Parent, Teacher, Playmate...

Our dogs are completely devoted to us. We find them under our desks

when working at home, on the kitchen floor while we’re cooking, at the
door when we come home and sometimes in our beds when sleeping...
We’re already our dog’s best friends and we hardly had to do anything
special... sadly, there are rare situations where we don’t even love
them but we somehow receive their complete devotion.
Let’s not ask what it means to be man’s best friend... Let’s flip the
question around a little... What does it mean to be my dog’s best
friend? When I think of my answer to this question I think of the
title given to Chinese masters... The title is called Sifu. It
loosely translates into ‘the role of the father and the teacher’. My
answer also weaves in a third thread... that of the playmate.

We bring our dogs into the human world and we expect their animal
senses to operate like our own. We need to remember that their senses
are much stronger than ours and that’s part of the reason why so many
young pups are constantly distracted! It’s our duty to teach them how
our world works and what appropriate responses we expect from them
throughout the day as they encounter to all sorts of stimuli
(squirrels, doorbells, traffic, other dogs on leashes...etc). This
duty is ongoing and never ending.

As a parent, we have other responsibilities to our dogs. We should be
considerate of their lifestyles. Is our dog eating a healthy diet?
Is he physically fit and well exercised? Is he emotionally balanced?
Our dogs only learn through experience. We need to remember that their
primary experience of life is a reflection of how we live our own
lives.

Life is meant to be enjoyed... when we find ways to fill our days with
playful moments with our dogs how do they respond? With focus,
motivation and joy! I think that the secret to raising a perfect dog
is a healthy balance of all three roles... the parent, the teacher and
the playmate. I try not to think of being one role while forgetting
about the others... rather, I try to find the appropriate balance of
all three in any given moment.