When you change the way you looks at things, the things you look at change. Even with your dog's behaviour!

(Quote attributed to Wayne Dyer)

I came across this quote a little while after I had adopted my dog, Jasmin, and at the time I had been really struggling with her reactive behaviour. We had been doing training from day-one and going to classes, but things just weren't improving.

I don't know where I came across this quote, but the words really struck me.

When I changed the way I was looking at it, a change would happen! This intrigued me.

Ok, I thought, so, if I change the way I looked at her behaviour, her behaviour would change!?

Hmm, what if instead of looking at why SHE was doing this behaviour, and driving me nuts and why the training wasn't working, I looked at WHY she was doing this behaviour.

Rather than focusing on her outward displays of behaviour, I started to look at, find out and learn about the underlying reasons of her behaviour.

I wanted to understand WHY my dog was behaving the way she was, as well as why the traditional training techniques I'd been trying and I was being taught, were not working.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.

Embodying this quote opened my eyes and really did give me a completely different way of looking at my dog and her behaviour!

It completely changed the way I not only trained my dog but how I lived with her. For the first time, I could feel a bond with her start to form. Then grow. She started to respond to me and I still remember the first time I asked her to give me her paw (something I had been trying to teach her for about 12months so I could dry her feet on wet days) and she tentatively lifted her paw up, I nearly erupted with joy! She was listening! She was beginning to trust me! At last!

Because I decided to change the way I was looking at my dog’s reactivity, the changes happened!

So if you're in a similar position I was in, if you're confused or angry about your dog’s behaviour, why they're not listening to you, why they don't ‘respect you’, or maybe thinking they're doing things to ‘spite you’ and all those types of thoughts, I offer you this quote.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.

Location: Littlehampton, UK

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