When I adopted my dog, Nola, I was living on the outskirts of one of Maine’s rougher urban areas. It was an ideal setting, a horse farm surrounded by 200 acres of unspoiled pasture and woods, with hardly a car passing by throughout the day. My free time was spent alternating between playing guitar and trying to teach Nola to jump over the horse jumps in one of the outdoor riding rings. It was, more or less, an unspoiled post-college existence – until one day when everything changed.

Since we were so far removed from civilization, or so it seemed, I would often just let Nola out unsupervised to go to the bathroom. She never strayed all that far, and there were fields stretching far off into the distance, so it would have been easy to spot her if she had decided to go adventuring. After 5 minutes or so had passed, I’d go to the door, call Nola, and she’d come a-running. It was easier that way, after all – especially as the days got colder and colder.

One day, however, I called her – and there was no response. Nothing. I immediately went outside, looking high and low, and couldn’t find her. I covered nearly all of the 200 acres yelling Nola’s name, not understanding why she had picked this moment to disappear – and definitely not comprehending why she wasn’t responding to my calls – as she had always come…eventually.

But Nola was nowhere to be found, so I quickly shifted my focus to enlisting the aid of those around me. I pulled together my entire savings at the time – which was $150.00 – and posted signs all over town, in all of the neighborhoods bordering our land (and some even further) – looking for information about our missing dog and offering a reward for her return. I placed an ad in the local paper, called the police, called all the shelters – just hoping for some sign that she was ok, and had not ended up as a meal for the coyotes who inhabited the wooded areas of the farm.

After a day or two there were still no leads, and I had spent nearly the entire time trying to find her. My girlfriend at the time was a 3-day eventer (equestrian), and she had an important competition in Pennsylvania – so to make matters worse we had to leave town. It was agonizing for me – but at the same time I had nearly given up hope after nearly 4 days with no sign of Nola. We left for PA, and our roommates (from whom we had adopted Nola) assured us that they would keep us updated should anyone call with information.

As it turned out, someone DID call the day that we left. As I understand it, the call went something like this:

Neil’s roommate – “Hello?”

Man’s voice – “Hi. I know who has your dog. The pitbull, right?”

Neil’s roommate – “Actually she’s a lab-beagle mix, even though she looks like a pitbull. So…who has her?”

Man’s voice – “I found your pitbull wandering around town, kept her for a few days, and then gave her to a friend of mine. Can I have the reward money?”

Neil’s roommate – “Uh, sure – when we get her back! When will that be?”

Man’s voice – “Well – I’m not so sure that they’re going to want to give her up. I’ll call you back.”

Click.

It was official. Nola had been kidnapped.

It took another day and a half for the dude to call back. We weren’t sure that he would, as it seemed pretty obvious, given the thoroughness of my search, that he had probably just stolen Nola off our front lawn, thinking that he had just scored a friendly pitbull puppy to add to his collection of urban status symbols.

However, when he did call back he informed my roommate that his friend didn’t want to give “the pitbull” back. So he gave us the address, letting us know that it was in our hands to effect a rescue.

Now I was still in Pennsylvania – but fortunately my roommate was young, brash, and willing to go out on a limb. She ventured into the heart of the city with a police officer in tow, to find the kidnappers’ house with loud music blaring and nobody home, except for Nola, who came to the window when she heard her name being called. Her kidnappers had fitted her with a lovely spiked collar, worthy of the baddest pitbull you could imagine.

Just as the police officer was telling my roommate that there was actually nothing he could do (it’s apparently quite difficult to prove ownership of a dog without a tattoo or a microchip), one of the neighbors came out, wondering why the police were looking into the windows. That neighbor let it slip that at least one of the tenants in the house worked at a local sandwich shop – and my roommate headed over there immediately on a mission.

Apparently the sandwich shop worker didn’t want to play nicely, telling my roommate that there was no way she was getting our dog back. In one of the rare moments where an ability to stretch the truth could pay off, my roommate told her that she could take it up with the Police (capital P), who had already been by her house and knew that they were holding our dog hostage. All of that was true, of course – she just conveniently left out the “and told us they couldn’t do anything” part. At the mention of the police, the kidnapper’s tone changed, saying something to the effect of “well – I’ll have to ask my boyfriend tonight – but keep the cops out of it!”

Remember that these were the days before cell phones, so all of this communication had to happen bit by bit – the pace of things wasn’t nearly as instantaneous as it can be now.

That night the kidnappers called.

“You can have your dog back. But we want the 150 bucks.”

Ransom gladly paid.

Nola was back in my life, where she has consistently been for 11 years now – with the exception of a few times when she vanished into the woods (that was back before I knew how to be the moose in her life, when she’d actually go looking for real-life mooses in the wood). All of that is a distant memory now – and yet it’s pretty incredible to think how different my life could have been had that not turned out quite so well. For one thing – this blog probably wouldn’t exist!

But there have been, of course, all of the other special things that have happened over the years, things I’ve learned about dogs, about myself, about other people, about life – all because this crazy pitbull-lookalike-of-a-dog managed to find her way back to our rural abode. With some help from my impetuous (and loyal) roommate, and my life savings, of course. And, thankfully, the kidnappers’ greed, which apparently outweighed their desire for a vicious pit-bull.

Whose mother really is a lab-beagle mix. Father: anybody’s guess.

You come to the NaturalDogBlog for information about Natural Dog Training, right?  So what’s going on…a review for a personal development book?  Doesn’t that belong on your other blog, Neil?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

A couple months ago, Steve Pavlina announced that, in conjunction with the release of his book Personal Development for Smart People, he would be offering pre-release copies to bloggers who might like to review the book on their blogs.  I offered to be one of those reviewers, and gave some thought to where it most belonged.  Sure, NeilSattin.com could use a recent post or two.  But I think that what really strikes me about Steve Pavlina’s book is the way that you can apply his 7 principles of personal development to any area of your life.  In the 2nd half of his book, after he has introduced all 7 principles, he covers things like Money, Career, Relationships – but NOTHING on Dog Training!  The gap was obvious, and I’m here to fill it.  Plus, as far as reviews go, I think it might be more instructive to you to see those principles in action – and then you can decide whether or not the book is right for you.  I do think it offers a great lens through which you can examine, and enhance, any aspect of your life.

You may have noticed that on this blog there’s almost no arguments.  That could all change, of course, once we get the forum going!  But for a couple exceptions, I’ve not made it my business to try to convince you of anything, particularly Natural Dog Training’s “superiority” as a training method.  I let Lee Charles Kelley and Kevin Behan take care of that.  And they’re much better at the debate anyway.  My mission has simply been to give you as practical an application of Natural Dog Training as I can.

However, as I was reading through Steve Pavlina’s book, I started thinking about how his 7 principles play out in the dog training world.  The basic idea is this:  Imagine a triangle, and at each corner of the triangle are the following principles – Love, Truth, and Power.  According to Steve Pavlina, those are the fundamental building blocks for personal development.  In our lives, if any of these are out of balance, then we begin to suffer in that aspect of our life.  And it’s through correcting imbalances that we can grow on an intelligent path.  You see, in Steve’s world, the root of intelligence is simply that – the presence of all 3 basic principles in all corners of our life.

I know – I said “7 principles”.  That’s only three!  Well the next 3 principles are actually combinations of each of the corners of the triangle.  Truth plus Love – that equals Oneness.  Truth plus Power – that equals Authority.  And Power plus Love – that equals Courage.  So ensuring a balance of the primarly principles elicits the secondary principles.  The final one, #7, being “Intelligence” – which is the interaction of everything.  Here’s the Triangle in toto:

So lets think about the two main schools of thought in the dog training world.

Dominance Dog Training

The dominance model of dog training strikes me as being about Power (aka dominance, being the alpha dog) combined with Truth (hey, it does work a lot of the time).  Remember how I was just saying that the combination of Truth and Power is the principle of Authority?  (Please tell me that you’re having an a-ha! moment right now.)  Dominance training is based on being the authority figure in your dog’s life – which works great in some situations but not others (as many people who have tried to dominate an aggressive dog will tell you).

Positive Dog Training

OK, now let’s think about positive dog training in light of our handy little Pavlina triangle.  I’d say that this style of dog training is about Love (aka positive, always rewarding the right behavior) and Truth (hey, this one works too – a lot of the time).  This model of dog training is about experiencing Oneness with our dogs, which is great – just like being an authority in your dog’s life is great – but still a little ineffective in some situations.  I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had whose Oneness with their dogs fell short in a high-intensity situation.

Natural Dog Training

As you may have noticed in the articles discussing Natural Dog Training on this site, we often borrow from BOTH schools of technique.  However, the underlying philosophy is different, and ultimately that results in a different approach to the “same ol’ techniques” when they’re being used – along with some totally new techniques.  So you could (hopefully) say that Natural Dog Training, in using Power, Love, and Truth together, becomes synergetically something more than the sum of its parts (“intelligent” – in Steve Pavlina’s words).

The one leg of the triangle that we hadn’t used yet was the COMBINATION of Power and Love – which results in the principle of Courage.  And those of you who have been trying out Natural Dog Training techniques for yourself might be able to relate – there’s a LOT of courage required.  Mainly the kind of courage that I’m talking about, I think, is the courage to see your dog differently, and to look at the world the way your dog REALLY sees the world.  The courage to do some things that are, at a minimum, non-conventional, and at most downright “counter-intuitive” – at least when you have the traditional pair of how-to-see-a-dog glasses on.  And often, with problem dogs, it’s the courage required to take your dog right up to that point, the place where things can get uncomfortable, and to accept what your dog is doing in that moment – as simply a sign of the energy dynamics of life, and as an OPPORTUNITY to teach your dog how to relax even when things are stressful.  It’s the courage that allows your dog to be a dog, and furthermore to reassure your dog that they’re safe giving all their “dogness” to you (which is what all that pushing and tug-of-war is about).

Natural Dog Training = The 7 Principles in Action

So, at the risk of being immodest, Natural Dog Training is, as far as I know, the most complete representation of “the seven principles” in the dog training world.  If “positive” and “negative” always worked, I don’t think I’d have any clients! So maybe you can also imagine them as the “yin” and the “yang” of the dog training world – and Natural Dog Training is like “The Tao”. It’s transcending yin/yang that brings you to a sense of completeness (and, paradoxically, emptiness) – which, in terms of our relationship with our dogs, evolves into the kind of interaction that you want: a fun “connection” – with the authority to call the shots when it’s keeping your dog (or someone/something else) out of harms way. It exists in the moment, and accepts everything as simply a product of “what is”. Not that you can’t change it, of course – but you can only change it once you’ve accepted what’s REALLY going on. Oh boy – I can feel the flames coming my way now!

I haven’t given you much detail about the 7 principles – or about how to apply them to OTHER aspects of your life.  Steve Pavlina’s book is a great read, and I think that it’d be doing the book a disservice to try and sum it ALL up in a blog post.  I think I can safely assume that if you’re reading this blog you’re someone who takes time to step back and analyze a situation, and who is looking for improvement in all aspects of your life (otherwise, why would you be reading about a completely “new” approach to dog training?).  Steve Pavlina set about to define a complete way of understanding your life – a personal development book that didn’t focus on a particular compartment of life, but one that offers a way to think about everything a little bit differently, a little more comprehensively – and I think that he succeeded. Once you understand the 7 principles, you can look at anything that you think merits improvement, identify which “piece of the triangle” is missing, and think of ways to add it back in – effecting balance and progress in the process.

As for me, while my “dog training” might be in order – there are many OTHER areas of my life that could use some, er…triangulating.

On that note, back to my “analysis” of all the raw footage for the Natural Dog Training DVDs.  Still lots to do in that department! I hope you enjoyed this break from our regularly scheduled program.  If you’d like more information about Steve Pavlina’s book – here is a link to a page devoted to the book on his site.  Or, if you’re interested in ordering, I’ve provided a direct-to-Amazon link below for your convenience.