The Puppywishes Blog | Expert Dog Training | Dog Owner Enlightenment

The purpose of this page is to provide you with some of the most interesting, helpful and insightful dog training information available on the internet. And when we say dog training, what we really mean is dog owner education.

This webpage will work like a blog, in that we will be adding additional 'chapters' to the text as the year unfolds. Step by step, we hope to unveil a way of thinking that will help dog owners reach a deeper understanding of what it means to own a dog.

The logs/chapters here have been written by expert dog trainer and best selling author Corey Reddick. However, as the year unfolds, other experienced dog trainers may contribute to this wonderful adventure. The goal here is to help dog owners keep their pets for as long as life will allow.

INTRODUCTION
What Is A Forever Dog?

Added Saturday, December 29th, 2007

I do not know who first put the phrase “Forever Dog” in my head. If I think hard I can recall the story of a homeless dog, a dog that was abused and abandoned in an animal shelter. The manager of this shelter posted a letter on the internet. She wrote, “Desperately seeking a forever home…”

Finding a home for a puppy is simple; finding a home for a full grown dog is easy. But finding someone who is able to commit to the word “forever”, now, that is where we run into some real hardship.

The Americans for Divorce Reform estimates that probably forty or possibly even fifty percent of marriages will end in divorce. Wow! Think about that. Almost half of all people who commit to staying in a loving relationship will bow out and say, “I do not love you anymore”.

With this in mind, I would ask you to think of the last lover in your life. Think of his/her face, the nights you spent together, the things you said, and how your love died. Did you purposefully bail out? Probably not. Rather, life happened. Things of which you could not possibly conceive at the onset of your relationship became real. Occurrence by occurrence, drop by drop, thread by tread, you fell out of love. At first it was painful.

You cried. You related to almost every sad song on the radio. Your heart was broken, you were broken, and for a moment you believed that you would never recover from the pain.

Look at you now.

How long ago was it that your heart was first broken? How many times has it been broken since? And if you look at the love in your life now, are you really willing to take your vows? Can you really love your partner forever?

Before you answer that question, let us break away from the subject of lovers and venture into the area of parenthood. Two percent of unmarried women, at any age, place their children for adoption. This may sound like a small number, but let’s do the math. The current (2006), world population is 6,547,104,021. Two percent of this is 130,942,080. This means that the number of women who give up their children is much greater than the total population of New York City, which is 19,254,630.

Pause.

Think.

Take your eyes off your computer screen and consider what you have just learned. Relationships are hard to maintain. Whether they are between man and wife or mother and child, some of the most important relationships shared between human beings end in separation, divorce, or worse.

When you consider how hard it is for people to stay connected to other people, what chance do non-human animals have in our lives?

It has been estimated that more than 50% of all dogs adopted into human homes will be given away, abandoned, or put to death before they reach one year of age. This figure does not even include dogs that are kept in deplorable conditions: chained in back yards, left in basements, choked, beaten, and starved.

I believe we can all benefit from a greater understanding of our own commitments. Why do we change our minds? Why do we give up? Why do we say goodbye to dogs that we know we love?


People & Pets

My own life experiences have taught me many truths. As a dog trainer I have learned a great deal about dog owners. But more important, as a human who loves other people, I have learned to understand the ghosts that haunt many dog owners.

In life we are all destined to meet other people. Some of these people will enrich our lives with a quality of love that helps us soar.

Then again, some of these people will hurt us financially, physically, emotionally and spiritually. When we get hurt it is very difficult for us to recover.

We bruise easily. And when we are bruised we often care for our damage as if our damage were all we had to care for. We become nurse maids to our own sorrow. We wrap ourselves in bandages so as to guard our souls from future hurt, and while doing so we often distance ourselves from the things that cause us pain. What is it that causes us the deepest pain? Other people.

Many dog owners have developed a love for dogs as a direct result of their disappointment in the human race. Over the years I have heard many women say, “I would get rid of my husband before I would give up my dog.” Most of the time this is said in jest, however, to
quote the old cliché, “Many a truth is spoken in jest.”

There exists in the world today a global belief that dogs are more loyal, loving, and nurturing than people. If you hold this belief you could be heading towards great disappointment, as a dog owner, as well as a human being.



The Wonder And Simplicity of Dogs.

The first sign of becoming an ineffective dog owner can be seen in your willingness to believe that your dog can help heal past trauma.

Your husband left you, so you purchased a dog,

You feel lonely, so you purchased a dog,

You don’t like people, so you purchased a dog,

You are depressed, so you purchased a dog.

You may believe that any one of the above reasons is valid. You may believe one of them so strongly that you cannot fathom why it is wrong. What you may be failing to perceive is that any one of the above reasons takes away your power. Let’s look at things differently. I will rewrite the above observations and put the word “man” in the place of “dog”.

Your husband left you, so you found a new “man”

You feel lonely, so you purchased a “man”

You don’t like people, so you purchased a “man”

You feel depressed, so you purchased a “man”

When I type the word “man” in the place of “dog”, we suddenly start to see the disempowering affects of believing that anyone one, or anything, can take ownership of the way we feel.

Let us presume that you are a woman caught up in the unpleasantness of a divorce. If I suggested that you needed a man to make you feel better, you may feel insulted. But if I was to suggest that you need a dog, you may feel more open to the suggestion. Why? Because a dog did not just break your heart. A dog did not hire a lawyer. A dog did not leave your for another woman. Does this mean dogs are better than people? Of course not. It simply means that they do not posses the physical or mental capabilities to act like wayward men.


The Dark Side Of Dogs

Ironically, although most dog lovers like to glorify dogs, on some level, a level that is rarely talked about, we also know that dogs do have a dark side. After all, although many people love dogs because they do not like other people, we still use the words “dog” or “bitch” to describe disagreeable human behavior. What do we call men that cheat on their wives? “Dogs.” And what do we call women who cheat on their husbands? “Bitches.”

A vital aspect of learning to keep your dog forever has to do with building and maintaining realistic expectations. If you think that your dog should never cause you stress, you are bound to be disappointed or even embittered when you discover that dogs, like people, can cause us just as much grief as they do joy. The goal of this "blog" page is to help you deal with the problems dogs cause before the problems deal with you.

( ... to be continued - click here )