It used to be that dogs were treated like, well, dogs. But, the American Way of Dog has changed in recent decades, says Marc Goldberg, coauthor with the monks of New Skete, a Cambridge, N.Y., Orthodox Christian monastery, of Let Dogs Be Dogs: Understanding Canine Nature and Mastering the Art of Living with Your Dog (Little Brown, Sept.). “People used to look for a dog to enhance and complement the family unit. Today they look for the dog to replace something that is missing from their lives—love, companionship, support,” Goldberg points out. “They are investing more and more human-type emotions into their dogs, who are not human. This is causing a breakdown in dog behavior and in people’s ability to coexist with their dogs in the profound way that all people want. People get a dog because they want a best friend, but they need to train their dog if they don’t want their best friend to be a jerk.”
Training dogs since 1966, the monks of New Skete come to the rescue once again. Their previous bestselling training classics, The Art of Raising a Puppy (1991, 2011) and How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend (1978, 2002), dealt with the nuts and bolts of dog training in a straightforward encyclopedic way. This new entry is different, says Brother Christopher: “We wanted to develop a philosophical approach that was rooted and grounded in the canine nature, and present that in a way that can be used with any number of different training approaches so it wouldn’t be one-dimensional. It also includes a lot of first-person stories from both of my and Marc’s lives as trainers. Much of the advice we are presenting is based in real life.”
Brother Christopher, who has been training dogs since 1982, thinks that many modern training methods fail because they are too rigid. “We can get so stuck in our particular training approach that the method trumps real life. For example, if a particular method is described as purely positive, then you have no place in your method for helpful corrections and dealing with bad behavior beyond simply ignoring the behavior or just motivating by food and more praise. What you’ll find,” he continues, “is that you can teach dogs particular skills, but getting the dogs to behave in an appropriate way in everyday life becomes a little more difficult.” He adds, “In our books, we’ve tried to both speak to the average dog owner and to offer our own unique perspective as monks to show how any dog owner can experience that spiritual dimension that is present in any human-dog relationship.”
Today, starting at 3:30 p.m. The monks of New Skete talk about dog training on the Author Market Stage (1465), accompanied by their dogs.
