When traditional trainers talk about “a dog,” they’re looking at a physical dog and seeing just that—a dog.
When you look at any dog, I need you to see three parts: 1) the physical dog, 2) the non-physical brain, and 3) the non-physical mind.
The physical dog is the dog that doesn’t think—it reacts, reflexively. It’s separate from (2), its brain which does the thinking.
Think of it as two boulders on a mountaintop.
When the physical dog is in control—when the physical dog’s metaphorical boulder is on the top of the metaphorical mountain and in charge—the dog, that package we usually think of as “the dog,” is paradoxically on top and in charge yet out of control. The physical dog doesn’t listen, it’s wild, it’s unable to be obedient, it’s unpredictable, it does things we don’t want it to be doing, and it’s often destructive.