Frequently Wrong, Rarely in Doubt

There is a particular kind of humility that is achieved only when one realizes one is no longer the emotional adult of the household. I had once assumed, somewhat naively, that acquiring a professional dog trainer would allow the dogs to flourish. What I did not anticipate was that the greatest personal transformation would be demanded of me, the nominal human in charge, who suddenly found herself living with two creatures of startling composure and rising professional ambition.

Moose, our youngest, has taken to training with the confidence of a student who not only read the syllabus but annotated it. Under the serene direction of our trainer – a wonderful woman with the gentle authority of someone who could, if necessary, negotiate peace treaties – Moose performs his tasks with an ease that borders on smugness. He sits, he stays, he gazes upward with the rapt attention of a monk contemplating enlightenment. Meanwhile I stand beside him, trying to remember the correct way to hold the leash as if it holds the key to my academic future. Moose is thriving. I am full of performance anxiety.

Enter Nyx: older, dignified, and until recently as unbothered by structured learning as a cat auditing a philosophy lecture. Her hobbies historically included napping in sunbeams and regarding household activity with polite detachment. And yet, once Moose’s training sessions began, Nyx developed the sudden, theatrical jealousy of a retired opera singer discovering that the understudy has been given her aria. She now presents herself to our trainer with the steady determination of someone prepared to reclaim her birthright. Her intention is unmistakable: She would like to be taught now, please. And honestly? Who am I to refuse a lady her education.

What complicates matters is that, while the dogs approach their lessons with admirable clarity of purpose, I approach them with the nervous fervor of a student desperately hoping the teacher won’t call on me. Each day, I practice commands with the solemnity of a monk illuminating manuscripts. I rehearse leash handling with the strained precision of a violinist preparing for a high-stakes audition. Should Moose falter or Nyx wander off-task, I know precisely where the blame will fall. Not on them, the sweet innocents. No – on me, the human who should know better, who has allegedly been working on “consistency.”

The dogs, bless them, are immune to such psychological burden. Moose greets every exercise as an exciting puzzle. Nyx treats her new training regimen as an opportunity to prove that maturity is not, as previously thought, incompatible with ambition. I alone am left to experience the uniquely human anxiety of being observed performing a skill I allegedly possess. It is rather like hosting a dinner party and then discovering halfway through that the guests will be watching you cook.

Somewhere amid hand gestures and my increasingly formal attempts to stand up straight, a revelation has emerged: the dogs change readily because they do not resist change. They accept instruction with uncomplicated optimism. They do not lie awake wondering whether the trainer secretly thinks they are incompetent. They do not catastrophize leash grip. This is the true dignity of being outperformed by one’s dogs: it forces a recognition that growth is not the guarded, overwrought ordeal humans make it out to be. Sometimes it is simply a matter of showing up, tail wagging, ready to learn.

And if that means Moose becomes a prodigy and Nyx stages a triumphant late-career renaissance while I quietly unravel in the corner – well, there it is. And truly, if Moose, Nyx, and I are all evolving in our own lopsided ways, it’s only because our trainer possesses the rare gift of transforming chaos into competence with nothing more than a calm voice and an endless well of grace.