To master dog trainer Brian Kilcommons’ way of thinking, pet dogs are a reflection of their owners.

How we treat our canines, just like how we treat our children, is a leading indicator of why they act the way they do, good or bad.

Kilcommons says we all want to love and be loved by our dogs, but sometimes we have funny ways of showing it and expecting it.

“Loving your dog comes with some stipulations beyond simply patting him on the head and feeding him,” Kilcommons says. “We make great efforts to teach our children to be polite, to have acceptable manners, but we don’t always apply that same mentality when training our dogs, and we wonder why they do the things that annoy us, like jumping on people at the front door or continually barking.”

Kilcommons was in Kelowna last week to guest instruct a workshop organized by Wayne Dorman, owner of Dogzies here in Kelowna, who has dedicated himself to learning from the masters about dog training techniques.

I like to refer to Dorman as the “dog whisperer” because of the way he can communicate with dogs, something I have seen him do first-hand with my own canine misfits, who probably wish Wayne would come back to visit more often.

Kilcommons is one of the foremost dog trainers in the U.S. He’s written books, is the only North American to have studied under legendary British dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse, and has dealt with all kinds of training challenges, from straightening out dogs that have been abandoned at animal shelters, to working with celebrities to train their dogs. And yes, he says you can teach old dogs new tricks.

But he says it is a bit of a misnomer to say you are taking your dog to a training class, as the instruction should be actually targeted more at the dog owner. Kilcommons says there are many self-help dog training “experts” out there today, but trying to emulate at home what a dog trainer achieves with your dog can tricky. “Trying to duplicate what a dog trainer does with your dog can sometimes be dangerous. Just because he reacts in one way to a dog trainer doesn’t mean he will respond the same way to you. As the dog owner, you have to be part of that teaching process,” he says.

From my personal experience, my wife and I took our dogs to a dog training course and we came away with a better understanding about dogs, but I don’t think we necessarily learned how to respond to our dog’s emotional needs. And then when kids came along, the dogs often lose out on the quality time disbursement in our household, but a busy family life is something Kilcommons says it not an excuse for ignoring your dog. For instance, he says if you don’t have time to walk the dog, buy it a treadmill and let it run two miles a day on that.

While that may seem a tad extravagant, he says if your dog is truly part of the family, it deserves the same attention and respect as everyone else.

bgerding@kelownacapnews.com