Are you familiar with the name Washington Irving?
You probably don’t recognize his name but you know stories that he is famous for. Irving is the author of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” What you don’t know about him is that he probably fooled you like millions of others. In 1828 he wrote a best selling book about Christopher Columbus.
The most popular chapter in the book described a thrilling confrontation in which Columbus had to convince a bunch of disbelieving Spanish intellectuals who argued that the world was flat.
Here’s what really happened. Columbus did meet with the eggheads, but they argued about the size of the globe. You see, 2000 years earlier Aristotle had proved that the earth was round, pointing out the curved shadow it casts on the moon.
In Columbus’s time all learned people knew that the earth was round. The truth is that Columbus said it would be short sail to the other side of the planet. He was wrong.
But Irving’s version made Columbus a hero. Columbus had to fight superstition and small thinking.
So why is Columbus the “Discoverer of America?”
Why do we even know his name?
Irving was one of America’s best known authors when he wrote about Columbus. Many state legislatures made his book required reading for school children and once it was accepted as fact Columbus became enshrined in history. They wanted him to be the hero.
Facts didn’t matter. Truth was put on the back burner and Columbus was The Man! This happens more than you think. It happens with our health care, the food we’re convinced to eat, religion, historical events and…..
……dog training.
Emotionally we get involved with a subject. The emotions become stronger and the belief gets locked into our consciousness and game over. Fact no longer has a place at the table. Fact is asked to leave and if necessary, thrown out the back door.
And this little story sums up perfectly why many dog trainers will tell you that it is perfectly fine to teach your dog the word “YES” but you can’t teach or even say the word “NO” to your dog. They have bought into an ideology that using any type of negative consequence is cruel, outdated and inhumane.
There is a HUGE number of dog trainers, very popular and respected dog trainers that instruct unknowing dog owners that they can NEVER say “NO” or use punishment to stop unwanted behaviors. These trainers will tell dog owners that they have to “ignore” or “redirect” the behavior.
How do you ignore a dog that is stealing your ribeye steak off the counter?
You don’t. You learn how to use punishment the correct way and apply it when your dog is doing a behavior that you would like to stop.
Teaching your dog which behaviors are unacceptable is just as important as teaching which behaviors are acceptable.
If you’d like to teach your dog to STOP doing behaviors like jumping, begging, biting, stealing and any other behavior hop on over to the Dog Training Inner Circle.
It’s just $1.00 to join.
Best,
Eric