't mean I can know exactly what he's thinking. But I can observe what he does, consider the context and respond accordingly.

I don't need to interpret every moment of uncertainty as disobedience. Nor do I need to turn it into an obedience exercise just because I happen to be a dog trainer.

Sometimes the useful thing is to help him feel comfortable enough to continue.

Then there's Evie.

Evie has her own ideas about what she'd like to do. When it's safe, I'm quite happy for her to make her own choices.

There is a difference between a dog choosing to do something and a dog being compelled to do it simply because we've issued an instruction. I think there's value in allowing dogs to exercise that choice when circumstances permit.

Of course, Evie also has a strong desire to chase things. She's a working-bred, and those drives don't disappear because we happen to live in a modern world with roads, traffic and other people going about their lives.

I cannot let her chase whatever she fancies. That would be irresponsible.

Respecting her individuality doesn't mean giving her unrestricted freedom. It means recognising what motivates her, understanding the risks and finding ways to manage her needs without pretending those needs shouldn't exist.

There are times when I have to intervene. There are times when safety takes priority over what she wants.

But I don't believe that makes every disagreement a battle of wills.

A relationship can include boundaries without requiring us to treat every independent decision as a challenge to our authority.

In fact, I'd argue that knowing when a dog can safely make its own decisions is part of understanding the dog in front of us.

Maleficent, and the danger of seeing the dog we remember

Maleficent taught me something about how difficult it can be to change our own expectations.

When she came into my life, she was underweight and frightened. She had been through a great deal, and the dog I knew initially was a very different prospect from the powerful dog she eventually became.

I found it difficult not to keep seeing her as that frightened dog.

Even as she grew in confidence, I could still see the vulnerable animal I'd first encountered. My understanding of her history shaped how I viewed her in the present.

That's understandable. We remember where a dog started. We know what it has been through, and we don't want it to struggle again. But it was also a trap

there is a danger in allowing our understanding of a dog's past to dictate how we respond to it forever.

A dog that once needed protection may grow into a dog that is more confident, capable and independent. Its needs change. Its behaviour changes. Our relationship with it has to change as well.

If we continue to treat a dog as though it is permanently fragile, we risk failing to recognise the progress it has made.

We can end up limiting a dog because of our own perception of it, even when our intentions are entirely well meaning.

Trust involves more than asking a dog to rely on us. It also involves being willing to update our understanding of that dog.

Sometimes that means providing more support. Sometimes it means stepping back and allowing more independence. Sometimes it means accepting that the dog has become capable of things we once thought were beyond it.

The dog we remember isn't always the dog standing in front of us today.

And if we're serious about understanding dogs, we need to pay attention to who they are now.

We have bred dogs for a purpose. Then we complain when they do it.

Here's another uncomfortable contradiction.

We've spent generations breeding dogs for particular traits, drives and jobs. We have selected dogs to chase, herd, guard, track, bark, dig and work alongside people.

Then we bring them into modern homes and expect them to fit neatly into a world that often offers very little opportunity to express those behaviours.

We want dogs that live in our houses but don't bark. We want them to walk through public spaces without approaching anyone, encounter other dogs without reacting, tolerate strangers handling them and never inconvenience anybody.

Apparently, the ideal dog is one that has all the characteristics we selected for, provided it never actually uses them in a way that we find inconvenient.

What could possibly go wrong?

Think about the number of cars on our roads, the noise, the distractions and the pressure of navigating public spaces. The environment in which dogs have to live isn't necessarily an easy one, even for us. We have to contend with traffic, unfamiliar people, sudden noises, crowded pavements and constantly changing circumstances.

Dogs have to navigate all of that without understanding why our society operates as it does.

And their lives are often more restricted than those of the dogs that came before them.

Evie is bred to have particular drives, including a tendency to bark. Her desire to chase also has to be managed because the modern world doesn't allow me to let her pursue whatever catches her attention.

Understanding those drives doesn't mean allowing every behaviour. It means recognising that they exist and taking responsibility for managing them appropriately.

I often encounter people with dachshunds who complain about their dogs barking at everything.

Dachshunds were developed as hunting dogs, and barking has a legitimate place in their behavioural repertoire. That doesn't mean every bark in every situation is desirable, or that owners should ignore distress or excessive behaviour. But it does mean we should consider why a behaviour exists before deciding that its existence is the problem.

I've suggested praising the barking, and people have looked at me as though I've suddenly grown another head.

The dog, meanwhile, looks at me as if to say, Finally. Someone gets it.

There is a difference between understanding a behaviour and allowing it to go unmanaged.

There is also a difference between teaching a dog when a behaviour is appropriate and treating the behaviour as a personal insult.

We can teach alternatives. We can manage the environment. We can provide suitable outlets for natural behaviours and help dogs cope with the demands of modern life.

But we should be honest about the animals we've chosen to live with.

If we select dogs for their working abilities, then give them lives in which those abilities have nowhere to go, we shouldn't be surprised when the result isn't always convenient.

The dog hasn't necessarily failed to meet our expectations.

Perhaps our expectations were the problem in the first place.

When the label becomes the answer

This brings me back to something I've been thinking about for a while: our fear of words.

Describe a dog as disobedient, and we can immediately start thinking about how to improve its obedience.

Call it stubborn, and we may decide it is deliberately refusing to cooperate.

Call it dominant, and we might assume it is trying to take control.

Call it difficult, and we can start treating the dog as an obstacle rather than an individual whose behaviour needs to be understood.

The problem isn't simply that these words can be inaccurate. It's that they can bring the investigation to an end before it has properly begun.

Why did the dog refuse the cue? Was it frightened, confused, uncomfortable, distracted or insufficiently trained? Was the environment too difficult? Was the behaviour physically uncomfortable? Did the dog understand what was being asked?

Those questions might lead us somewhere useful.

Deciding that the dog is stubborn doesn't.

And the same problem can occur when we talk about training methods and trainers.

We use words such as ethical, force-free and balanced as though the label itself settles the argument. We can end up defending the identity we've adopted rather than examining what we actually do and what effect it has on the dogs in our care.

Words matter. They influence how we think, how we communicate and how we approach a problem. Scientific terminology also has specific meanings, and we shouldn't pretend that all methods are interchangeable simply because we can argue about their names.

But a label isn't proof of good practice.

Calling ourselves ethical doesn't automatically make our decisions ethical. Describing a dog as obedient doesn't tell us whether it is comfortable. Calling a relationship trusting doesn't mean we've demonstrated that trust exists.

We need to look beyond the words.

What are we asking of the dog? What happens when it struggles? What alternatives have we taught? What are the consequences of our decisions? Is the dog learning, coping and developing the skills it needs?

Those are much more useful questions than arguing endlessly over which label someone should wear.

When the owner needs to feel in control

Most of the owners I encounter understand that their dogs are individuals and that behaviour has to be considered in context.

But I have also encountered unrealistic expectations, and I've seen how easily the responsibility for a difficult situation can be placed entirely on the dog.

Sometimes an owner feels embarrassed because their dog isn't behaving as expected in public.

Sometimes they feel anxious or unsafe unless they can make their dog respond immediately.

Sometimes they believe that a dog should obey simply because they're the owner.

And sometimes all three of those things exist in the same person.

I don't think that necessarily makes someone a bad owner. Anxiety, embarrassment and fear can be powerful emotions. Living with a dog whose behaviour feels unpredictable can be exhausting, and people often come to a trainer because they don't know what else to do.

We should have some empathy for that.

But empathy for the owner shouldn't require us to ignore the dog.

If an owner is embarrassed by their dog's barking, the immediate goal might become stopping the noise. If they're frightened of their dog reacting to another dog, the priority might become making the dog sit and stay still.

Those goals are understandable, but they may not address the underlying problem.

A dog that is frightened doesn't necessarily become less frightened because it has been told to sit. A dog that is struggling to cope doesn't necessarily become more comfortable because it has stopped displaying the behaviour that made its owner anxious.

Sometimes we need to change the environment, increase distance, teach alternative behaviours, build confidence or reconsider what we're asking of the dog.

Sometimes we need to help the owner feel more confident, too.

The aim shouldn't be to make the owner feel powerless. Nor should it be to make the dog responsible for protecting the owner's feelings.

It should be to help both of them navigate the situation more successfully.

As a trainer, I want owners to understand their dogs. I want them to recognise what their dogs are communicating, develop realistic expectations and learn what they can do to make everyday life easier.

That means looking at the whole picture rather than judging success by whether the dog performed perfectly in public.

Because public appearances are not the same thing as a successful relationship.

Trust doesn't mean letting the dog do whatever it wants

At this point, someone will probably assume I'm arguing that dogs should be allowed to make every decision for themselves.

I'm not.

Dogs need guidance, boundaries, management and training. They live in a human world, and their decisions can have consequences for themselves, other animals and the people around them.

Evie cannot be allowed to chase whatever she wants. There are situations in which I have to intervene, regardless of what she'd prefer.

There are also times when we have to act quickly to prevent harm. In those circumstances, safety comes first.

But there's a difference between taking control when necessary and treating control as the purpose of the relationship.

We can teach a dog to respond reliably while also paying attention to its emotional state. We can establish boundaries without turning every disagreement into a contest. We can prevent unsafe behaviour without assuming the dog is being deliberately difficult.

And we can allow dogs to make choices when those choices are safe.

A dog doesn't need unrestricted freedom to have the ability to make decisions and act independently. Sometimes that is as simple as being allowed to move away, choose where to sniff, decline an interaction or take a little more time to approach something unfamiliar.

Those opportunities can help us understand the individual dog, too.

What does it choose when given the opportunity? What does it avoid? When does it seek help? What does it find rewarding? What does it find difficult?

Those answers are useful.

If we insist on making every decision for the dog, we lose opportunities to learn about the animal we're living with.

And if we believe that every independent decision represents a challenge to our authority, we risk turning an ordinary relationship into a constant exercise in control.

Trust isn't the absence of boundaries.

It's a relationship in which guidance and safety matter, but the dog's needs and communication matter as well.

So, what does a trusting dog look like?

I wish there were a simple checklist.

A dog that always comes back when called: trusting.

A dog that walks beautifully on a lead: trusting.

A dog that lets strangers touch it: trusting.

Unfortunately, dogs don't work like that.

No single behaviour proves that a dog trusts its owner. Nor does hesitation, a missed cue or a moment of fear automatically mean that trust is absent.

We have to consider the individual dog, its history, its environment and the wider pattern of behaviour.

Does the dog voluntarily engage with its owner? Can it explore its surroundings? Does it seek reassurance when uncertain? Can it communicate discomfort? Does it have opportunities to make safe choices?

And perhaps most importantly, what happens when things don't go to plan?

Can the dog recover from a difficult experience? Can it begin to relax again, re-engage with its owner and return to exploring its environment?

I'm particularly interested in that recovery.

A dog might respond to every instruction while remaining tense and vigilant. Another might need time, distance and encouragement before it can settle again.

I don't think we should judge either dog solely by the speed of its obedience.

We should look at what happens afterwards, too.

Recovery isn't a perfect measurement of trust, and it depends on many factors. But it can tell us something important about how a dog is coping and what support it might need.

And if we find that a dog repeatedly struggles to recover, we have an opportunity to ask better questions.

Is the situation too difficult? Are we asking too much? Does the dog need more distance, better management, a different approach or professional help?

We don't have to interpret every difficult moment as a failure.

Sometimes the most useful information comes from the moments when training doesn't go as expected.

What are we actually trying to achieve?

I would like to think that we train dogs to live successfully in our world.

We teach them the skills they need to navigate everyday life safely. We help them cope with situations they will encounter. We provide suitable outlets for their needs, establish boundaries and help owners understand what their dogs are communicating.

But I suspect that, sometimes, we are also training dogs to make us feel more comfortable about living with them.

We want them to stop barking because the noise embarrasses us. We want them to stop reacting because other people might judge us. We want them to obey immediately because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable.

Those desires are human. I'm not pretending I'm somehow immune to them.

Living with dogs requires compromise. Their behaviour affects our lives, and we have responsibilities to other people and animals. We cannot simply ignore the realities of sharing public spaces.

But we should ask ourselves whether the behaviour we're trying to change is genuinely a problem for the dog, a problem for its owner, a safety concern, or some combination of the three.

Sometimes those things overlap.

Sometimes they don't.

Recognising the difference can change how we approach the problem.

Perhaps we need to teach a different behaviour. Perhaps we need to manage the environment. Perhaps we need to adjust our expectations. Perhaps we need to accept that a dog will never be perfectly comfortable in every situation, and that our job is to help it cope rather than demand perfection.

None of that means abandoning training.

It means being more thoughtful about what we're training for.

The question I'd like us to ask

I don't expect every dog to be perfectly behaved. I don't expect every owner to get everything right. And I certainly don't believe that a trusting relationship means a dog will always do what we ask.

What I want is for us to look beyond the performance.

When your dog gets something wrong, can you still look at it with curiosity rather than immediately deciding it's being stubborn?

When it struggles, can you consider what might be making the situation difficult?

When it becomes frightened, do you pay attention to how it recovers, rather than simply whether it obeys your next instruction?

When it makes a safe choice you wouldn't have made yourself, can you allow it that little bit of independence?

And when your dog doesn't fit the picture of the perfectly behaved animal you thought you were getting, can you adjust your expectations without deciding that the dog has failed you?

These aren't questions with easy answers. Every dog is different, and every relationship has its own challenges.

But I think they're worth asking.

Because the dog that looks perfect in public isn't necessarily the dog that's coping best. The dog that occasionally disagrees with you isn't necessarily the dog that trusts you least. And the dog that obeys every instruction isn't necessarily the dog that feels safest.

Obedience has its place. So do boundaries, management and reliable training.

But they aren't the whole story.

Perhaps the real test of our relationship isn't whether our dogs always do what we ask. Perhaps it's what happens when they can't, when they're frightened, when they struggle, or when they need us to help them find their way through something difficult.

I don't need my dogs to prove their trust by behaving perfectly.

I want to understand them well enough to recognise when they need guidance, when they need space, when they need encouragement and when I need to change what I'm doing.

And I'd like us to stop judging dogs by whether they behave perfectly in public.

They're living in a world we've built, under expectations we've created, with instincts and needs that don't always fit neatly into our plans.

The least we can do is try to understand them.

After all, we call ourselves their owners.

Perhaps we should spend a little less time worrying about whether they obey us, and a little more time considering what it means to be worthy of their trust.