There are none. There are no “basics.”

Sure, owners will claim they’ve taught their dogs the basics, but basics based on what foundation? There’s never any solid footing, and that’s a multiple layered problem.

Your basics will differ from your friend’s basics, which will differ from mine. We’ll THINK we’re all talking about the same thing when we’re not. The more we talk, the further away from understanding each other we get.

How can there be a set of defined basics? Establish them

• based on a name,
• based on a training foundation,
• based on expectations for what those basics will provide,

then be able to

• measure the learning of those basics,
• and be able to show how a dog’s learning those basics benefits the relationship between the dog and its owner.

RDL, Reflective Dog Leadership, has no basic commands. Why? Because most traditional training thinks a few tricks or commands is all that’s needed for a dog to be trained. The dog isn’t the one getting trained–it’s the human that’s getting educated.

RDL works on establishing the relationship between the dog and its owner, first and foremost, using Nature and Nature’s internal triggers that are already programmed into the dog. Once the relationship is defined, understood, set, and established, that’s when the learning of the tricks and commands becomes easy.

The subject needs its own chapter and book.

The challenges are great, but they only come into play when each person acknowledges them. Without the attention and awareness on the things being learned, they’re never learned nor acknowledged. It’s part of its paradoxical nature, and it’s the paradox that’s at the core of

1. the thing being learned
2. and THE WAY the things being learned are learned.

It’s dimensional thinking.

Some of the specific challenges include and will be…

1. That dogs—not having spoken language—communicate through non-verbal behaviors, and they are 24/7 listening to our behaviors, although we’re oblivious to that communication we’re always giving them. (Think “touching their leashes.”)
2. The making premature, quick, opinionated judgments.
3. Not understanding how your opinions fit in with the rest of the world.
4. The difference between an opinion and a fact.
5. Realizations about how easily and how often we toss those opinions out into the world and our realities.
6. Awareness and unconsciousness of projecting of human factors, characteristics, and qualities on the dog, which sometimes touches on what people might call anthropomorphism. 
7. Awareness in general.
8. Attention in general.
9. Awareness of levels of consciousness.
10. Dimensional thinking.

It’s not “dog training,” it’s (human) dog (owner) training. It’s time to stop calling it what it’s not, and start calling it what it is—we’re teaching the human the things they don’t know, and we’re educating them about the things they know that are wrong, based on Nature’s communication and Nature’s feedback.

1. Narratives are our stories we make up, in our heads, on the spot, without support. They’re fantasies. They’re opinions.

2. Twelve people seeing a dog sit up will have twelve different narratives about why the dog sat up.

3. Each person will believe their narrative is correct. Unaware, they’ll likely assume eleven others agree with them.

4. Of those twelve narratives—twelve opinions—at most only one is right. Statistically, all of them are wrong.

5. Further, were we to stop time and ask all twelve, “What behavior did the dog just do?” all twelve would answer the same thing: the dog sat up.

6. Even though twelve observers saw the same behavior, they will instead choose to (friendly) argue twelve, different opinions, under the mistaken belief that they’re agreeing on the same narrative—when they’re not.

7. What dogs do is what they say, but we ignore that.

8. What narratives we make up is NOT what the dog just said, it’s disconnected from the dog’s behavior, and that’s what we pay attention to. That’s backward.

9. Narratives disconnect us from our dogs. THAT’S dangerous because what dogs do is what they say. What dogs are doing is what they’re saying. Behavior is dogs’ communication.

10. Narratives misdirect our attention into our internal space, away from the physical, 3D space we share with our dogs—the 3D space where we see their behaviors. 

11. Dogs can’t “talk,” but they DO… talk—communicate—through their behaviors. So if dogs talk to us through their behavior, and if we’re ignoring our dogs and ignoring what their behaviors are saying—their communications—because we’re creating narratives… WHAT ARE WE DOING? We’re ignoring them.

12. Worse yet, the western way believes thinking solves everything. But thinking about a problem anchors the problem firmly in the problem. The act of thinking about it disconnects from finding its solution. The act of experiencing it solves it. In a good way, experience short circuits thinking. Experiencing it is the anchor that anchors us in the current place and time.

The further down the rabbit hole the “narrative discussion” goes, the further off the rails it goes—this is only about half the way through the discussion.

To be continued…

What a rabbit hole it is…

Reward with submission—rewarding with praise raises energy level, and it’s the high energy level dogs that have the problems. When high energy level dogs are the dogs that generally speaking have the problems, why give them more energy!

Traditional training has it wrong. It’s part of the big Misinformation Bubble.

Get the dog to submit—which is sleep—as often as possible. Low energy reinforces low energy, and when the dog’s body experiences true relaxation at the zero, sleep, spa level, the entire system gets reminded to spend more time at that level, to have opportunities for them to put you in their leadership spots to whom they’ll be submitting, to be triggered from the inside out to be relaxed and voluntarily submissive.

Eye contact is always the reward, since Nature has that preprogrammed to trigger their voluntary submission. You’re never without eye contact, and it’s forever triggering their voluntary submission, from the inside out.

RDL is based on Nature. RDL is evidence-based. RDL is collecting Nature’s snapshots (or video clips) of dog behaviors. If a dog does (or stops) a behavior, then every dog has the potential to do so.

Two, natural metaphors apply:

1. Gravity always pulls down.
2. A dog’s energy acts like a helium balloon—absent its patient leader, its energy rises.

Having chosen and having submitted to its leader, a dog’s energy gets triggered to stay low. Lacking a leader, like that helium filled balloon, its energy rises. That’s when our problems begin—not because the dog per se has problems, but because Nature takes over at the high energy ranges, because Nature *IS* high energy, and Nature is wild.

and when they happen together and they *DO* happen together, 

      a. the dog’s energy goes up
      b. and Nature takes over at those high energy ranges

the dog starts having problems and becoming out of control. Lacking a reliable, accurate model for Nature, humans call on a trainer for help.

RDL is based on Nature. Learning Nature, you’ll learn how to keep your dog’s energy levels from rising.

Not in English, obviously. 

When we say humans talk, we imply two concepts, but we never consciously talk about them:

1. talk as in how humans communicate
2. and talk as in how humans talk using human language.

Then, when specifically talking about how dogs communicate, we don’t examine the same foundation, we never consciously talk about how

1. dogs communicate
2. nor how dogs talk through the use of behavior.

Those two, two-factor factors are forever on the cusp of being an unconscious level of awareness. Human and dog communication are different, they’re very different, and yet they’re never examined or discussed.

A simple question—how do dogs talk?—explodes into dozens of complex layers and paths. Most owners think it’s just a simple, linear question.

Hopefully, you see the problem…

No trainer worth their salt can ever predict how long any training can take.

However, the rule of thumb for estimates for rehabilitation is, minimally, two to four weeks per the dog’s age in years. Changes are immediate but temporary. Permanence take place through consistent repetition.

For example, a three year-old dog needs—estimated—about 1.5 to 3 months of conscious, consistent repetition and awareness to give them time to unlearn their old patterns, and to solidify their new patterns.¹ By the time the dog gets to be about six or eight years old and older, they all start needing about the same amount of time as a six to eight year-old. This makes a case for its own, interesting set of discussions.

The minimum time estimates are doubled or quadrupled if there’s aggression involved.

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¹The time is as much for the human’s need to learn the patience through the process as it is for the dog to internalize its new patterns.

The human is getting trained—it’s always the human getting trained. If you think the dog is getting trained, then we need to talk. Yes, it involves the dog, but it always starts with the human.

Surprise! Dogs don’t understand English. (You’d be surprised just how many people think they do.)¹

Behavior and Voice and Communication

English breaks down when discussing a) humans, b) dogs, and c) communication. Humans use voice, words, and sentences. Dogs use behavior, movement, and series of movements—but both are communication.

Dogs communicate through behavior. Through a dog’s behaviors, it communicates. When it’s doing what you don’t want—when its behavior is undesirable—its communications (its behaviors) are “wrong.” (The idea of a simultaneous behavior-communication makes yet another case for multi dimensional thinking, too.² It’s a challenge for linear thinkers.)

When the human learns different concepts—that is when you get trained—those new concepts make you behave differently. Your dogs immediately detect your change of behavior. They see your new change of behavior-communication, and because communications between you and your dog have to happen right now, in-the-moment, their behavior—their communication, or their answer to the new thing you just said, behaviorally, differently—their behavior changes instantly. It’s a new, novel, but reasonable way to understand how dog behavior changes and how and why it changes as quickly as it does. Nature is immediate but temporary. It all makes sense.

This aligns with “your dog’s changes are immediate but temporary.” They’re behaviors, but simultaneously they’re communications, communications that change immediately, instantly, in a flash. That makes sense!

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¹Try saying, “Blah, blah, blah” to your dog and see what they do.
²See “Dimensional Thinking” elsewhere in this FAQ.

High Energy Dogs

High energy dogs are the dogs with the problems.

High energy dogs are the dogs that Nature is conditioning and training to be the wild animal they are at their core.

High energy dogs are the out of control, stressed, destructive, problematic, aggressive dogs. High energy dogs typically have warm, dry noses, closed mouths. High energy dogs are hypersensitive to all sounds. Wild animals in general are programmed by nature to defend themselves from unexpected sounds or movement as they would be in the wild in nature. High energy dogs are literally Nature’s wild dogs. They have problems because that’s Nature’s way She needs wild dogs to be in the wild. “Problems in the wild” are the norm for the wild animal.

Some Indicators

Clap your hands and see if your dog opens its eyes. High energy dogs doze—they don’t sleep. Sounds triggered around a high energy, stressed dog always triggers them to open their eyes. This is one key indicator in determining if the dog is a high energy dog. It’s not conclusive, but it’s one of the most critical (and most easily overlooked) indicators.

Another indicator is “eyes down heads down.”

1. High energy dogs: eyelids go down first, head goes down second. They’ll fall asleep with their head up. You’ll see them do the “head bob,” like riders on a bus.
2. Low energy, relaxed, submissive dogs: the head goes down first, eyelids go down second.

The order gets reversed.

The Tradeoff at Muzzle Down

Based on RDL’s three-part dog, the physical dog relinquishes control and its brain shows up when its muzzle gets set down. See the FAQ entry on “How many parts of a dog are there?”

The Dozing Dog Versus the Sleeping Dog

The dozing dog points its muzzle down rather than laying it flat on the ground. This is Nature’s way of startling the dog, maintaining its dozing, and keeping it from falling asleep. Nature programs all wild animals this way to keep them alive in the wild… and in your living room—that’s a bad thing.

Low Energy, Relaxed, Voluntarily Submissive Dogs

Relaxed, voluntarily submissive dogs have cold, wet noses and relaxed, open mouth breathing.¹ The relaxed dog will put its head down first and will close its eyes second.

Low energy dogs, meanwhile, when sleeping, will typically lay on their sides. Low energy dogs will often have their nictitating membrane appear overtop their eyeballs.

^___
11) Panting and 2) stressed breathing are different from 3) relaxed, open mouth breathing.

The owner who says, “I know it’s me who needs the training” always has more success at the informal end of training. “Informal,” because training never ends, really…. This aligns with the idea that it’s about the human, not about the dog. It also parallels comments from successfully trained owners who’ve said that “dog training that targets dogs is complicated, ineffective, and confusing,” while human training is easy and works.

This is a HUGE elephant in the room→Owners who call—instead of having an assistant call—are almost always if not always more successful. Common sense says that if a minimum amount of time is needed to develop their relationship with their dog and to learn its foundation, and they’re starting off not being involved in the process, they’ve unconsciously shown their colors and have already started down their path.

Nature is non-linear. Nature addresses infinite things in every moment. Nature operates in parallel—humans operate serially.

Parallel processing touches on multi dimensional thinking. For more on dimensional thinking, see the FAQ entry elsewhere here on Dimensional thinking. →←↑↓

The Traditional Trainer’s Answer

One.

It’s just “a dog.”

The RDL Trainer’s Answer

The answer from an RDL (Reflective Dog Leadership) trainer or anyone bound by Nature, 3:

1. the physical dog, (The physical body in the 3D space)
2. the non-physical brain, (The dog’s individual recall)
3. and the non-physical mind. (Nature’s DNA programming)

They’re Two Different Paradigms

Immediately, then, traditional trainers and RDL trainers are on very different levels and cannot compare notes—they’re training using different paradigms that cannot be compared. The two groups are talking apples and oranges.

It’s also not a matter of “who’s right and who’s wrong,” because training methodology is just an opinion. All reasonable opinions are valid and respected.

It’ll be the “effectiveness numbers” or customer reviews that will ultimately show whose approach works better than others.

Reactivity is a narrative. It’s a label. It’s a human created, made up term. It’s something that’s been thought about and processed in somebody’s brain. Meanwhile…

…your dog just did a behavior. That behavior was a behavior you labeled “reactive,” but it was the dog’s behavior that was precisely its message. “How you labeled the behavior,” your labeling it “reactive” *ISN’T* its message. It’s a fine line, and it’s difficult to grasp, but it is critically important to bettering your relationship with your dog.

Narratives Disconnect You from Your Dog

Your label is a disconnection from your dog. If that statement doesn’t sound right to you, then you’re not understanding it correctly yet.

1. A dog does a behavior
2. The human sees its dog’s behavior → thinks about it → creates a narrative about it.
3. The human, thinking they’ve correctly identified their dog’s behavior, but they’ve actually ignored the dog and its behavior, and thus they’ve disconnected from their dog.

Reactivity is—in behavioral terms—a dog with a high energy level, a dog that barks, pulls, lunges, destroys, and so on. Dogs become high energy—they become “reactive”—through their owners not engaging with them. Creating narratives and creating labels engages in the thinking, but not in the experience of engaging with your dog.

The Executive Summary: engage with your dog. Don’t create narratives. Don’t create labels. Identify their behaviors and talk about their behaviors… because their behaviors *ARE* their communication. Ignoring your dog, you create for yourself the wild animal you don’t want over the long term.

Then, worse yet, in the end, when their dogs start becoming high energy, out of control dogs, owners typically start blaming their dog.

We need to stop doing this.
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For More Advanced Understanding, Consider This

1. Traditional training answers will point to (and blame) the dog.
2. An RDL answer points to the human and the human’s though processes, then involves the dog.

1. Traditional training will say “that’s a dog that’s high energy” or “that’s a dog that’s causing problems.”
2. RDL says “lacking interaction with their human owner, the dog’s energy level has increased, and Nature has taken over creating a wild dog.”

Note that both 1s, above mentions only the dog. Both 2s mention both the human *AND* the dog.

If we got our dog to love them, if we got our dogs to have relationships with them, why choose training that’s based on 1s above—without including ourselves in the picture? The picture of ourselves and our relationship with our dogs needs to include both ourselves and our dog, and the 2s above show us in our relationship with them.

Based on the same, common sense medical wisdom as that applied to humans, yes, relaxed, voluntarily submissive, low stress, RDL-trained (owners’s dogs) will probably live longer. In fifteen or twenty years, Nature will have revealed Her numbers and we’ll know.

With all the sensitivity I can muster, I hope that all clients keep in touch with me and to let me know about any Rainbow Bridge passings so the numbers can reveal themselves.

This also makes the case for the crossing of yet another of Nature’s invisible lines. The only way humans can be shown a pattern that takes twenty years to reveal itself is by letting twenty years go by to give it time to reveal itself. (Similarly, when a dog needs an extra, thirty seconds to get to the point where their planets are aligned and their ducks are in a row where they’re able to submit, patience is the thing that’ll get them to where they’re there and they can finally submit. Nature uses the same structure in both cases, only in different contexts.)

DOuGTrainer.com/boundaries

if you want to see the copy on the DOuGTrainer.com page

or click here to see it on YouTube: 

Golden retriever dam triggering puppies’ head shaking and the turning on of their brains (the establishing of boundaries)

Yes, since RDL is based on Nature and Nature’s holistic programming, it is itself holistic. No, traditional training programs typically are not holistic. Why that matters is a book unto itself.

There are basically two ways to train.

1. One way is to follow Nature’s holistic programming.
2. Another way is to try figuring things out on YouTube.

On YouTube, there is no guarantee or claim of any training program’s being holistic. Although it’s a great place to get ideas for how to train, each idea is based on and follows its own philosophy. Unless they specifically state that they’re modeling their approach after Nature, their holistic foundation’s qualities are left in a grey area, an elephant in the room, or swept under the rug.

In its simplest form, though, since Nature is holistic—and since RDL is based from its start on Nature—RDL succeeds as easily and as readily as Nature does. Paradoxically, RDL’s success is immediate but temporary; it gets solidified over time through consistent repetition.

In every moment, there’s not just one thing that can be done, there are multiple possibilities all the time that can be done. The multi dimensional thinker is aware of that, they’re aware of some of the options, and they choose from them, without thinking. If thinking gets done or if talking gets done, then that’s the line that—having crossed—puts things back into linear thinking.

Even more paradoxical, Nature targets and is more successful with the DOERS—than the thinkers. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Quora.com comment about a question concerning human interactions with dogs:

More depth to this rabbit hole can be garnered by pointing to this link on Reddit on dimensional thinking and dimensional culture.

No.

The argument is this: low energy dogs are best. High energy dogs have problems. Collars are intended to QUICKLY make a dog comply, but that compliance is coerced, so rather than DECREASING the dog’s energy and anxiety level, it INCREASES its energy level. Using collars will always fail because relaxed, voluntary submission from a dog—the lowering of its energy level—needs MORE time to happen, NOT LESS time. 

The best state for a dog to be in is when they’re sleeping—that reinforces the lowest energy possible, prevents Nature from puppeting the dog to do wild, destructive, out of control behaviors, communicates the dog’s having reached that low energy state, and confirms the dog’s submission to the human leader. In their submission is simultaneously the expression of their voluntary submission.

Voluntary submission, however, takes time. In order to submit, the dog has to check the metaphorical checkbox that says, “I trust you with my life.” This is common sense.

That submission therefore takes time, and it takes *MORE* time than less time. Even if *MORE* time is understood in a truly vague sense, then the failure of collars is still easily understood: voluntary submission takes time. Voluntary submission cannot be coerced.

Using a collar is a human bullying a dog. It’s not talked about in polite company, but not any more. No more sweeping it under a rug. No more leaving it an elephant in the room. With rare exception, coercive collars should not be used.

No. RDL doesn’t use collars… or treats, or medications, or clickers. Nature doesn’t use any of these, either—Nature understood they’re not needed for healthy relationships with your dog.

The use of collars is and are side effects of an impatient, bullying culture that expects and demands quick fixes for everything. Collars may appear to make things happen quickly, efficiently, and positively, but it’s at the expense of the dog’s relaxed, low energy level, voluntary submission, and zero stress level, and that’s a problem. 

1. The dog’s behavior isn’t voluntary
2. collar usage stresses out the dog
3. collar usage *appears* to make the dog relax
4. it always leaves the dog in a stressed, involuntary state, a stressful state that’s always left hidden from an unaware owner,
5. the trainer won’t talk about having introduced coercion and stress into the dog’s relationship it has with you nor the stress experienced within the dog themselves.

Nature doesn’t care how long it takes to get the dog to be relaxed and voluntarily submissive. Patience is the cornerstone and the foundation of the best relationship with your dog. Using collars goes against that foundation. Using collars goes against Nature.

First, reframe “good versus bad.” It’s never about simply being either good or bad, because it’s a matter of opinion. Reframe it for everything dog-related.

The DOuGTrainer’s opinion is they’re bad because they mimic the sounds of animals in the throes of death. DOuGTrainer doesn’t want to be reinforcing high energy prey drives, nor any high energy behaviors—because it’s the high energy dogs that have the problems.

Squeakers are put into toys to move toys off the shelf. Your dog doesn’t care. Your dog never makes the purchase—you do. 

There are three types of dog trainers.

1. Group #1 Trainers: Traditional Home Trainers
2. Group #2 Trainers: Traditional Trainers
3. Group #3 Trainers: RDL Trainers

Group #1 Trainers

Traditional home trainers are the 110,000,000 owners who get a dog not knowing how to raise them, and without any formal training methodology, guess at what’s going on and what has to happen to get a dog to be relaxed and submissive—to become a relaxed, voluntarily submissive follower. The best they can do the majority of the time is to have a dog that’s got a warm, dry nose, close mouth breathing, is hypersensitive to sounds and occasionally but not always gets into some kind of trouble.

Group #2 Trainers

Group #2 trainers comprise the 40,000 trainers, veterinarians, vet techs, dog walkers, and dog bathers who typically work with dogs for a living. Most do their work on a time-limited basis, following business models that limit the amount of time spent with the dog. Noting the short time frames is important. (See elsewhere, here.)

Group #3 Trainers

Group #3 trainers comprise two trainers, currently. The second RDL trainer lives in Baltimore, MD. Any trainer that wants to learn RDL training can contact The DOuGTrainer to discuss “Pay it Forward” training. For any Group #1 or Group #2 trainer wanting to learn RDL training, there’s potential for 100% scholarships, provided they can show a minimum of three years of having worked as a traditional trainer.

Dogs communicate through behavior. What dogs do is what they say—their behavior is their communication. Every moment,

1. what they do is what they do,
2. what they do is what they’re “saying,”¹
3. what they do tells you about the relationship between you and your dog.

When they want to communicate something different, they change their statements—their behaviors change. It’s so simple and so obvious, its point is missed.

When a dog owner doesn’t like what a dog is doing—they don’t know it, but—they’re simultaneously conceding that

1. they don’t like what the dog is communicating, 
2. they don’t like its message,
3. they don’t like the dog’s communication.

If a human doesn’t like what another human is saying, the words in the conversations change, new concepts are introduced, the topic gets discussed (they talk about their talking²) and when they iron out what needs ironing out, the disagreement between the humans has been addressed and the disagreement goes away.

• Humans change the conversation by talking differently about different things.
• Humans and dogs change the conversation through different behaviors and through behaving differently. The conversation is the behavior—the conversation change is the change of behavior.

It’s not training—it’s the changing of communication.

And remember, it’s always about the human. It always starts with the human. The dog is the one mirroring the human’s behaviors back to them.

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¹Since—although they’re saying it through their behavior—they’re NOT saying it through speech. That can be confusing until the context is understood.
²See Dimensional thinking elsewhere in this FAQ.

I Know How I Feel, and My Dog Feels the Same Way

If I look at my dog and I feel a connection, if I unknowingly package that feeling, if I imagine my dog is feeling the same thing, and then state that my dog is feeling the same connection with me that I’m feeling with it—how do I know that? The imagining that my dog is feeling the same thing *IS* the projection. Actor Jim Carrey says, “The eyes can be a screen as well as a projector.”

I’ve never been in my dog’s head, I’ve never looked back at myself from my dog’s eyes, but somehow I’m able to claim that I know what’s going on on the inside of my dog.

We do that a lot. Granted, it’s fun in an existential way, but it’s not accurate, it’s not valid, and I and others would claim that it’s harmful to having the best relationship possible with your dog. It shows a disconnect from a person’s awareness of what’s really going on. Don’t shoot the messenger. 

Going Further down the Rabbit Hole

What proof do I have that my dog is feeling that? 

What proof do I have that my dog—or any dog—experiences feelings?

“HAVING AN OPINION ABOUT DOGS’ ABILITIES TO HAVE FEELINGS” is not proof. An opinion is just an opinion, not fact. When anybody can conclusively prove that dogs have feelings, and that the feelings they experience are EXACTLY the same feelings as the feelings you and I experience, I’ll be the first to jump ship.

Until then, if anyone HAD been able to prove that, we would all know about it. But because nobody has been able to show it, and because there ISN’T a proof that it’s true, then nobody’s been able to prove it and it’s still unproven. I call that Refutation by Omission. Google it. I’ve written about it on Quora.com.

Yes, in a few, simple steps, but to truly understand them, it has to be experienced, not typed about.¹ It’s a dance—not a set of instructions explaining what has to be done to do the dance.

Number 1—Getting Outside What Needs to Be Outside

1. Dogs live by and through patterns—learned patterns.²
2. Small spaces trigger puppies to keep those small spaces clean—it’s Nature’s programming.³
3. Placing your puppy in a small space in (2) triggers your puppy’s natural trigger to keep it clean.
4. However, the natural urge to void eventually comes face to face with list item (2) and list item (3).
5. All dogs in the situation in list item (4) will communicate distress: “I’ve gotta go!”⁴
6. You detect—or not—their communication. ⁴
7. Take the dog out to their preestablished bathroom area.
8. Rinse and repeat.

“Indoor clean, outdoor bathroom.” That’s the first part of the process—getting the pooping and peeing happening outside. The next part is the larger, more general establishing of a broader pattern by the human—the growing of the small, indoor space to the larger space of the entire home. In many cases, it’s what the human—unaware—starts doing first, but doing so without the understanding that they’re doing it in opposition to what Nature’s doing at the same time.

#2—Getting that Small, Inside Space to Be Your Entire Home

Assume the puppy has learned indoor clean, outdoor bathroom, through which you’ve learned yet another level of patience. You’ve learned about communication. You’ve learned about awareness, the importance of awareness, and you’ve learned some of the lines of awareness and where and how those lines get established, identified, and especially when those lines get crossed, as well as the phrase, “It’s an inside job,” and the importance of the awareness of the phrase and its source.

1. Wait for your dog to communicate the need to go outside to its bathroom area.
2. Take the dog to its bathroom area. Do not reward with praise—reward with submission and eye contact.⁵
3. After three or four days of appropriate, no indoor peeing or pooping, double the indoor space to see if the dog will generalize from its smaller space to the slightly larger space. Keep doubling every three or four days until the eventual doubling results in the entire home. If they pee or poop indoors, you’ve gone too fast, or you’ve given them too much space and the small space trigger wasn’t triggered. Go back to the previous setup that DID work, and reconfirm that pattern again for three or four days. Rinse and repeat.

It’s not about the teaching of the puppy the bathroom behavior, per se. In simple or complex form as outlined below, it’s about the more general idea of a dog’s location awareness, the application of a preprogrammed, inside trigger, and the human’s ability to see themselves outside of themselves, helping another animal and another soul to change their patterns slightly for the benefit of the human.

Whew!

In summary, then, in two different ways, two different levels, or two different complexities:

The Simple Understanding

1. Dogs keep small spaces clean
2. Dogs will tell us when they have to go
3. Take them outside when the time arises
4. Slowly make their small spaces larger
5. Rinse and repeat

The Complex, “Going Down All the Rabbit Holes” Way

1. the human learns that it’s the human whose being taught about what preprogrammed bathroom programming triggers Nature already has in place inside every dog
2. the human applies the concept of their different, mental cameras (addressed elsewhere in this FAQ) to themselves and their dog’s relationship
3. the human learns more about their relationship with their dog
4. the human reframes (addressed elsewhere in this FAQ) the concept of projection of their stuff onto their dog
5. the human becomes aware of their awarenesses
6. the human becomes more aware of their levels of consciousness and their internal lines between levels of consciousness and unconsciousness
7. the human learns to look for, encourage, and nurture healthy patterns in their dog’s behavior
8. the human learns about their dog’s methods of communicating
9. the human learns that their communication is about their own behavior, and is less about what they say
10. the human modifies their behaviors over time to get their dog to change their behaviors based on Nature’s foundational behavior that Nature already has in place
11. the human learns how rewarding with praise is substandard to rewarding with submission
12. the human learns to challenge existing beliefs when anecdotal evidence is in direct opposition to the beliefs being supported
13. patience manifests itself as a tool that continually and repeatedly works to the human’s advantage

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¹Why does it have to be experienced rather than talked about? Paradoxically, a relationship is a cutting edge experience—something that’s participated, done, experienced, breathed. There’s no time to talk about it. Talking stops the experiencing of the experience. Talking about it takes the experience out of being an experience and the talking about it takes it out of the moment. Thinking is done over time, always in the past. Thinking isn’t done in the moment. Nature demands that the relationship get experienced—and that experience happens in the moment, without the thinking and without the talking.
²Dogs are pattern recognition units on four paws.
³What’s the first thing most owners do with their dog? They give them full run of the home—the opposite of the thing that would trigger its small space trigger—so they poop and pee everywhere. Stop and THIMK about that.
⁴You learn communication… or not. Detecting it or not detecting it—this is a cornerstone of training. “It’s an inside job.” If you do you do, but if you don’t you don’t. You may never realize you didn’t… unless you do. It’s the paradox of awareness and (human) training.

If you detect their communication indoors before they do their business indoors, your education helps you learn what you need so they eventually learn to poop and pee outside. If you DON’T detect their communication, you’ll have poop and pee inside. It’s an instantaneous appearance of a level (of both learning and awareness) that cannot be ignored, although this, current culture has taught us and nurtured us to dismiss it. In a culture that dismisses ”the discussion of the unconscious dismissing of important topics,“ the topic of “unconscious dismissals” needs its own chapter and book. This unfortunately goes beyond the scope of this FAQ entry.

The human must be aware of this. If the human *ISN’T* aware of this, we’ve had a problem.
⁵Praise raises energy levels, and since it’s the high energy dogs that are the dogs that have the problems, rewarding with praise is the opposite of the direction you want to have the energy changing. Reward with submission.

Yes.

Once or twice a day for about a week or so, grab the leash and walk around inside the home, going about your business for a minute while ignoring your dog—more on why on that in just a bit.

It’s time to learn more about your own consciousness levels. You’ve unconsciously trained your dog to have a high energy level:

1. around the leash,
2. in announcing you’re going for a walk,
3. by the clinking sounds of the leash,
4. through the clicking of the leash,
5. and through other behaviors while on walks.

Instead, start consciously training your dog to be at a low energy level, 99% of the time.

1. Don’t announce anything.
2. Start consciously training them to be at a low energy level
   1. when you touch the leash,
   2. when they hear the sound of the leash rattling,
   3. before they get their leash put on,
   4. as you walk to the front door,
   5. walking out the front door,
   6. walking down the sidewalk,
   7. and anything else having to do with their walk,
   8. or any time you see their energy levels increase.

On Indoor, Non-walking Leash Grabs

Once or twice a day for about a week, grab the leash but ignore your dog. Walk around the house with the leash in your hand, continuing to ignore your dog. Put the leash back in its place, close the door or drawer, and continue your day as usual. Other times during the week, when you really DO want to go for a walk—go for a walk. Always keep their energy levels low during the walk. Don’t connect the leash until the dog does a progress to submission, some small decrease in their energy level, first—perhaps sitting, or lying down, or looking at you for three to five seconds. Get them to make eye contact with you. Always have them do something for you before you do something for them. Careful, aware eye contact drives everything.

However, be extremely cautious about making eye contact with any dog that might be triggered to become aggressive—especially with the bigger breeds. If you don’t know what you’re doing, or if you don’t know what you’re NOT doing, DON’T DO IT—get yourself a knowledgable, aware, non-aggressive trainer.

Why Touching the Leash Indoors Works

By walking around the house and putting the leash away, you give your dog a new pattern to figure out. You give your dog a pattern that’s different from the pattern you’ve previously established, which had been “When I grab a leash, 100% of the time we’re going for a walk.” Your new pattern now communicates a different result to the dog.

Now, the dog won’t know—when the leash gets touched—if they’re going for a walk. Their energy level decreases because until the leader decides whether or not this time is a walk or not, there’s no pattern that says, “LEASH! High energy!” Their overall energy levels will decrease. Further decrease in their energy levels come from your becoming aware of your (previously unconscious) part in the process.

Previously, when the leash was touched, the sound of the leash guaranteed a walk. Their energy level would increase. Their energy levels skyrocketed.

Introducing the two minute walking around with the leash in hand without going for a walk decreases their energy level.