Duke started puppy training in preparation for his bigger role in our ministry… service dog! We are still determining which type of service Duke will be doing, but the difference the training has already made in just three weeks has been nothing short of incredible.

Duke recently spent a whole week in overnight boarding and training while we traveled to our speaking engagement in North Carolina, and it has changed his behavior tremendously. He’s so much more obedient and enjoyable to have around, and it is SUPER FUN working with him now. And I am learning as much as Duke is during the process.

Prior to the week Duke spent in “board and train,” I was pulling my hair out and getting nowhere trying to train him myself. It’s easy to see how dogs can get labeled (like people) as uncontrollable and wild, and sadly enough sent back to the shelter because we just can’t tolerate their behavior. But the real problem isn’t just with them, it’s what we do when we teach our pets certain behaviors – a lack of structure – when we first bring them home. Those behaviors may be acceptable for a while, but what happens when those behaviors become ones we no longer find acceptable?

It’s all about structure and THE DUKE loves it!!

Obedience training is something new for me and I am learning a lot about myself during this process. I have always loved structure, and the longer I train with Duke and shape behavior the more I realize that dog behavior is not unlike changing our own behavior. The difference lies in communication.

One of the key things we were reminded of is that God requires our obedience. Not out of mean-spiritedness or that He’s a “control freak”. No, God requires our obedience and trust that He is in control and has our best interests at heart and always will. We can never understand the workings of the God of All Things. We need to understand the basic commands and that when He tells us to do – or not to do – something, we do it. No questions asked.

Isn’t that what we’re asking of Duke – to obey commands that determine what his behavior should be in a given situation? You bet. Going through this training process Duke has given us a greater understanding and appreciation of God’s role in training us to be more like Christ. How cool is that? We’re training Duke but God is also using our pup to grow closer to Him during this process. Amazing.

Now, does God always use verbal commands with us? No. And we can appreciate that because we need to understand that there are different ways messages can be communicated.

Interesting fact: did you know that researchers have found that dogs have a vocabulary of about 100 words? Think about that. We think of the basic “sit-stay-walk” types of commands but dogs are able to process more than that. However, dogs are very shrewd in discerning other means of communication – they learn OUR habits, knowing what we do and when; they study our body language, knowing actions we take when we act in certain ways; and they learn things about us by our smell. For instance, dogs have been known to detect cancer in their owners and when their owners need to take their medication because of chemical imbalances from mental health disorders. 

Humans are mostly verbal creatures but dogs can communicate on many levels and being consistent with all of them is a key for the dog to know precisely what you want them to do in situation-specific settings – especially when it comes to training dogs for service work.

With this understanding of how we communicate and how they learn takes place through a couple of avenues. The first is operant conditioning: Positive, Negative, Reinforcement and Punishment. Second, is association or classical conditioning.  

If we look at changing behavior based on our human terms, we can look at our eating habits. If I want to lose weight, I can’t eat a diet rich in junk, I must manage portions and increase physical activity. If we look at a dog’s behavior, we must change the outcomes associated with stimulus.

For example, if the dog gets excited at the sound of the doorbell and begins to bark and over stimulates, then the outcome will be for that dog to most likely jump on guests entering the home. In other words, a+b=c. So, we as humans must change what b is to get a different c.

In this next season with our ministry, we will be offering men coming out of incarceration who are dealing with addiction, the opportunity to learn a new skill as dog trainers. We have partnered with Double H Canine Training Academy to provide jobs for men coming out of incarceration, teaching them how to train service dogs as they continue to grow spiritually in their walk with Jesus. The men will be responsible for training the dog for the specific needs of anxiety for Deep Tissue Therapy. They will also be responsible for teaching the person how to handle the dog that they receive. Once the dog is handed over to the new owner, that man will receive another dog to train for another person and so on. 

God is preparing the hearts of these warriors not only to be disciples that make disciples as they continue to grow spiritually but to have a servant’s heart. That’s where the service dog training comes in. These men will be training the service dogs to make a difference in another human being’s life and getting that awesome sense of purpose that comes along with that.

Teaching men to help change a dog’s behavior is the perfect example of how we as humans manage our decisions to get a better outcome. Couple that with training a dog to help someone in need (something bigger than us) and then giving that dog to them (serving others) is the very message Jesus delivers throughout the Bible.

Something bigger than you. Life is not about you. But you are about life.

Service… But I live not my own life, but the life of Christ who lives in me.

We’ll be sharing more in our next newsletter about the service dog training and the property we are praying for so we can continue to help these men in their walk with Christ as they learn even more of the tools we use to be a disciple who makes disciples, as we seek God’s guidance and direction in this next season of our ministry.