Rock Solid Dog Training

10/11/2026

Frustration

So a few weeks back I wrote about Penny and her new eye problems. Over the Labor Day weekend Penny ended up hurting her left eye (her right eye had already been removed after her lens luxated) and losing sight in it. We were concerned that even with the eye damaged they would have to remove it and for a 15.5 year old dog, that is not trivial. The surgery itself is not a huge deal but putting her under and all that at her age is not the greatest of ideas.

The good news was that the eye pressures caused by glaucoma had gone down by the following Tuesday and her eye looked quite a bit better. She was more comfortable and we decided to just keep on with the current series of drops which had done a good job. We also got an appointment with an eye specialist.

We have really great vets and I like them and am very comfortable with them. They listen, they discuss things with us and will tell us flat out when it may be time to go to the next level. While we were certain that we couldn't help Penny see again, we could make sure she was comfortable going forward.

Amy brought her to the eye specialist this week and the only thing I can say is wow. The vet was terrific. He drew pictures of what was happening, recognized what the other vets did not (she had luxated this lens also) and came up with a plan to keep the eye and keep her comfy. He changed her meds around a bit to make it easier for her humans and adjust to appropriate levels of meds which has been super helpful.

My takeaway from this was, this is one of the best specialty vets that we have worked with. The folks at the ER were super nice but didn't have expertise (and told us the lens was still in place) our regular vet, same thing. It is a reminder about vets, they have to be prepared to deal with a wide scope of general issues and many are great at that. When they tell you they don't know, believe them and take the next step if you can.

But none of this has to do with the title of the article, it is just a bonus lesson :).

Watching Penny over the last few weeks has showed me a lot of very useful things. She has done a very good job of mapping the house. She still bumps into things but when she is allowed to move at her own pace and things haven't been moved she has been fine.

Two mornings ago I took her off the bed and put her on the floor. She walked out into the hallway, looped into the kitchen and headed for the steps. She stopped a little short of the stairs and worked her way slowly to them. She popped down the first flight no problem, made the turn and went down the next set and went right to Amy to go outside. It really had me thinking that she may be able to see more that we thought but no.

Last evening Penny had come back to visit me in the hobby room (she does a nightly roam which is an old dog thing). I had moved the stool that is in front of my airbrush station as I had sat on it to do some work. I didn't put it back in place so when Penny came in and looped, the stool wasn't there and she ran into the table that is near the wall. She then turned and ran into the stool and then into the chest of drawers. At this point she was trying hard to figure out what happened and continued to run into things until I grabbed the little leash that is attached to her collar for a little easier guidance.

I petted her a bit and settled her down, then moved the stool back to the right spot, lined her up with the door and let her go. She walked right out to the hallway and went on her way. She came back about 20 minutes later, walked right over to me and sat to get petted. When she was done, she got up and left the room to continue her roaming rounds. What a difference a little calm makes!

I am not 100% sure that dogs get frustrated, but based on years of teaching and now just simply watching Penny when things are not where they are supposed to be, I would say yes.

As I have watched people working with their dogs over the years I have seen a lot of this frustration which quickly becomes a combo platter. Dog gets frustrated with not understanding what the human wants and the human getting frustrated because the dog is not doing what they want. In the end it is almost always the human who is at fault. They have changed the context for what they are doing, not signaling the same or using the wrong word which causes a best guess from your dog.

I know over all of our years of training together Penny was often frustrated because I was inconsistent. I was training multiple dogs of my own that had different words or signals, some stressed me out and others I was too relaxed with all of which can cause chaos in the relationship.

Penny's sign of frustration when we were training was to act randomly. She tried to come up with different solutions to the problems she was presented with because you didn't like her first two (even though they were right). As we spent more time together it became her bumping me to let me know I was ticking her off, stop it. Now I see it in a bit of a panic that she presents. She can't figure out what she needs to do in order to move freely through the room. That becomes the time to act.

Penny is a really smart girl, most of the time she has been too smart for me. However as she has aged she has asked for more guidance with things but I have to take the time to notice that she is looking for that. She has also begun to trust us more and be a little less stubborn and let us help her. She has learned to pace herself a bit and not smash the little pink feeler (Brittany nose) while she is finding her way through life.

What frustrates your dog? Have you addressed it? Truthfully many of the folks I have done one on ones with in the last few years generally don't recognize the signs that it is the human and not the dog who has the issue. Fortunately humans are relatively easy to fix (and that is a lie to make people feel better).

-Dave

[Today's picture is of Mapping Penny!]

10/11/2026

New Content tomorrow!

10/04/2026

Be curious!

Curiosity

A few weeks back I was asked about what made someone good at IT (computer stuff)?

There obvious things, liking technology for example, understanding how that technology fits into a business and knowing what to do when something isn't working (troubleshooting skills).

To me the biggest thing however is a balanced curiosity.

There is balanced curiosity and unbalance curiosity.

Balanced curiosity allows someone to seek additional understanding about something while being respectful of the potential impacts that it could have. This is the reason that you don't see a lot of people straight out of college taking on a CEO role in a company. They lack the experience to know what happens when they make a decision that "sounds like a good idea" and they lack the understanding of the consequences of those decisions.

Unbalance curiosity is more of someone saying "watch this" just before they go off and do something that is harmful to themselves and/or others. Almost nothing good has come after the words "watch this" and even fewer after "hold my b**r and watch this".

I was working at McDonald's when I was 16 and worked there until I went away to school at 20. I really loved it because the people I worked with were a ton of fun and the management was really good about teaching all of the kids how to do things right.

However, one day at the store I was at, there was a young lady working at the fry station and filling the little bags and boxes with fries. She was a really nice girl but not someone I would call a deep thinker, she liked to have fun and was very impulsive, hence the reason she wasn't working with customers yet.

Well the young lady (she was actually a year older than me at the time) was curious about what the circular ring next to the fry vat did. To be clear, it did say "Fire" on it in red letters which to me would be a fair indication of it's purpose.

She decided to pull it to "see what it would do" (her words).

I was working on the grill (again back when they actually cooked burgers) and all of a sudden blue power started shooting out of a nozzle above both grills and above all the fryers in the building. I came to learn that this blue power was called Ansul and was used for fire suppression. It also does not play very well with food and is a horrible mess to clean up.

The young lady satisfied her curiosity and we spend the next seven hours cleaning up the mess. The biggest surprise out of the deal was that she did not get fired, however she was never allowed near any equipment again.

Balanced curiosity is a bit different. When you see things you are interested in and you decide to dig deeper to find out more. I have had folks in the past that worked for me that were curious about our server environments and spent a great deal of time with our engineers to find out more about them. They read everything they could, they wore out Google looking at how to safely do things in the environment and several of them have gone on to be engineers. It is pretty cool to watch when done safely.

Dogs have different levels of curiosity but likely for different reasons.

Dogs that have unbalance curiosity are typically called "bad dogs" because they act on everything. Chase squirrel, catch squirrel, kill squirrel and then bring the squirrel into the living room as a gift for the humans. Look at humans funny when they start screaming about this wonderful gift you have brought them. Find out just how ungrateful humans are.

In our eyes this would appear to be unbalanced but is it?

Dogs act on a natural instinct. Hunting dogs hunt, herding dogs herd and toy dogs do whatever it is that they do and get more treats for it. Their instincts and drive control more about their curiosity levels in things than just thinking about what they would like to do.

Dogs also learn balanced curiosity through trial an error. Many when they hurt themselves in a certain way will stop doing that activity.

Murphy's picture from last week where he stands on the arm of my chair and looks down at me is and example. About a year ago his physical balance started to fail he (was 13.5 or so at the time) and he fell off the arm while doing that. He has not done it since. Young Murphy did this and fell off a million times and it didn't bother him, Murphy 2.0 decided it was no longer worth it.

Dogs are far more about reward than they are about balance. They make a decision on whether the result will be worth the potential pain. They also don't spend a lot of time considering what the outcomes may be, rather they just go for the sandwich that is sitting on the table and worry about consequences when they happen.

This week's homework is to look around and see the curiosity in the world and to think about the things you are curious about and how you may want to dig into those things further. Here's hoping for a safe and balanced week of curiosity to all!

-Dave

[Today's picture is of the curious little Abby chasing Jessie through the field as a pup. Abby was always striving to be a big dog, even at 12 weeks of age). She was always a very balanced curious because she didn't like to make mistakes. Like and share this article if you would be so kind!]

09/27/2026

From 6 years ago.

Chaos Theory

There is a whole science explanation of what chaos theory is and well it doesn't fit my narrative for today so I'm going to ignore it. Because you know… "science" as many people have been saying lately.

My chaos theory is a little different, it has to do with day to day life or even business life and of course dog training.

My chaos theory states the following:

"As long as things are in chaos, you cannot be held responsible for what happens around you."

Let that sink in for a moment. It is really not dramatic and it is really simple. If things are unpredictable you pretty much have to accept what happens as a result.

If you are working in a business that makes multiple massive shifts on a regular basis, they likely subscribe to "Dave's" chaos theory.

"Look at these huge changes we made, we need some time to get them in place and operating before we can measure their effectiveness."

Five months later the next big change will come which once again throws things into chaos which once again pushes out the time that you can be held responsible.

We all have someone in our life who will consistently either makes bad decisions or puts themselves in bad situations. They spend a lot of time recovering from one mistake or another only to put themselves in yet another situation. Chaos rules and to some extent maybe they like it that way just a bit. It gives them something to talk about or complain about but they never seem to change the pattern and it continues.

There are a ton of examples in the work world of these types of things. Everything from people keeping things to themselves and then swooping in to "rescue" you and fix the situation to just plain having things go in all kinds of directions uncontrollably. They are all part of the chaos theory.

I guess we all have our "stuff" that we fall into and get caught up in but there is choice involved in all of that.

I have seen the same thing with dogs. Having had a lot of people in my classes that had trouble showing up on time for their classes or forgetting their treats, their leashes or even sometimes their dogs there is a lot of chaos out there.

Each time this would happen the people would stop the class as they walked in to announce why they were late and begin to tell the story to all of the people who were there on time.

Chaos theory again allowed them to control the situation in a way that brought great attention to them. It was however horrible for their dogs because of the scattered energy that these folks also gave off.

If you picture the Reverend Jim from Taxi or Kramer from Seinfeld you kind of get the picture your dog has of you when you are always running behind and then trying to settle into some training. That is a happy thing for your little furry one, isn't it?

If there is one thing your dog loves it is routine. Have you ever moved your furniture around and watched your dog's response? Switch the way the door opens on their kennel and see how long it takes them to figure it out.

Your dogs are puzzled as to why the world has changed in even the slightest way.

When I used to work really early in the morning I would come home after work and take a nap. I would be woken up at 4:30 on the dot by Murphy. He would put his very cold, wet nose on my arm until my eyes opened.

Was he being a butthead? Sort of. What he was really telling me was that suppertime is in 30 minutes and we expect you to be up.

I would close my eyes again and precisely five minutes later that same cold wet nose would touch me again and he would be looking at me telling me "25 minutes". In fact the photo from today is him standing on the arm of the couch and my chair when he work me up.

Dogs love to have the same routines so chaos is very difficult on them. It is particularly difficult on them if it is a lifestyle choice by their humans.

Dogs have a very interesting way of telling me this, generally when their humans are having one of these chaos moments you would find them either stress licking (licking their noses) or giving you a very longful look that they get peace in their lives so they can also relax.

If your life is chaotic, whether self induced or forced upon you, keep this in mind with your furry one. Find time to relax with them, pet them, destress yourself and take a moment.

If you work life is chaotic, whether self induced or forced upon you, keep this in mind also. I would NOT suggest petting your co-workers, that leads to HR visits which are unpleasant. However you can work more on planning and organizing to make things less chaotic. You can work on controlling the things you can and realizing those things you can't. You will likely be a much better co-worker and much happier when you come home to your dogs!

Have a great and organized week!

-Dave

[This week's picture is of Murphy when he was around five. Waking up to his face above you could be a little freaky at times. He does have the coldest wettest nose of any dog we have ever had and he knows how to use it to get his way!

Like and share if you have enjoyed this article!]

09/13/2026

Time Moves On

Good morning to those who see this first thing on a Sunday morning! It has been a while since I have written pretty much anything for any reason. Things have been quite busy and there are multiple things to talk about now so… here we go.

In a previous episode, our star Penny, had problems with her right eye. She had a luxated lens in the eye and she had to have emergency surgery to get the lens back in. That all worked out pretty well. She could probably see light and shadows but not much else. All the same they saved the eye.

Ok, it was actually a couple years ago now. About four months ago she had a definite squint to that eye and it was to the point that she would not generally keep it open. When our vet saw her she basically said that we had a good run with the bionic eye and that we could potentially see a specialist but they weren't sure what they would do beyond recommend removing the eye.

You could tell from Penny's demeanor that she was not feeling well. I guess they equate it to humans having a migraine which for a 15 year old dog was not a great thing for any longer that she absolutely had to have it. We scheduled surgery to remove the eye. The surgery was simple, took about 20 minutes not including prep and we picked her up later that day. Other than looking tough with her eye sewn shut she really was none the worse for wear.

It became pretty apparent how much she had still depended on the eye even with the limited vision. I suggested we get her a helmet because she banged into so many things around the house until she adjusted.

When she adjusted she would still occasionally turn into something but she became a lot more careful in moving around and not making sudden right hand turns. That is not to say she would wander in front of you to try and trip you, but we will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Last Friday that changed. We saw similar symptoms in the other eye and Penny was basically blind in that eye. Off we went to the new Emergency Room that just opened near us. It is a different concept in emergency medicine but this story will be for another time.

When they looked at the eye, they saw swelling and her pressures were high. We heard a similar thing to when her other eye turned bad, that there wasn't a lot they could do but they would prescribe some steroids and some drops to lower the pressures. They had us see our vet the next morning and the pressures were still up (they had dropped from the 70s into the 50s) which was trending the right direction. She still couldn't see but as the pressures dropped that may change… if they continued to drop.

She was scheduled to go in 3 days later for a recheck. Shockingly her pressures were down to normal. She still couldn't see much (again, thinking this one may see some light and shadows) but she would not need to have it removed and go through recovery again.

Awesome news! Well, yeah, but she was still blind at least that was my thought at the moment. How will she ever adjust to this and get on with things. Sometimes humans are so dumb and forget how resilient dogs are. They are particularly dumb about how they adjust to their situations.

The first few days were rough. Penny slept a lot. She got carried around a bit (she is a bigger girl, not like Abby used to be) which isn't super comfortable for her. But as the pressures began to normalize you could see a spark in her. She started to figure things out.

She would tell you that the humans started to figure stuff out. She wouldn't be wrong, I mean she is Penny, she is rarely wrong.

Once we let her wander a bit and remap things in the way a blind dogs needs to, she started to make great strides.

The first few days we would find her stuck in a corner in the back room or under something. You would hear a thump as she ran full speed into something. Yeah, it was hard being one of Penny's humans and watching this, but that is what needed to happen. She needed to figure some things out and so did we.

Each day she explores a little bit more. A couple days ago the door to go upstairs was left open briefly. I could no longer hear her wandering and sure enough she had gone up to visit Amy. She just pretty much figured it out. Amy has worked quite a bit on the steps with her. Up is really not an issue, down is a bit more but with a little help she does well.

Oh, did I mention that Penny is stubborn? Yeah. The "look" she gives you when you try to direct her away from something that may either hurt her or delay her from getting where she needs to go is priceless. It is a very Penny thing and one that helps you recognize she is still in there and still ready to roll.

I just started to notice today that she is better with taking leash direction out in the yard. She has a good concept of where she is but if you are just off by a foot you can come off the retaining wall or run into the house next to the door or even get caught up in something in the yard. Gently guiding seems to be the thing of the day for this and see does seem okay with that.

She still runs into some things but she is now using the little pink curb feeler at the front of her face to negotiate direction and what is safe and what is not.

One thing that Amy discovered early on is that Penny is still food motivated. We were sitting downstairs and just eating a light dinner and Penny's nose shot up in the air and she was sitting in front of Amy and Amy's dinner. That was maybe the biggest lightbulb moment for us. Penny was still home and still quite interested.

There are moments that she seems perfectly normal. Out wandering the yard (now on a long leash) she will sudden turn and run straight back into the house. Maybe she can see? Well then she runs all the way into Thor's kennel and gets a little lost, nope but she is improving.

She has figured out where the big water dish is in the dogs room. Sometimes she dips a paw in before drinking but most of the time one of the other dogs will be drinking and she will slide down their side to find the water.

I have said it often but I will say it again here. Dogs are amazing in their adaptability. Sometimes we need to get out of the way while giving some minimal guiderails for them. They are tough, they are smart and most of all they are survivors. I believe the last thing, survivors, is the most important.

While humans sulk about their bad breaks or how life is unfair dogs simply figure it out because they need to eat their next meal and do their next thing. It doesn't matter to them if it is fair or not they just move on. Fair really isn't relevant in their world.

So maybe today's lesson is about being resilient, maybe it is about being stubborn but for sure it is about not having a pity party about our situations because there is still life to be lived.

-Dave
[Today's photo is of the one eyed wonder. This is Penny's spot in the hobby room, about four feet from me at all times.]

09/12/2026

Just posted tomorrows ramblings but I got to thinking. Would anyone enjoy seeing some of the older columns when I am not posting new ones? I think there are about 7 years of them. Let me know what you think!

09/11/2026

New content coming Sunday the 13th!!! Let the countdown begin!

06/15/2026

A good reminder that not everyone is cut out for everything but there is something special in there you just have to look for it.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=999811049673230

05/31/2026

Decisive Battle

During World War II Japan had the concept of a decisive battle. The idea was that this would be the battle that would turn the war in their favor to the point the Allies could not recover. The Japanese would then be able to sue for peace on their own terms.

It is an interesting idea but one, according to them, they never fulfilled. (It will come around to dogs, just hang one.)

I tend to disagree with the thought that this never came about. There were a couple of decisive battles but they simply didn't go the way that the Japanese Navy wanted them to go. Fact of the matter is that there could never really be a decisive battle from the Japanese side.

As I have been reading (okay, I admit it, listening too) a lot of WWII history books recently and I am sick to death of the phrase "Decisive Battle". It feels far more like the person who is waiting for a sign and the sign hits them in the face but it is not the sign they wanted so they keep searching.

I see this so much in day to day life as well as dog training. Handlers are waiting for "that seminar" and it will fix every problem I have ever had. I know it!

Spoiler alert, it doesn't. I mean if you pay attention, listen and practice things will get better for you but that also may have happened had you just done the practice part.

I think I shared this story previously. Penny and I were at runthrus (practice tests) and one of the ladies that was giving the runthrus was there practicing with her dog before everything started. I noted that in between exercises that she could walk over to a table next to the ring and write something down.

I asked her, what are you doing? She said that at the seminar she was at the trainer said to write down everything you do during training with some notes. Then when you get home review the notes. To be effective you have to do this for several weeks. She was currently towards the end of week two and she told me she had seen massive improvement.

"Cool. Can I ask a question?"

"Sure" she said.

I said "how many days in the last two weeks have your practiced?"

"Probably 12 out of 14. " She then started flip through her book counting. "Yes, 12 out of 14."

I then asked "how often did you practice previous to the seminar?"

"Maybe once a week." she said innocently.

I just smiled and said "that's great" and moved on.

The lady needed her decisive battle in order to overcome the issues she was having when in reality just practicing six times a week helped her be more consistent and her dog better understand what she was asking for.

In reality a decisive battle in regular life just looks like a spot where you are rolling the dice and all in on whatever you are trying to achieve. That could be at your annual review where you are going to stand up for yourself or at the car dealership to get the deal you want on the car. They all look pretty much the same and for the most part they are never as big of a deal as you think they are, particularly if you don't win the battle.

Your dogs have all kinds of decisive battles. Whether they can be on the furniture or sleep in bed, if they can pull on the leash on walks or if you really mean "stay" when you say it.

I would argue in many cases your dog's decisive battles are likely more permanent than your own in everyday life. Once a dog figures out how to win the battle they rarely have to retreat and you end up suing for peace in your own house.

I am sure that many reading this are now questioning my connection between all of these things. I mean after all war seems a lot more serious than training your dog or buying a car. That is something I would agree with but the Japanese treated it like it was an everyday thing just like any of these events, it couldn't be a decisive battle if it didn't go their way. Great rule but not one that will work in real life.

Back to the history for a moment.

There were two battles that were really decisive, Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf. In both cases there was a beatdown by the Allies, granted it was a horribly bloody one for both sides but one changed the course of the war and the second locked in the final result. There are many good books written on the topics and I would be happy to recommend them but for this week, understand where your decisive battles actually lie. Understand what is worth fighting and winning for and what things are just meh moments.

When everything is a decisive battle, nothing is a decisive battle.

Enjoy the week!

-Dave
[Today's photo is of Penny who is a battle all by herself]

05/30/2026

New content tomorrow!