Here’s a question I’ve started asking about any training system, including my own.
What would it look like if this were wrong?
Not “is it wrong.” What would wrong LOOK like. What would I have to see.
I’ve found that how somebody answers that tells you more than almost anything else they could say.
Here’s why.
A useful idea tells you in advance what would count as evidence against it. That’s the whole test. “If I do this and X happens, then I was wrong.”
Good training advice does this constantly and we don’t even notice. If I tell you your dog will hold that startline after two weeks of an exercise, and three weeks later he’s still breaking, then I was wrong. Something has to change. That’s a normal, honest claim.
Now here’s the pattern I want you to watch for.
Some systems are built so that failure never counts against the method.
You didn’t train long enough. You weren’t consistent enough. Your timing was off. You didn’t make it valuable enough. You weren’t patient enough.
And here’s the tricky part, the part that makes this hard to see: every one of those might be TRUE in any particular case. Timing does matter. Consistency does matter.
But if there’s no result — none, ever, in any case — that would count against the method, then you’re not holding a hypothesis anymore.
You’re holding a loyalty test.
And before you decide I’m pointing at one particular corner of the dog world, I want to be really clear, because this would be a dishonest post otherwise.
Everybody does this. Every instructor, every camp, every tribe. Including mine.
Go listen to somebody at the other end of the spectrum explain a dog that isn’t working. You didn’t follow through. You weren’t firm enough. You’ve got no leadership. The dog doesn’t respect you.
Same structure, different vocabulary. Failure can’t touch the method, so it lands on the person.
I’ve said versions of that. I’ve probably said versions of it to a student. It isn’t a property of one ideology, it’s a property of how people defend things they’ve committed to. Which is why I’d rather talk about the structure than about any particular camp. The structure is the actual problem.
So why does it work on us so well?
Because it routes failure into shame. If the method can’t be wrong and it didn’t work, the only variable left is YOU. Your patience, your consistency, your character.
And shame doesn’t make people better. I really wish it did. It just makes them quieter.
You stop asking questions, because the question would reveal you. You stop posting the video. You stop telling your coach what actually happened at the trial. You start hiding the parts of your training that didn’t go well — which are, unfortunately, the parts you could have learned the most from.
So here’s what I actually want to hand you today. One question, and you can use it on anybody.
“What would change your mind?”
Ask a trainer. Ask an instructor. Ask somebody very confident in a Facebook group. Ask me.
And listen for whether they can ANSWER it, not whether they’re right. Somebody who’s thought honestly about their own position has an answer ready, because they’ve already gone looking for the edges of it. Somebody who hasn’t will tell you why the question is unfair.
Then — and this is the harder half — ask yourself. What would you have to see?
If you can’t answer, that’s not a crisis. It just means you might be holding a belief rather than a method. I think it’s worth knowing which one you’ve got.
And let me go first, because I don’t think I should ask you to answer a question I wouldn’t answer myself.
I think when it comes to dog training, outcome is welfare. The measure of training is what the dog’s actual life is like on the whole — not just one moment or another, but on the whole. Can they cope. Can they exist in different places out in the world. Do they have room to move in the world?
So: show me the dogs. If people training the way I train end up with dogs whose lives get smaller and smaller, and people doing something different than me end up with dogs living bigger lives, then I’m wrong. Not misunderstood. Wrong. And I’d want to know, and I’d say so out loud.
That’s a real answer. It’s checkable, and it could actually come back against me.
So I’m not here to tell you what to believe about dog training. The only thing I’d ask is this: whatever you believe, have some idea what would have to happen for you to question that belief.
Because a belief that can’t be wrong, and can’t be changed, also can’t teach you anything. It feels like strength. It’s the opposite — nothing new ever gets in, because nothing ever gets to push back.
So tell me yours. What would change your mind? What would have to happen for you to question a belief? Leave me a comment — I read every one of these, and I have a feeling your answers are going to be more interesting than anything I wrote today 🙂
The whole system lives inside The Agility Challenge. If you want the training that goes with this, the door is here.