The Dauntless Daddy Family Gets a Puppy
Hello Dauntless Daddies!
It has been a few weeks since my last post, and as you can guess the reason why is that we got a new fox red lab puppy named Remy! It has been an exciting time here the last couple of weeks as we have adjusted to the new normal. We are still learning and growing a ton from this experience and the kids have loved having a puppy around!
Sorry for the little break there but I plan on being more consistent again with posting content. I’m thinking about posting more content about puppy training and how that is going because, in my research, I’ve found many similarities between training a puppy and raising kids. So for this week’s post, I wanted to do a high-level overview of what I have learned about puppy training over the last couple of months and how I think it correlates to raising well-behaved children.
Patience is Key
No surprise here but it takes a tremendous amount of patience to train a puppy, just like it takes incredible patience to raise a child. A puppy and a child are so new to this world and have so much to learn. It is completely natural for them to make mistakes as they are figuring out this new world of theirs and how they can interact with it. The best learning usually comes by making mistakes and overcoming them.
It can be easy to forget this as a parent to young children. My 2nd youngest son, who is only 2, has made it immensely difficult for my wife and me to have patience with him. He is constantly pushing his boundaries and testing just how far he can go without getting in trouble. I know his tenacity will serve him well as he grows into adulthood but for right now he’s just a pain in the butt! But as I said, he’s really just like a new puppy who has so much zest for life that he is constantly wanting to explore and learn new things. So we need to be patient with him, and let him push the boundaries within reason. This leads me to the next thing I’ve learned, don’t be afraid to let them “get hurt.”
Let your puppies/kids play, have fun, and rough house
After spending some time in the dog and puppy training world I found out that there are two mentalities when it comes to exercising puppies. One side argues that you shouldn’t let puppies do too much because their skeletal system is still growing and they think that exercising them, will cause them to develop problems as they grow.
The other side of the argument says that you should exercise your puppies. They argue that by exercising puppies they are able to adapt to the stresses put onto their body and they will grow stronger and become more confident in the process.
A dog trainer I’ve benefited from watching is Stonnie Dennis. I particularly liked his explanation of this argument. If you have any questions about dog training, which, as I’ve mentioned can also be applied to raising children, go check him out! Essentially, exercise and environmental socialization are critical to canine physical and mental development. As Stonnie says, “Exercise doesn’t cause problems, it reveals problems.”
Kids are the same. We can’t keep them in a box to “protect” them from the world they live in. Eventually, they will have to go out on their own and if we don’t equip them with the proper “tools” to make it out in the world, by letting them go out, learn, explore, take risks, get hurt, we will be doing them a huge disservice.
Positive Reinforcement
Another aspect of dog training that I have learned about is positive reinforcement. Essentially, positive reinforcement focuses on praising your dog or giving them treats when they perform actions you want to encourage. This form of training is much more proactive and requires a consistent, hands-on approach.
The other end of the coin is negative reinforcement. This type of training seems to be more reactive, in that you punish your dog when they do something wrong. This training may seem easier at first, but if you are constantly having to “police” your dog to make sure they don’t do something wrong, then you will end up spending a lot of time doing that, instead of living your life.
To me, positive reinforcement should be your #1 option, when training your dog or raising your kids. It will help foster a more robust, healthier relationship built on trust. With that being said, I am also a believer that discipline is needed at times and while it may seem negative to do so, it can have a positive impact on how your dog or child behaves. Sometimes we need some tough love to learn how to behave in certain situations. It can be hard to do that as a parent but it comes with the territory.
Consistency
With all that being said consistency is what I wanted to end on. When training a dog or raising a child you must be consistent. Creating and maintaining good habits and routines will help set you and your dog/child up for success.
Just think about how good habits can help us create happy, fulfilling lives, while bad habits will create more problems for us, adding stress and additional burdens no one wants to deal with. So figure out a routine that works best for you and your dog and stick to it. This will lead you both to ultimate success as you work together to learn and grow.
Final Thoughts
I have learned so much from training our dog Remy and even after 3 weeks, she has made a lot of progress in her training. We haven’t been perfect and that’s ok. Remember, perfection can be the enemy of progress if we let it stop us from continually trying.
Do you have any insights into dog training or kid raising that you would like to share? Let me know and I would be happy to discuss them with you! Until then, be dauntless daddies!