The majority of work that I do with clients that hire me for private in-home sessions falls under the umbrella of lifestyle training.
Now this is a term that has come to my mind and other trainers may have used it before me so I’ll give credit where it’s due if that turns out to be the case, but it’s perfect for describing the kind of training I’m going to talk about here.
Most commonly, owners hire the help of a trainer when their dog is already misbehaving and they don’t know what to do to get their dog to stop. What has caused the dog to misbehave is never just one thing, but always involves how the owners live with their dog.
What I mean by that is, what boundaries they set for their dog, what rules they hold their dog accountable to follow, what structure they put in place to manage their dog’s expectations and most importantly how consistent they are in keeping up this lifestyle always play a role in how the dog behaves.
In the case of a misbehaving dog, the consistency isn’t there and neither are the appropriate rules, boundaries and structure.
Now when I work with these cases owners will often have the expectation that the dog trainer is there to teach obedience to their dog. And this expectation exists simply because that’s what OG dog trainers used to do.
Years ago, you would hire a trainer to train your dog to be obedient which meant training it to do all kinds of behaviors on command. Obedient dogs are easy to manage but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to live with and here is where we get into the title of this post: Obedience vs Lifestyle Training.
Obedience training tends to overshadow the all-important lifestyle training. It often gives us instant gratification. In just one training session, we can see progress made.
Lifestyle training often doesn’t give us that sweet feeling of accomplishment right away. Yea, we may see small wins here and there but it asks you to play the long game to see true results.
As much as obedience training is what most people expect training to be like, it’s not the epitome of raising a well-mannered dog.
Obedience adds more tools to your trainer’s kit so if your dog does do something naughty or is about to, you can cue them to do something else instead like sit, come back to you or leave that thing alone.
But what ultimately gets you the dog that doesn’t try to do naughty things in the first place is consistent leadership and lifestyle training from their owner. When we focus on lifestyle, an owner is giving clear expectations, following through on ensuring the dog sticks to the rules and providing clarity that these boundaries are non-negotiable. What we get are dogs thriving as well-behaved housemates because their lives have the structure they need to know what’s allowed and what isn’t.
So if your dog is acting a fool at home, consider how you live with them. Do you have any rules or boundaries set at home that you expect your dog to follow and hold them accountable to if they don’t? Something as simple as, does your dog wait as you put their food bowl down before diving in is a small example of setting expectations that they’re not allowed to rush in to get the things they want.
Start small and then build up. Along the way train obedience so you have something to fall back on when your dog does break a rule or is about to push a boundary. Use the obedience they already know to offer them guidance in that situation on how they should behave.
Train both and don’t lose sight of lifestyle.
