What do you do when your dog doesn’t listen?

Have you ever asked your dog to do something, and he just looked at you like you were an idiot and did the exact opposite?

That happens to me, too!

My 7-month old puppy Po is in a big exploratory phase right now and when he’s loose in our front yard and I call him to come to me, he often hesitates and seems to weigh his options before acting (to either come to me or go explore in the opposite direction).

And I know I’m not alone: I was finishing up a coaching session at a client’s house when she complained that her adult dog never did anything she wanted him to do. She looked at me with expectation in her eyes: surely there was some big intuitive message I could give her that would turn things around, her expression seemed to say.
Nope. There wasn’t.

I told her that he needed a reason to do what she wanted. She wanted him to just do what she wanted because she wanted him to do it, but he was asking himself the age-old question: what’s in it for me?

When she started using positive reinforcement when he did what she asked, things started to really turn around. He got a reason to comply and my client got her dog to do what she wanted! It was a win-win!

That is the first key to focus on when your dog isn’t doing what you want him to: Give your dog a reason to do as you ask.

The second key is to be sure to Send Clear Signals. It’s really easy for us to send mixed signals to our pets, saying one thing out loud, but intuitively sending a picture of what we don’t want them to do (which is usually what we expect them to do). That’s why it’s critical to focus on what you want and expect your dog to do it.

To do that, I recommend that you first stay calm. It’s easy to take it personally when our dogs don’t follow our commands and get tense, but it is super important to stay calm so you can send clear signals. Next, focus on the positive, even visualizing what you want the dog to do. If you’re feeling especially frisky, send your dog a picture of what you want him to do. (It really works! Try it!)
In my book Sending Signals – 5 Simple Steps to a More Intuitive Relationship with your Pet, I walk you through these steps and a few more in detail. You can get a digital version as an instant download here www.caragubbins.com/free. For now, focus on the positive, picture what you want, and stay calm.

The final key is to Celebrate. When I was getting my master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology, my teachers always told us that every interaction is an opportunity to improve our relationships. They were talking about interactions between people, but I think the same thing applies to interactions and relationships with our favorite animals.

Celebrating your dog’s compliance each time builds your relationship and keeps making it better and better. Dogs have free will. They are not machines that simply do what we tell them to do. They have their own interests, needs, and desires that are completely separate from our own. You have to be better and more rewarding than whatever else is holding his interest – whether it’s a squirrel, another dog, or the feeling of running loose.

When you celebrate and praise your dog each time he does what you ask, you gradually build your relationship to the point that your relationship is the best thing in the world and your dog will want to maintain that connection even more than he wants to chase a cat or eat your food off the kitchen counter.

Try these tools next time your dog seems to have selective hearing and doesn’t do what you want him to do. By staying calm and positive and focusing on the rewards for your dog, you just might be surprised by how things change in your relationship! And don’t get discouraged if your first attempts aren’t stellar – it takes time to build mutual love, admiration, and respect. Just remember that each interaction is a building block for an even better relationship between you and your dog.

Finally, if you have a chronic problem of your dog not listening to you, I offer more advanced intuitive tools in my Connect with Your Pet class which I teach online and in person in Chico. It’s a great way to build your relationship and your connection with your pet so that all of these keys are in place and your dog wants to do what you want him to do. Because that makes everybody happy!