When training our dogs, we sometimes get preoccupied with matching them. They are pulling, we want to walk faster, their energy is high, so we go high, too. 

This usually encourages the behaviors that we are working on extinguishing or down-playing. 

Instead, we need to learn to balance our dogs. 

If your dogs energy is high, try going low. 

If your dog is dragging behind you on leash, put a little pep in your step to encourage some energy out of them! 
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Be the Yin to their Yang, not the reason they go from high to sky-high.

We often forget that our dogs, our snuggle bugs and our fetch partners who happily wear a leash and lay on our laps are, in fact, animals. 

While I don't subscribe to the school of thought that they are cousins to wolves and are basically just a domesticated version, I do think that we tend to forget exactly what it is we are inviting to sleep next to us at night.
 
Even though they have been domesticated and bred to live amongst humans, they are still ANIMALS. 

Most people decide to get a dog to enhance their lives. To give them a friend to make their home a little less quiet when they get home from work. To give you a reason to exercise on the weekends rather than stay in bed. To teach your kids responsibility, while also giving them a friend that will play with them, comfort them, and always have their backs, right? 
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But sometimes it doesn’t work out like that.

So this all started with a tiny little boxer baby. An adorable little thing that stole my heart before I even brought her home. She was the cutest, super sweet, and always happy. 

The biggest problem? She noticed everything. 

Every bug in the grass, every slight breeze, every scent in the air. And all of these things she was noticing were overshadowing one important thing: me. Not that I was jealous of the bugs that she was more interested in them than in me, but if I needed her attention it was impossible to grab. 

We went through all of the Petsmart training courses. I mean—so many courses that they created NEW ones to advance her training. She knew every command you could think of, but if there was anything even the slightest bit distracting around, I could just forget it.