Words can be wonderful, but they can also cause people to become terribly confused. Nowhere is this truer than in human relationships with dogs.

All sorts of words are thrown around for handling and training dogs, particularly by celebrity dog trainers (whether on television or popular with the seminar circuit) and their followers. Dog training has long been subject to an “oral tradition,” people repeating what they’ve heard without ever having understood it in the first place! In the process, information becomes even more distorted.

Such is the concept of whether our relationships with our dogs work if they are based primarily on love. If you were a professional working with lots of dogs, perhaps you could not allow yourself to love—become emotionally attached to—each of the dogs you handle. You might have a personal favorite dog at home, and maybe feel guilty that by the time you got home to that dog you were tired of dealing with dogs and didn’t feel like giving your own much attention.

So what might your thinking be in order to feel good about the course your own life with dogs has taken? Dogs brought to professionals tend to be energetic and in need of direction. Exceptions often come when the professional is a veterinarian or groomer. These folks who handle a lot of sweet dogs in need of care are in fact some of earth’s most loving people in how they relate to dogs!

A dog trainer’s job is different, though. Exercise and training, preferably done in tandem, can handle the energetic dog an owner has brought to a trainer for help. A good dog handler, which any decent trainer will be, can accomplish both without making an emotional connection with the dog. If this is done without mistreating the dog, there’s no harm done.

The harm comes when the trainer convinces the owner that the owner’s love for the dog is inappropriate and actually harmful. This is not true, and runs counter to the reason most of us even have dogs. Unless you are being paid to handle dogs, you have a dog because you—or someone important to you—loves that dog.

In many cases, people have a general love for dogs and feel a real need to always have one or more dogs as a part of their lives. Let’s face it, if you know what taking proper care of a dog actually entails in effort and expense, you don’t do it lightly! You do it because the dog is emotionally important to you. You do it for love.

The professional can step in and handle the dog competently for a brief period of time, and make it a game or keep the dog off-balance, with no emotional connection. You can’t do that indefinitely with your own dog. At some point, the dog will need to know what to expect from you. Are you reliable to provide the dog’s needs? Is the dog’s home with you for keeps, or only until you get mad? How does a dog know?

What is Love for a Dog?

Time spent with your dog is a major signal to the dog of your commitment. Time also nurtures attachment, affection: love.

Communicating patiently with your dog—kindness in your efforts to help the dog understand, and persistence in trying to understand the dog’s efforts to communicate with you—also nurtures love. Pro trainers often handle dogs they do not know well. The dogs don’t know that trainer’s specific body language, although the trainer may have a generally good command of body language that works with dogs.

But more disturbing is that the trainer will inevitably misread dogs and attribute the wrong motives to what a dog does. Thus so many dogs get labeled “dominant” by trainers who often don’t understand the concept. “Dominance” is only a word. Unfortunately, it justifies mistreatment of dogs because if a dog is “dominant,” oh my, that must be bad, right? The dog is just waiting for us to show a sign of weakness and then will—do what?

Well, if the dog were actually dominant and saw the beloved owner show a sign of weakness, the dog would attempt to watch over and help you. The dog would alert you to danger or anything else you needed to know, including a crying baby. The dog would help you get up if you fell.

A “dominant” dog, in truth, is a diligent caretaker of weaker members of the pack! It’s “dominant” to go find food, eat it, return to the pack, and regurgitate for pups and sometimes for others in the pack who need to eat and can’t hunt. Dominance causes dogs to do loving things.

Even a male dog “flattening” a female to keep her behind him at the property boundary is showing a protective act of love for her. Look closely and you’ll see she goes down without actual physical pressure from him most of the time, and comes up grinning—as if to say “Yep, I knew he was going to do that!” She feels safe under his protection. She feels secure. She feels loved.

Dogs get accused of being “stubborn” too. What is that? In most cases it’s a denigrating word used to describe a trait humans have bred into dogs for specific purposes. A retriever will “stubbornly” keep searching for the downed bird to bring it to the hunter. A terrier will “stubbornly” persist in pursuing critters on the farm that spoil the crops and cripple livestock that step in holes they make. A herding dog will “stubbornly” work keeping livestock animals safely within boundaries all day.

A better word to use with dogs than “stubborn” is “persistent.” Once you teach the dog the behavior you want, you will likely find these types of dog persistently perform that behavior very well!

The word “stubborn” implies the dog behaving in opposition to your wishes, as does the word “dominant.” But in both cases, it is unlikely the dog is thinking that way. When humans are led to believe that is how dogs think, serious miscommunication results. When that damages your bond—your LOVE—with your dog, you lose, and the dog loses even more.

Love Means Providing for Needs

One reason some dog trainers eschew love as a basis for our relationships with our dogs is that misunderstanding a dog’s needs can cause people to fail their dogs in the name of love. Loving another means helping them get what THEY need, not what we would need. Specifically, a dog needs different things than a human does, and we must understand that if we are to truly treat our dogs with love.

Dogs need structure. They can’t understand if you tell them you will be back at 6 o’clock. If you come home at 6 o’clock several times in a row without being late (at least not very late), that’s how a dog understands. Structure that provides a dog’s needs makes the dog feel secure.

So, what are those needs? Adequate food each day at reasonable time intervals is a need. The dog needs reasonably spaced opportunities to eliminate, too. If you’re not going to be home to let the dog out, the dog needs indoor potty facilities. If all else fails and the dog has an accident, the dog needs to be free from fear that you will fly into a rage when you return home—whether because of a housetraining accident or something chewed or any other reason.

A dog needs medical care, especially at times of pain or sickness. As a dog gets used to your tending and your veterinarian’s able aid, you may even notice the dog begins to tell you something is wrong—and to show expectation of feeling better from the veterinarian’s care.

This is complicated dog communication and hard to pick up on, but the normal dog behavior about any weakness is to hide it. That is a survival instinct since showing weakness in the wild gets an animal killed. So when the dog tells you something hurts, you are experiencing an act of trust. Encourage it!

Dogs need exercise, with our oversight for their safety from pain and fear. Being hurt or frightened by other dogs in the course of exercise makes a dog distrust the exercise situation, along with losing faith in the person who took the dog there.

Every outing needs to be structured for the best chance of leaving the dog able and willing to do it again another day. That may mean leaving before an event is over, pulling your dog out of competition because conditions are not good, or ending your interesting conversation with another dog owner to go remove your dog from an inappropriate situation. When you take this kind of leadership with your dog, you will notice the dog looking at you with loving eyes.

A great many dogs can get adequate exercise mostly in the house if they are not confined to crates. Dog professionals like crates. When you have a lot of dogs and/or have dogs who are not spayed/neutered, you can’t keep them all together.

For most people with one to a few trained and spayed/neutered dogs, training and managing toward being able to have the dog free in at least some of the house all the time is an achievable goal. This allows the dog to diffuse energy and work muscles through the day, have more time with you, have access to water at all times, keep arthritic joints moving, and be in position to warn and protect you.

When you’re not home, the uncrated house dog can protect property, as well as being more likely to escape the house in the event of fire or other disaster. Uncrated dogs have awakened their owners in the night to get them out of bed for a family member in trouble, a criminal on the premises, or a danger such as fire or gas leak.

Many dogs benefit from crating early in life until they have the habits and maturity to be loose unattended in the house without destroying things. Ideally, all dogs should receive gentle conditioning so they will be able to rest calmly in a crate throughout life in times of need. But beyond that, we need to look at the dog, the lifestyle, and the home to decide about crate use. A lot of what is diagnosed as separation anxiety is actually crate overuse anxiety.

Do Dogs Love Us?

Training could be defined as patterning desirable habits. Teaching or educating goes beyond training, and helps the individual understand the reasons for actions. Some would question whether dogs can do that much thinking. Those who handle dogs in police work, search and rescue, or assistance to a person with a disability do not question whether or not a dog can think. They see dogs act on what can only be thinking.

You will also find many people who claim a dog has no desire to please a human. Again, ask the handlers who do real jobs with dogs, and they will tell you differently. Dogs love, if they are given someone to love. And they strive to please, if the person appreciates what the dog does.

Training and teaching your dog is part of loving your dog. Dogs who don’t get taught enough to function successfully in a human world live in constant danger of their lives. If you love your dog, you train and teach. At the same time you learn from the dog—education goes both ways. We don’t know if the student understands the message unless we pay attention to what the student tells us.

Almost everyone will need some in-person instruction to learn how to read dog body language, to handle a dog in ways that maintain adequate control, and to communicate our wishes to the dog. Television cannot adequately convey this, with its massive production costs per minute.

Books are a little better, and so are some videos that go into great detail, but nothing is a substitute for the real, in-person thing. Lessons in person allow the teacher to check your work and your dog’s work, tell you what changes to make, see how that works, and tell you what to do next. You need this back-and-forth communication for real learning, because after all, the task being learned is communication.

If your dog is boisterous but friendly, a good place to work on training is a well-run training class. This is the kind of class where dogs are kept under control, taught what TO do rather than punished for errors, and treated humanely. Class is great for dogs and for owners.

If there is any aggression toward people involved in the behavior of your dog at any age, you need a veterinary behavior specialist as soon as possible. It is important to get help before the behavior becomes established as habit.

Once the veterinary behavior specialist has made an accurate assessment and program recommendation, you may be able to work with a trainer or non-veterinarian behavior specialist that the veterinary behavior specialist recommends. Eventually you will hopefully also be able to work the dog in a good training class. But start with the veterinary behavior specialist. Many dogs have been ruined and many people have been injured because they went to the wrong professionals for help with aggression.

Fear and aggression are two sides of the same coin, and it can flip if you let a harsh trainer mishandle your fearful dog. Therefore this dog, too, needs to start with a veterinary behavior specialist and then work only with other professionals who come recommended by that specialist.

Beware of dog trainers—or whatever other title they may use—who are good salespeople or have lots of charisma, instead of solid credentials. The only licensed professional in dog behavior is the VETERINARY BEHAVIOR SPECIALIST. Be sure to keep that in mind, for your own welfare and your dog’s.

So What’s It Going to Be?

Think about why you have a dog. Do you want to be your dog’s boss, parent, or partner? What works? Perhaps in a well-rounded relationship, all of these roles have a place. After all, a good “boss” pays well, motivates rather than intimidating, and inspires people to good work through leadership. That’s not a bad model for educating your dog.

A parent takes responsibility for keeping offspring safe. A good parent teaches, manages, and keeps in mind the goal of helping offspring function safely in the world.

A partner, ah, that’s the ultimate in a relationship with a dog. It comes from training, teaching, motivating and yes, inspiring your dog. It involves two-way communication between you and your dog. Partners have common goals.

Is there a difference between a dog who assists a police officer or a disabled person and a dog who is “just a pet”? Why should there be? More dogs are extending and enriching human lives as companions in the home than through any other job. They deserve the same loving care. Love CAN be the foundation of your relationship with your dog. It works.