When People Think Strange Things About Dogs

"You can train dogs all you want, but as soon as they die, they forget it all."

I was a speaker at the 12th Annual International Association of Canine Professionals in Orlando, Florida over the weekend and met a bunch of terrific people and their dogs.

I asked the same question over and over of all the dog trainers I met: "How did you get into the world of dog training?

The variety of answers I got back was dizzying.  I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of backgrounds -- everyone from the first woman ethologist in the U.S., to a former electronics technician who now had a decade of solid dog work under his belt.

Along with a diversity in backgrounds, was a diversity of training methods.  This was not a "one size fits all" crowd -- a point underscored in Martin Deeley's excellent presentation entitled "There Are No Magic Wands".

So what did I talk about?  My presentation was entitled When Good People Think Strange Things About Dogs, and it was a naked attempt to try to get dog trainers to suit up for a new American dog culture centered on meritocracy, rather than to parrot the contrived British dog show culture fashioned to salute aristocracy.

Dog trainers, it seems to me, have a stake in people doing things with dogs, and they have a stake in dogs living longer so that their training investments are not wasted by disease, dysfunction and death.

As I told the conference participants:  "You can train dogs all you want, but as soon as they die, they forget it all."

For those interested in the slides and the text of my presentation, I have put up a PDF of both here.
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