Dog Training Leads to Egotism and Narcissism
I was asked by Robert Hynes to think about what dog training and trainers tell people to do with their dogs, with the hypothesis that it pushes the humans into going down the route of seeking to control and manage everything in the dog’s life, which brings out narcissistic tendencies. I agree with the hypothesis and came to the conclusion that egotism is a big part of it too. So I had better explain;
I'll share some of my personal journey to bring some clarity to those inflammatory introductory statements.
I started my journey into dog training fully onboard with the balanced training ideology. I was a fan of and used slip leashes on my two dogs to get them to walk how I wanted them to walk. Essentially to have them under physical control to the point they wouldn't do anything unless I specifically allowed it.
I remember when my dogs had been beaten into genuine heel walking, I used to enjoy the comments from people about how well they behaved on walks. My friends and neighbours were in awe of me heel walking two Tibetan Mastiff's simultaneously. I used to get texts from the trainer I hired when she drove past me complimenting me on how good the dogs were. Random strangers would comment too.
Yes my dogs were good heel walkers, I had beaten it into them via strangulation with the slip leash. It looked great. The comments felt great. Those comments served as both social proof I was doing it right and as an ego boost that I was doing things other people couldn't. To be able to publicly demonstrate control of two large fierce dogs really does touch a deep part of us that brings out an inflated sense of self worth and superiority against ones peers. A form of showing off or preening if you will. Why those terms? Because it was all a charade.
Deep down I knew something was missing, that it was a show. I knew the moment the leash was off my dogs would turn into hectic circus acts that would do whatever they wanted and pretty much ignore me. That's the thing with dogs, they won't ever shy away from telling you how they feel once there's no threat of punishment.
I'm utterly ashamed of what I did to my dogs back then, and as a result of much introspection since then, I have retained a deep seated and burning hatred of aversive tools - my dogs showed fear based behaviours as 6 month old puppies and my response to those fear based behaviours was to strangle my dogs into submission. Not to have empathy or to seek to understand those fears, or to act like a leader concerned about their wellbeing, ready to show them how to overcome their fears, but to strangle them into submission with a slip leash. They were scared, and still childlike really at 6 through to 18 months old, and the one person they should be able to trust above all in the world responded to their fears by forcibly imprinting his will onto them by strangulation. Thinking about it still induces rage in me, years later.
The only reasons I ever went down that road were;
1) I was told to by experts and didn’t know any better myself;
2) I gained physical control (yes the tools work, you get control, but there’s a price to pay) and the ego trip I got from people seeing me presenting that charade of being in control to the big wide world. People genuinely stood in awe of two Tibetan Mastiff’s being heel walked perfectly in public.
All I actually had was what looked like control, but other people wanted what I presented as having openly, but weren't "skilled" enough to get it. I was special. See the ego trip and narcissistic tendencies yet?
Underneath all that, my dogs didn't trust me, and it showed in other areas of our lives, but that is a story for another time.
Thankfully I came to the realisation that what I was doing to my dogs was never going to get me the dogs that I wanted, and because I changed direction and went on to build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect, not control, I now have dogs that trust me and want to be with me and follow me, of their own free will. The difference is almost immeasurable in how fulfilling my relationship with my dogs actually is compared to under "dog training". What I have now is what was meant to be. I have man's best friend. It’s splashed all over my YouTube channel if you wish to see the proof of the pudding.