But, do you agree?👇 In this community, we prioritize: ✔️ Mental health over perfection ✔️ Safety over convenience ✔️ Not being married to ANY brand ✔️ Celebrating every win with our 🐶 Wait, no obedience?! I know, weird coming from me... I've been interviewing dozens of FF/Positive trainers and working with multiple locally over the last 20 months, and here's what stood out to me most: MANY (not all) "obedient" dogs (in the traditional sense) are often compliant👇 What does that mean? It means there are too many dogs offering behaviors to appease us, when they may not be completely comfortable with the ask Just watch social media for 10 minutes with an animal behaviorist - and they will show you how so many of these "obedient" dogs are uncomfortable, unhappy and simply “complying” instead of truly living a life true to who they are It's a testament to how loyal and forgiving 🐕’s are... But it begs the question: is your dog "obedient" or are they just compliant? Are they eager to work with you, are they WANTING to listen to you? Or are they simplyiny complying out of fear/discomfort? I am still figuring this out & obviously I am not an behaviorist, but I've been learning from experts that have opened my eyes to a new world of working *with* my dogs A world where my priority is now building confidence in new situations, resiliency and trust between us A world where i spend more time looking at the world from the lens of of my dog's perspective, and creating an environment for them to thrive.. And guess what I've seen? ALL "obedience" behavior improve in my dogs 👏 A local trainer I worked with made a great point: "Obedience is relatively easy to teach at most any age. Sit, down, heel, that's the simple part. But do you have a dog that you truly understand? That follows your guidance out of trust, not fear or blind compliance? To me, that's the goal." No judgement on how you work with your dog, and of course this is over generalized - but the sentiment remains the same. A mentally healthy and sound dog, comfortable and confident in a variety of settings, is (in my opinion) a happy dog... and that's my focus, not a perfect heel or down stay (even tho i practice DO practice those!), but a happy dog Last point: to be abundantly clear, i LOVE working on obedience/cues/tricks with my dogs. We practice this weekly. But my priorities are changing to focus on working WITH my dog, & truly understanding their POV 🙏 #dogmomlife #dogtraining #dogmomstruggles #dogsoftiktok #newpuppy #dogmomproblems #dogsarefamily