Are we being F.A.I.R. to our dogs?

There was a time, long ago, when I too thought a beautifully trained dog was one who did exactly what they were told, right when they were told to do it. A good dog listened, complied, and waited for the next instruction. That was what training looked like to me then, and honestly, it is still how a lot of people define success with dogs now.

But the longer I have worked with dogs, the less impressed I have become with obedience simply for obedience’s sake. It’s just not it. In fact, I find the idea that a well-trained dog should exist in a state of perpetual compliance antiquated and totally unnatural.

I still train dogs. I teach recalls, leash skills, boundaries, impulse control, cooperative care, and all kinds of behaviors that make living together easier and safer. I absolutely want my dogs to respond when I need them to, but I also really want them to be dogs. I want them to bark and run and dig and sniff and explore and roll in things I would rather they didn’t roll in. I want them to use their noses, notice their environment, move their bodies, make choices, and enjoy their lives in ways that matter to them. I don’t want a dog whose entire existence revolves around waiting for permission to interact with the world.

Dogs did not ask to live in our homes. They didn’t choose us, our schedules, our neighborhoods, our lifestyles, or the strange collection of rules we have created around what makes a “good dog.” And believe me, everyone’s definition of a good dog is different.

We brought dogs into a world designed almost entirely around humans and then handed them a remarkably long list of things they are expected to understand. We expect them not to bark too much, dig up the yard, chase the cat, pull on a leash, jump on people, chew the wrong things, investigate the counter, drag mud through the house, or make too much noise when we are trying to relax. We expect them to rest when we are busy, stay alone when we leave, walk politely through environments full of things that naturally interest or concern them, tolerate handling, accept visitors into their homes, and often get along with dogs and people they had absolutely no say in meeting.

Many of the things we find inconvenient are completely normal dog behaviors. We have simply decided they do not work particularly well in a human household. For some dogs, though, our expectations go much further than basic household manners. People often bring a dog home with an entire future already imagined for them. This will be the dog who hikes every weekend, hangs out at breweries, goes everywhere with the family, plays with every dog they meet, competes in sports, welcomes visitors, adores children, becomes a therapy dog, or eventually works as a service dog. Sometimes those expectations are part of why that particular dog was chosen in the first place.

There is nothing inherently wrong with hoping for a certain kind of life with your dog. I think most of us do that to some degree. The problem begins when those hopes turn into requirements and there is no room left for the actual dog who shows up.

Maybe the dog who was supposed to accompany you everywhere finds busy public spaces exhausting. The young dog that you imagined playing with every dog in the neighborhood may grow into an adult who is more selective about canine company. Your future hiking partner may be environmentally sensitive. Your expected social butterfly may actually want absolutely nothing to do with strangers. The dog you hoped would happily entertain visiting grandchildren may find children unpredictable and frightening. The dog you intended to train for service work may be hypervigilant in public, uncomfortable in crowds or around other dogs, sensitive to noise, easily overwhelmed, or simply just happier when they are not being asked to work.

Breed can give us useful information about behavioral tendencies, but even within a breed, dogs are individuals. Genetics, early experiences, learning history, age, health, temperament, environment, and simple personal preference all contribute to the dog standing in front of us.

I see this even in my own dogs. They are all mine and they all live under the same roof, are trained and worked with by the same person, and are held to the same basic safety expectations, yet they are not interchangeable. Ghost is not Lochlan. Lochlan is not Tiangou. Tiangou is not Neptune. What one dog finds very easy, another may find difficult. What one enjoys, another may tolerate, and another may want absolutely no part of. I cannot fairly measure one dog against another just because they happen to all belong to me.

Neptune has probably driven this point home for me more than any dog I have owned in a long time. He came to me fearful and an enormous flight risk. I could have decided that my goal was to turn him into some version of what people picture when they imagine a “normal” well-trained dog. I could have pushed for more social interaction, insisted that he tolerate people, dragged him into busy environments because exposure was supposedly good for him, or corrected the outward behaviors that made his fear inconvenient. But that is not fair to him.

Instead, much of our work has been about giving him the space to gather information and make safe choices while I make sure he has the skills and support he needs. His progress has not come from making his world smaller until he stopped objecting. His world has grown because his confidence and skills have grown.

This is now a dog who can work off leash on my property, assist with the chickens, recall like a champ, move with me, make good choices, and voluntarily engage in situations that would have been completely overwhelming when he first arrived just under two months ago. I am far more impressed by that than I would ever be by forcing him to stand still while strangers pet him simply because society has decided friendly dogs are “good” dogs.

And that distinction is at the heart of how I think about training now.

The trouble begins when we become so attached to the dog we expected that we start treating the actual dog as a problem to solve. Instead of asking whether an activity, environment, or job is appropriate for them, we start asking how to make them tolerate it. Training can quietly shift from helping a dog develop useful skills into trying to reshape the dog until they fit the life we already planned.

When a dog repeatedly struggles, we may label them stubborn, difficult, reactive, poorly socialized, disobedient, dramatic, dominant, or badly trained without stopping to consider whether we are repeatedly placing them in situations they are not equipped to handle. That mismatch can create frustration for the human, chronic stress for the dog, and eventually a relationship where both sides are constantly working against one another.

Sometimes, unfortunately, when the dog keeps struggling, we simply increase the pressure.

The leash gets tighter. The correction gets stronger. The electronic collar gets turned up. The dog is corrected for looking, sniffing, hesitating, moving away, vocalizing, or showing any other outward sign that they are not comfortable with what is happening. If the behavior gets quieter, we may call that success.

But quieter does not necessarily mean better. A dog can stop barking and still be afraid. A dog can remain in position and still be overwhelmed. A dog can stop trying to leave because they have learned leaving is unpleasant or impossible. Compliance only tells us what the dog is doing; it does not necessarily tell us how the dog is doing. This becomes especially important when we are asking a dog to do something as demanding as service work.

I see people buy or rescue dogs and immediately begin trying to shape them into service dogs because that is the role they want the dog to fill. Sometimes the individual dog truly is suited for that work, and wonderful. But rescue is not a temperament, and saving a dog does not create some debt that the dog must repay by becoming useful to us.

Service work asks an extraordinary amount of a dog. We expect them to remain stable and functional in stores, restaurants, medical offices, elevators, parking lots, crowds, around children, other animals, carts, alarms, strangers, strange flooring, sudden noises, and unpredictable human behavior. That requires more than obedience. It requires a dog who is genuinely comfortable enough to function in that environment. If a dog has to be repeatedly corrected through fear, reactivity, environmental sensitivity, or hypervigilance in order to continue performing service work, I think we have to be willing to ask whether the problem is really the dog’s behavior or whether we chose the wrong job for that dog and that is not failure for the dog.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is change the plan. A dog may wash from service work and still be an extraordinary companion. A dog may never become a therapy dog and still have a wonderful life. A dog may hate breweries, dog parks, festivals, daycare, competition environments, or being touched by strangers. That does not make the dog defective. It makes them an actual individual.

Training should help the dog in front of us develop the skills necessary to navigate life successfully. It should not be a process of sanding away every inconvenient part of that dog until we have created something quieter, smaller, and easier for us to control.

The idea is to grow our dogs, not shrink them.

That thinking is what led me to put a name around the questions I find myself asking more and more in my work and even with my own dogs. I call it the F.A.I.R. Framework.

F.A.I.R. stands for Function, Agency, Individual, and Realistic Expectations. It is not a new training method, and it is not meant to replace good training. It is simply a way of slowing down long enough to consider whether what we are asking makes sense before we jump straight to trying to stop a behavior.

F: Function

All behavior happens for a reason. That does not mean your dog is plotting ways to ruin your day or deliberately trying to make your life harder. It simply means the behavior works for the dog in some way or has worked for them in the past enough for them to learn and try it again. A dog barking at someone approaching the house may be trying to make that person go away. A puppy stealing socks may have learned that doing so causes a human to leap off the couch and begin a fantastic game of chase. One dog pulling toward another dog may desperately want to say hello, while another showing nearly identical behavior may desperately want more distance.

If our only goal is to make the unwanted behavior disappear, we may never bother to understand what is underneath it. This matters because the same outward behavior can have totally different functions. Barking can be excitement, fear, frustration, alarm, attention-seeking, or simply a behavior that has been reinforced repeatedly. Pulling can mean “I need to get there” or “I need to get away.” Freezing can mean uncertainty, fear, conflict, or simply a dog taking time to process information. If we skip the reason and jump straight to correction, we risk treating the symptom while missing the actual problem.

There are those out there that punish dogs for simply noticing their environment. A dog looks at a cow, watches another dog, turns toward a sound, or stops to investigate an interesting smell and immediately we want their attention back on us. Looking is not inherently misbehavior, and neither is sniffing.

When I am walking through the woods with my own dogs, I do not need them staring at me. Honestly, that would defeat half the purpose of being out there. I want them looking around, smelling things, investigating, and experiencing the environment. What I need is the ability to communicate with them when something matters. I need to be able to call them away from wildlife, get their attention if another dog appears, or ask them to move with me when we need to go.

There is a huge difference between teaching a dog how to disengage when necessary and teaching a dog that engaging with the world without permission is wrong. I do not want a dog who has learned that noticing something is dangerous. I want a dog who can notice something, process it, and come back to me when needed because I have actually taught them how.

A: Agency

Think about how many meaningful decisions your dog gets to make in an average day. For many dogs, the answer is not many. Not many at all. We choose when they eat, when they go outside, where they walk, when they come back inside, where they sleep, who enters their home, which dogs they meet, when play begins, when play ends, where they go in the car, and often whether another person is allowed to touch them. We control access to almost every single thing that they value. Most dogs have remarkably little control over their own lives, even when they are deeply loved and cherished.

Agency does not mean letting dogs run the household or allowing unsafe behavior. It means recognizing the places where we can safely give them some choice. Maybe your dog gets to choose which direction you go on a sniffy walk. Maybe they can move away when they have had enough petting without someone following them across the room to continue. Maybe veterinary or grooming care includes opportunities to pause. Maybe the dog who does not want to greet a stranger does not have to simply because the stranger says they love dogs. Maybe sometimes your dog gets to decide they are done with a training session.

I use this constantly with Neptune. There are many situations where I could physically make him stay close, tolerate something, or continue interacting. But if I do not actually need to force the issue, I would rather know what choice he makes. Choice gives me information. If he approaches, I know something different than if I drag him forward. If he moves away, I learn something different than if I prevent him from leaving. If he chooses to come back and participate after being given space, that matters far more to me than simply keeping him in place until he gives up trying to escape. That does not make him spoiled. It gives me a clearer picture of the dog I am actually working with.

Agency is also not unlimited. I do not let my dogs choose whether traffic laws apply to them. They do not get to decide whether chasing livestock is acceptable. Sometimes medical care has to happen whether a dog likes it or not. Sometimes I close a gate, end play, remove an item, or say no because safety takes priority. But the fact that we cannot offer choice everywhere is not a reason to offer it nowhere.

I: Individual

There is no generic dog standing in front of you. There is your dog and your dog comes with genetics, breed tendencies, age, developmental stage, previous experiences, physical abilities, preferences, fears, motivations, and personality. A six-month-old puppy does not have the emotional regulation of a mature adult. A dog bred for generations to notice movement may find moving animals extraordinarily compelling. A fearful dog cannot simply decide strangers are safe because we would prefer them to be.

Your last dog is not the measuring stick for this one, even if they were the same breed.

“But my other dog never did this” is something I hear often. Of course they did not. They were a different dog!

I see this in my own house every day. The same expectation can be perfectly reasonable for one dog and completely unreasonable for another. One dog may thrive in a busy environment while another finds it exhausting. One may love learning a particular sport while another could not care less. One may recover quickly from something startling while another needs more time. And that does not mean I abandon training. It means I teach the dog I actually have. It also means I have to be willing to let go of plans that do not fit the individual.

If the dog you hoped would become a therapy dog does not enjoy being touched by strangers, therapy work may not be their path. If the rescue you intended to train as a service dog finds public spaces stressful, repeatedly needs correction to maintain composure, or spends much of the outing scanning the environment and trying to manage their own discomfort, we need to consider whether that job is fair to that individual dog.

A dog’s suitability for a role should be determined by the dog, not by how badly we want them to fill it. That can be hard for some people to accept and therefore they reach for aversive methods to get the job done (at whatever the cost). People invest time, money, hope, and identity into what a dog is supposed to become. But changing the plan is not giving up on the dog. Sometimes changing the plan is one of the most respectful things we can do for them.

R: Realistic expectations

Sometimes the dog is not failing. Sometimes we have simply asked too much. We take a young puppy to a crowded festival and expect them to calmly walk beside us for hours. We expect an adolescent dog who has spent most of the day without meaningful activity to quietly settle all evening. We ask frightened dogs to tolerate strangers reaching over their heads because someone assures us that dogs love them. We expect dogs to ignore wildlife and livestock, welcome visitors, surrender things they value, tolerate handling, get along with every dog they meet, and walk at our preferred pace without investigating the world around them. Then we are suddenly so surprised when they cannot do it all.

Many of those skills can absolutely be taught. The question is whether this dog, at this point in their life, in this environment, with the skills they currently possess, can reasonably do what we are asking when we are asking it.

I think about this with Neptune all the time. My expectations for him today are not what they were when he first arrived because he is not the same dog he was when he arrived. His skills are better. His confidence is better. His reinforcement history is stronger. Things that were once impossible are now very doable. That is exactly what I want training to accomplish.

I do not want to drag a dog into an environment they are incapable of handling, punish them for struggling, and then call the absence of visible behavior success. I want to help the dog develop until more of the world becomes genuinely accessible to them. And at the same time, I do not expect every one of my dogs to eventually enjoy all of the same things. There may always be environments one dog finds unpleasant. There may always be activities another dog would prefer to skip. That does not automatically mean more training is required. Sometimes it just means the dog has an opinion and I allow such.

Realistic expectations also require us to understand the difference between something being possible and something being appropriate. Could enough pressure make a fearful dog remain still while a stranger touches them? Probably. Could an electronic collar suppress barking, lunging, sniffing, looking, or attempts to move away? It may suppress the behavior.

But the fact that we can create outward compliance does not answer the bigger question of whether we should be demanding it. A quiet dog is not automatically a comfortable dog. A dog who stays beside you is not automatically a confident dog. A dog who performs after correction is not necessarily a dog who is emotionally suited to what they are being asked to do. There is an important welfare difference between a dog who can do what we ask and a dog who has learned that doing anything else is unsafe.

I want my dogs to walk safely on leash, but I also want them to have walks where they get to stop and investigate whatever fascinating message another dog left on a blade of grass. I want them to disengage from wildlife when I ask, but I do not need them to believe simply looking at wildlife is forbidden. I want recalls that matter because recalls keep dogs safe. I want to be able to interrupt play because sometimes dogs need help regulating themselves. I want cooperative care because veterinary procedures will sometimes need to happen whether my dog would have chosen them or not.

F.A.I.R. does not remove expectations. It asks us to be more thoughtful about which expectations matter, why they matter, how we teach them, and whether the dog in front of us can reasonably meet them under the circumstances. None of this is about permissiveness. Dogs need boundaries. They need management. Sometimes safety means they cannot have the choice they would prefer in that moment. Living successfully with another species requires compromise.

But I believe that compromise should exist on both sides of the relationship. We already hold an extraordinary amount of power. We choose where our dogs live. We control their food, movement, access to the outdoors, and much of their social world. We decide which natural behaviors are acceptable and which ones need to change. We choose their activities, their schedules, and often nearly every meaningful part of their day. With that much control comes responsibility.

Dogs did not sign up to be subordinates whose entire purpose is to obey us. They are animals we deliberately invited into our homes and our lives, and I think that carries an obligation to care about more than simply how efficiently they comply.

There was a time when I looked at a dog executing commands immediately and thought, now that is a beautifully trained dog. These days, I am impressed by different things. I am impressed by the dog who notices something interesting and can still make a good choice. I am impressed by the fearful dog who feels safe enough to investigate. I am impressed by the dog who can communicate discomfort and by the human who is secure enough to listen. I am impressed by dogs who have useful skills without losing the freedom to behave like dogs.

I want training to give dogs more. More skills, more confidence, more opportunities, more access to the world, and more ways to communicate successfully with the humans who love them. I do not want training to make dogs smaller simply because smaller is easier for us to control.

So the next time your dog does something frustrating, embarrassing, inconvenient, or just plain weird, yes, you can absolutely ask how to change it. Sometimes the behavior genuinely does need to change. But before we jump straight to “How do I stop this?” I hope we start asking a few other questions too.

What is the Function of this behavior? Where can I safely offer Agency?

Who is the Individual dog standing in front of me?

And are my expectations actually Realistic for that dog in that moment?

We ask dogs to make an extraordinary number of compromises simply to share our very human lives. Before we ask them to make one more, I think we owe it to them to make sure we are being F.A.I.R.