My favorite instructional dog training video is the movie Nanny McPhee. It wasn’t meant to be a dog training video but I find so much useful information there that resonated with me. Let me explain a bit.
If you haven’t seen the movie it’s about a family of children, their mother has passed away some time ago. The dad keeps trying to hire a nanny to watch the kids but they are pretty awful and drive off/torture every nanny their dad brings home. The kids do whatever they want, whenever they want. The dad is at his wit’s end trying to lure someone in to watch his herd of wild children.
Enter Nanny McPhee. She pretty much appears out of nowhere and wants the job. She’s an ugly looking woman with a stern appearance and few words. She announces she is going to teach the children five lessons.
She starts in working with the kids and they try their usual disobedience and pranks on her. Nanny McPhee is a magical sort though, she intervenes with her magical cane. Lo and behold all the pranks and trouble the kids start either just doesn’t work or turns out to be a lesson the kids maybe didn’t want to learn – but it all feels self induced. She doesn’t yell, she doesn’t fuss, she isn’t really confrontational. Things just happen and the kids start to do things her way because their old ways just don’t work for them any more.
The kids react very strongly to this woman, they tell her they hate her. Nanny McPhee says “When you don’t want me I must stay, but when you want me I must go.”
Some other magical things start to happen. Each time that the kids learn a lesson and move towards good behavior Nanny McPhee becomes a bit prettier, a bit more appealing to the kids. Within the boundaries she sets they begin to thrive and respond to Nanny McPhee. Later the kids work together to fix a problem that is looming over their family, and Nanny McPhee encourages them to use their natural talents to fix it, she allows
a bit of devilish behavior there.
By the end of the movie the kids are feeling good about themselves, are treating each other better, and have learned all five of the lessons. Nanny McPhee is beautiful and the kids love her. So at this idyllic stage is when Nanny McPhee leaves – the children have learned and no longer need her.
When you turn the kids into the dogs, and Nanny McPhee into the dog trainer, there’s a lot of good stuff there. I can’t advise as to where to get a magical cane but dog trainers are pretty good at engineering situations where the dog feels like what it is trying to do just doesn ‘t work so it tries something else.
Whenever I have in a board and train dog I think about this. When the dog comes in it has a lot of undesirable behavior. I make sure the things it used to do just don’t work any more, and offer big rewards for trying other things. As we continue to work together the dog becomes much more attached to me and interested in what I’d like to do. I become “prettier” 😛
Finally, when the dog is easy to be around and to take with me out into the world is when I need to send it home. When I want to keep it it must go.
