Growing with Your Dog: A Human and Spiritual Journey

Whether we’re professional dog behaviorists or simply lucky enough to share our life with a dog, when it comes to raising, guiding, or navigating the many challenges of a relationship built on two languages, two histories, and a thousand misunderstandings, we’re called to open our eyes—and our hearts—in a different way.

We’re not here to “program” a dog to match some idealized version of a perfect pet, nor to “fix” them like a machine that isn’t meeting our expectations. We’re not even just here to understand them. What’s required of us is something deeper, something more personal—and it starts within.

As long as we don’t truly listen to ourselves, we can’t really listen to anyone else—dog or human. The world is a mirror. Everything resonates. Everything teaches us something about who we are. If we can’t recognize within ourselves what trembles, what doubts, or what resists, then what we believe we see in the other may just be a distorted reflection, a projection, biased and unfair.

The Emotional Intelligence of Dogs: A Model for Us All

Dogs, on the other hand, feel. They feel without filters, without defense, in a continuous flow we’ve largely forgotten. While we filter our emotions through reason, language, and the gaze of others, they take in everything—what we express, what we suppress, and what slips through the cracks.

They perceive the world unfiltered—no social masks, no mental constructs. They receive, in its rawest form, the truth of our presence. They sense our limits, our impulses, our silent anger and hidden fears. And often, they reflect them back through their own behavior—a faithful, uncompromising mirror. They don’t speak, but they know. And it’s this instinctive clarity that makes them such remarkable guides.

What Our Dogs Teach Us Without Words

Every dog I’ve ever met has changed me—often without me realizing it. The ones I’ve loved, the ones I’ve fostered—they’ve all left a unique imprint on me.

There were times in my life when I wasn’t ready to see what they were offering. Those are the relationships I carry the most regret for—the memories and the awareness of the mistakes I made. Other times, I could see it clearly, in the moment, as plain truth. And then there are the lessons that passed silently through me, lessons I only understood long after they were gone, as if their memory had slowly cast light on me—from within.

A dog is a singular kind of teacher, whose lessons demand a rare kind of humility—the kind that requires us to face ourselves, without shame, without pretense, and to dare to fully inhabit our own cracks and flaws so we can, in turn, welcome those of another. It’s in that shared vulnerability that real connection is born. And it’s there, precisely there, that the real work begins—the remarkable work that, if we do it well, allows us to grow with—or maybe thanks to—them. 🐾🖤