Great Expectations

Did you ever think about how much we expect of our dogs? We want them to:

• Be tolerant of other dogs and people even when they are obnoxious
• "Power up" easily when we want to play, but "turn off" quickly when we do not
• "Walk away" from confrontations rather than getting agressive or defensive
• Be able to distinguish with absolute accuracy when something is a threat or not
• Be confident in all new situations and with all new people no matter how stressful
• Love us unconditionally no matter what.
  

I'm sure we all *want* many other things from our dogs too. We would never have these high expectations for another human, would we?

My wish is that we can all learn to cut our dogs some slack and simply accept some of their characteristics as part of their unique personality instead of always feeling we need to "fix" every little thing we don't care for about them.