Don't lie

It has come to my attention recently that we as a human race tend to lie to our dogs quite a bit.  And I am here to tell you to try not to.  Oh sure there are the times when we are in a panic; perhaps there is impending danger and all we have to fall back on is a lie, but that is the only time a lie should be pulled out.  I'm sure many of you are thinking "I don't lie to my dog," right?  So you've never yelled out "Cookie?"  This while standing in the park and then hooked up your dog and gone home without delivering the cookie?  You've never told your pooch that you were going in the car so that they'd come in the house or come? 

We've all done it; although I try my hardest not to because there are fallout issues with lying to our dogs.  The biggest issue is the ignoring issue.  Have you said "cookie, car or walk" one too many times and not produced what you said?  Well then we have the "never cry wolf" issue.  Someone I know has done this a lot lately; I'm not mentioning any names but lets just say I know him well.  What happens when you lie to your dog often is a diminished verbal reliance.  The word which use to hold so much power has now become a neutral word, not good. 

For our dogs; everything is black and white.  They have a hardtime with gray; the clearer we can make our communications the better.  With enough training and repetition some of our words weild great power while others just mean what they mean.  So if we over use and under produce we tarnish our reputation and our words.

Tone factors in when communicating as well.  I can say to Luke "did you see any lizards today?"   If I say it in a very loud asking tone he flies from whatever he is doing to see if there are indeed any lizards.  If I ask him in a low boring sort of tone he gets his ears up but doesn't fly off the handle.  You must be careful how you use your words; specifically the ones that our dogs understand.  These are golden or should I say silver?  Silver because it can tarnish if not taken care of; we need to treasure our words of communication and not throw them around willy nilly. 

Before you speak, think.