Since childhood, I have felt that sharing is highly overrated. I’ve just never been a fan. It’s not that I want others to go without, I just want everyone to have their own and for everyone to leave mine alone. From the outside, it may seem that I’m selfish and rude, but the fact is, I would prefer to buy you your own bag of M&M’s rather than share a bag with you. Yes, I’m a resources guarder.

Resource guarding (protecting of stuff) is normal. We all do it to some degree. You may lock your car doors or hold on tight to your purse when you’re in public. We protect our belongings, our loved ones, our ideas, our jobs and many other resources.

Have you ever witnessed the embarrassing spectacle of a tourist attempting to communicate with someone who does not speak his language by talking VE-RY LOUD-LY and VE-RY SLOW-LY? It’s not a pleasant experience for anyone. The speaker gets frustrated because the listener still doesn’t understand, while the listener now thinks that the speaker is kind of a jerk. Watching people talk to their dogs frequently reminds me of such scenes. We talk and talk and talk. Our poor dogs do their best to figure out what we’re trying to say, and often succeed in spite of us. When they fail to get the message, however, we tend to blame the dogs rather than our own foolish insistence on attempting to communicate in a manner that they cannot understand. This leads to all sorts of trouble for dogs.

Today I was at a moving sale for a fellow dog trainer and a couple of things popped into my head. One was that I was incredibly lazy and why do I expect more from my clients then I am often willing to do myself. Too many irons in the fire, but a lot of grand plans none the less and 2) keeping access to training simple, along with the exercises we give to our students and clients can go a long way to compliance.

The lazy thing is a completely different blog and I need to come to some self realization before writing more on that. However, the keeping it simple part I can write about since it is so fresh in my brain.

While at my colleague's house I see this silver contraption folded up on the floor of her dining room as I was rifling through her for sale items and I asked her what it was. She proceeded to inform me that it was an exercise contraption for which I have already forgotten its name.

Frequently we hear that if your dog doesn't know that you are boss he will walk all over you, try to take over the household, control food or things. It is also frequently advised that if there are children in the home that the dog should be "beneath them". The idea is that if your dog knows that you are the "leader" and "in charge" then he will not challenge you and the dog will never rule your life...

In order to show your dog who is the boss we are told to do the following things:
- Never let your dog lie on you or gain height (as per the photo)!
- Eat before your dog by pretending to eat from their bowl
- Walk through doorways before your dog to show them that you are more important than them
- Don't let your dog pull you on your walks as you should lead the hunt
- Show your dog that ALL items are yours by frequently removing toys and putting your hand into the food bowl
- Stand in your dogs bed
- Scruff your dog
- Stare your dog down