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Writer's pictureLevi J

Anger Leaves A Mark

This is not an original story or parable by myself and some of you may already be familiar with it. I want to share it and hopefully show you how it connects to dogs and our relationship with them in the big picture, not just training.


There once was a boy who had a very bad temper. His father decided to hand him a bag of nails and said that every time he lost his temper, he had to hammer a nail into a fence post.


On the first day, the boy hammered 37 nails.


Within a few weeks, he had more control of his temper, and the number of nails slowly decreased. He discovered it was easier to control his temper than to hammer those nails into the fence.


Finally, the day came when he didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father the news and the father suggested that he pull out a nail every day he kept his temper under control.


The days passed and the boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. Afterwards, the father led him to the post.


‘You have done well, but look at the holes in the fence post. It will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.’


The parallel here to dogs and our relationship is not in what we say but what we do and it's not exclusively with anger either. I know to some this is essentially describing conditioning in a lot of ways but it goes beyond that. What we do at any of those moments, they make a mark in the dogs brain and on our relationship, they shape the dogs perspective of us. Going forward, the dog is going to reach into its brain and think of these moments and remember.


When you make a mark, it's permanent and you can do all sorts of things to recover from a wrong or a bad mark but it won't erase it, so be thoughtful and be intentional with the marks you make.

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