How to Raise a Jewish Dog (5 page)

Traditional methods of dog training involve using rewards and punishments to bribe or coerce the dog into doing what we want
her to do, rather than what she wants to do. In time, the dog learns to anticipate the reward or the punishment, and behaves
in ways she thinks will generate the former and prevent the latter.

Does it work? Sure—if you want to turn yourself into some kind of tyrant in order to teach your dog to be a robot.

We take a different approach. We don’t train the dog that way because we don’t believe in training.

Instead, we believe in
learning to work with the dog to solve problems.

We teach the owner to use love and verbal communication, augmented by a variety of facial expressions, to establish a relationship
with the dog in which:

•
The owner teaches the dog what he or she wants of the dog.

•
The dog teaches the owner what he (the dog) can or can’t do or provide.

•
The two work together to solve a given problem.

It may sound difficult and complicated, but it’s really quite simple. Study the five-stage cycle that follows and note that
everything you do with the dog, every interaction, from the most playful to the most exasperating, will come under one or
another of its headings. We explain each stage in greater detail after the diagram.

“Unconditional Love” (stage 1 of training cycle): Dog is pampered and adored.

1. Unconditional Love:
First, establish a preliminary bond with the dog with lavish, effusive love by doting on her, squealing over her, and the
like. Deny her nothing, or pretend to deny her something and then “give in” and give it to her anyway. Be tickled and delighted
by everything she does. This is the easiest and most intuitive step in the process, since it’s the reason we have a dog in
the first place. Be sure, when expressing this love, to announce it, not only to the dog, but to family, friends, relatives,
neighbors, fellow dog walkers, and complete strangers, so long as the dog is present to witness it.

Using a digital camera, take numerous photos of the dog. Document everything she does: sleeping, eating, playing, walking
around the home, staring off into space. Send these photos, via cable modem or other high-speed broadband Internet connection,
copiously annotated with your adoring comments, to all of your friends and relatives. If possible, set up a Web site or a
blog, making the photos and commentary available to everyone on Earth.

2. The Great Betrayal:
Now “training” begins. Teach the dog some command, either affirmative (“Sit when I say
sit
”) or negative (“Do not jump onto the good sofa”). But be sure, when doing so, to
act as though the dog already knows everything she is supposed to be learning.
How? Through the use of attitude, vocal inflection, and certain effective words and phrases, which we will discuss. The idea
is to convey to the dog that she already knows what you know because
the two of you are essentially the same creature.
In fact, at the Seminary we have a saying: “We never ‘teach.’ We
remind.
”

If the dog obeys, good for you. But she won’t. When she doesn’t, act stunned and incredulous as though you have been betrayed.
Because you have.

“The Great Betrayal” (stage 2): Owner is stunned that the dog disobeys the please- get- off- the- chair command.

“Conditional Unconditional Love” (stage 3): Owner is devastated that the dog acts this way “after I’ve done nothing but love
and adore you.”

3. Conditional Unconditional Love:
Tell the dog, and anyone within earshot, that you can’t believe she’s acting like this
after everything you’ve done for her.
Use such phrases as “this is the thanks I get” and “I don’t know why I bother” and “why don’t you just tear out my heart
and eat it.”

Ask the dog, “Why am I doing this? Why am I giving, giving, giving, if I’m getting nothing back?” The dog may look confusedly
at you, as though to ask, “What happened to ‘unconditional love’?” If so, administer the Preemptive Admonition and say, “Don’t
get smart with me.”

Tell her, and any bystanders, that you are not punishing her for behaving badly “because that would be like punishing yourself.”
Instead, you are expressing deep disappointment in the fact that she is even capable of “treating you this way.”

Explain, with exaggerated patience and “calm,” that her not-sitting harms you because it makes you look like a bad master
(or mistress) to the whole world. Her jumping on the good sofa harms you because,
as she well knows,
you’ve explicitly told her not to do it. Remember that, in this example, the object of the bad behavior—the entity that has
suffered because of her badness—is not the sofa. It is you, the owner, who loves her so much.

Having done that, make sure that the dog and most, if not all, the dogs and owners in the vicinity are watching you, and then
collapse, sobbing, in a heap.

We call this “guilting the dog.” It alerts the dog to the fact that she has misbehaved and establishes the condition for stage
4.

Note: For milder forms of rebuke, see “Correction and Punishment,” p. 56.

4. Comfort and Reconciliation:
Remaining in a heap, stop sobbing and repeat the command or the lesson once more, but be sure to use the Tone of Exhausted
Defeat. Instead of saying “Sit!” say, “So you really don’t want to sit?” Rather than saying “Off the sofa! No!” say, with
a sigh, “If it’s so important for you to be on the sofa . . .”

Then, placing yourself up close to the dog,
allow her to comfort you.
This is an important part of the owner-dog relationship we mentioned earlier, in which now the dog has a turn at being the
alpha.

And now you comfort the dog. Release her from guilt by saying to her
directly:

a.
“I know better than to react the way I just did.”

b.
“It’s just that, as soon as something goes wrong, I go a little crazy! I start making demands and feeling betrayed and victimized.
But at least I
know
that. I guess I’m still working on it.”

“Comfort and Reconciliation” (stage 4): Dog, successfully “guilted,” consoles owner.

c.
“Anyway, I’m sorry for being insensitive to your feelings.”

d.
“I want you, and the world, to know that I’m more enlightened, more self-aware, and more evolved than that.”

Then apologize to the dog and to everyone else in the vicinity.

5. Enlightened Acceptance:
Give up and immediately undo or withdraw the command. If, for example, you’ve told her to sit so you can put on her leash,
and she fails to do so, say, “Look, it’s not that important,” and put the leash on her while she’s jumping around. If you’ve
told her (a hundred times) not to eat the Kleenex in the bathroom wastebasket, but she insists on doing so, place the wastebasket
up on the counter where she can’t reach it. Bear in mind that the primary goal, in this stage of the training, is to solve
the problem. The secondary goal is to not give yourself a migraine teaching the animal something it obviously is never going
to learn.

“Enlightened Acceptance” (stage 5): Owner and dog reach agreement to share chair regardless of how uncomfortable it is for
both of them. Problem solved!

Initiating this procedure will trigger a sequence of important effects.

•
At first the dog will not know what she has done wrong.

•
But she will assume she’s done
something
wrong because “obviously” you love her, and you wouldn’t act this way if she hadn’t done anything wrong.