Rules is Rules

A woman came to me almost in tears.
She was trying to teach her dog to walk nicely on the leash. Now this is a very challenging skill for many dogs. You don't think of it as a learned piece of knowledge, but it is. Walking sooooo slowly next to us bipeds has to drive them insane - when there is all that big world out there to sniff and chase and enjoy!
She had a very exuberant lab and nothing she did seemed to work.
So she went - smart woman!! - to a dog trainer to show her how to teach her dog.
While it was a good move on her part, it went downhill from there.
The trainer told her first thing you do is hold the leash in your left hand. Well, she had carpel tunnel in her left hand. No can do. No option, trainer explained - if you want to have a dog, you must walk him on your left.
Or what? They explode at a thousand paces???
I mean - there are rules and there are rules.
I often find it amusing that I have to explain to people 'its your dog, your household, you get to chose!'
At my house, dogs are allowed on my furniture. A few lucky ones may share my bed. And when I eat popcorn, they are allowed to beg for me to throw them pieces. Yes! You CAN even feed them people food! Gasp!
BUT - at my house, my dogs do not charge out an opened door.
They do not behave like insane things when the doorbell rings. Those are the things I chose.
When I teach class, I walk dogs on my left. Habit. Conformity. But when I'm walking around my neighborhood, my dogs are most generally on my right. I don't have sidewalks here and I like to be between dog and cars.
Certain things you get to chose. Certain things you can try if what you are doing isn't working for you. What works for one household, one person, one dog, might not work for another.
Here's to the unbending of minds and the flexing of rules!