My Dog Is My Mirror

If you really want to know what is wrong or good about your dog (s), one way to find out for sure is to stop and take a look in the mirror! And I don’t mean just gaze at yourself, really look at yourself and figure out what is going on inside. It’s not always the most fun thing to do, but once we can come to terms with what is going on with ourselves, and we learn how to fix or better the issue, we also learn how to change our dogs. Remember that your dog is a perfect reflection of your true self!

Think of it, could you have a better tool at hand to help you understand not only your dog’s problems, but also your own? I don’t think so, and here is why. It is impossible for a dog to lie. Dogs live in the moment; they don’t care about yesterday’s meltdown or tomorrows possibilities. A dogs mind is in the here and now, in this very moment. So at any time you can simply look down at Fido and know what he is thinking, is he hungry? Want to play ball? All these things will be very obvious.

The same is true if you have a problem dog. The dog’s problems may be obvious to you; Fido ate all my flowers, digs holes in the yard and barks like a fool at the mailman. Now why Fido does these things may not be that obvious to you. This is when it’s time to decide, do I look in the mirror to see what I look like on the outside, (which, by the way, Fido could care less what you look like), or do I study my dog to see what I look like on the inside.

Remember that your dog is a perfect reflection of yourself. So if your dog is a little hyper and moves about constantly, well it’s more than likely that you do the same thing. Is your dog mostly mellow and chill? It’s probably because you also have a mellow and chill personality.

Now is the hard part, if you are trying to fix unwanted behavior in your dog, you may have to take a long hard look at yourself in order to understand why your dog is acting out. And 90% of the time, there is something that you will have to fix about yourself, before you can even consider changing the behavior in your dog. Most people would rather not believe that statement, because it’s not fun to come to terms with a problem you may have. And it’s much easier to say that the dog is a little eccentric and always was that way.

Or if you’re on the opposite side of the road and your dog is fantastic, well then praise your dog and praise yourself. But keep in mind that there is always room for improvement!

As a dog trainer, I can tell you that it’s more about training the human, than about training their dog.

So go ahead, use your dog as a mirror, be brave and work on your own self-improvement and you will be amazed at how willing your dog will be to make a change with you!