What are the most significant challenges facing dog trainers today?
Probably not much different than the challenges historically except that some of the context has become more difficult. The vast majority of dog owners are pet owners, and most of them are appallingly ignorant of dogs. I do a two-month stint on a pet dog board from time to time, and the questions that come up can be mind-bending. That’s nothing new. What is new is the increasingly harsh public climate regarding so-called aggressive dogs and, in some cases, ownership of dogs generally. One ridiculous extreme: in San Francisco you no longer are called a dog “owner” but a “guardian”. Sorry. I own my dogs. I’ll stop owning them when they buy their own food and pay their own vet bills. The whole “animal rights” movement with its theme that “dogs are just the same as people” has potentially broad destructive effects. Dogs are not the same as people. Dogs are dogs, and we have to teach people how to relate to them as such. In that vein, Turid Rugaas’ work is invaluable. So I guess the challen
