To say that my relationship with Batman had a rough start would be putting it lightly.
Batman was a sixty pound, red-nosed pit bull who required a lot of exercise, attention, and care.
I was a twenty-one-year-old kid who likewise required a lot of exercise, attention, and care.
Since I was entirely incapable of meeting either of our needs, it wasn’t the best match.
My inadequacies as his guardian were compounded by my inability to admit my shortcomings. Everything I tried only seemed to make things worse, which resulted in me becoming more defensive and reactive to his misbehavior. As my frustration and insecurities grew, so did his stubbornness, destructiveness, and neuroticism.
When my frustration started turning into rage, and his stubbornness started turning into aggression, it forced me to swallow my pride and immerse myself in the world of behavioral dog training. I read books, watched videos, and started consulting with dog trainers, hoping I could learn something to help him be a happier and better-behaved dog.
Our situation did begin to improve as I learned how to communicate with him, to meet his exercise needs, and how to incentivize him to behave in ways that made our time together a little easier and a little less warlike.
But something was off.
Even though I was becoming technically proficient as a dog trainer, I didn't feel like Batman’s trust or respect for me was improving in tandem. In fact, the more work I put into training him to "behave" the more the emotional distance between us seemed to grow. He became less aggressive, but it became more and more clear that he was only “loyal” to me because I was his only source of food and shelter.
This dawning realization was crushingly painful. I desperately wanted to rectify this dynamic, but I was completely at a loss as to how I could train my dog to trust, respect, and love me. Or if that was even possible.
At the time I was also working at an alternative school for kids who were struggling to make their way through the standard educational system. One day the school’s principle gathered all the students into a single room and had begun reprimanding them for their poor behavior, and lecturing them on how they all needed to shape up immediately if they wanted to succeed in her school and in life.
Listening to her, a deep sense of revulsion began welling up inside me. How many times had these kids been given this speech? How many times had I?
I realized there was something deep inside me that yearned to hear her say, "I've let you down." Instead of, "You've let me down." To hear her ask, "How can I be better for you?" rather than say, "You need to be better for me."
When I came home to Batman later that day, I broke down in tears. Even though I knew he wouldn’t understand the words, I confessed and took ownership of all the mistakes I’d made in our relationship.
I saw that I had pushed undo responsibility onto him. From the day I'd brought him home, I'd held him accountable to an agreement he never made. That is, I’d made him responsible for my comfort, my happiness, my self-esteem, and for our pack's overall well being. The quality of our relationship and our success rested solely on whether or not he behaved in a way that I found acceptable and convenient.
In recognizing that, I also recognized that no amount of behavioral dog training could change what needed to change.
Me.
Once I decided to take responsibility for my feelings and behavior, and stopped asking him to change for my sake, everything in our relationship began to improve by leaps and bounds.
Since I could no longer blame him for our troubles, I was forced to look honestly at my workaholic lifestyle and how I was prioritizing my dating life ahead of his needs. I decided to quit my job and started spending more nights at home with him. If I was dating a girl and she couldn’t have Batman over at her place, then it was my place or nothing.
I started seeing his uncooperative behavior not as disobedience, but as an indicator that I was fucking up. That I was off course. That I needed to get better, not him.
With personal responsibility as my guiding light, my dog became both a mentor and a mirror. I came to see that he would never lie to me about how he saw me and would always hold me to his highest standards. And only when I rose to meet those standards would he offer me his genuine trust, respect, and loyalty.
As time passed and our bond strengthened in amazing new ways, I became deeply fascinated by the power of personal responsibility, and how positively and profoundly it began to impact all of my relationships (work, family, romance, friends, etc.).
But in contrast, I also began to notice a troubling trend in the world around me. The disempowering philosophy that had wreaked havoc on my
relationship with Batman for so many years was running rampant.
People everywhere had bought into the idea that the world at large, and all the people in it, were responsible for their happiness and comfort. That in order for them to succeed and be happy, other’s needed to shape up or be punished.
They wielded their discomfort like a weapon in an attempt to control the people who by their standards were “misbehaving”. People everywhere were holding others accountable to social and emotional contracts they'd never agreed to, in the exact same way I'd done with Batman.
We are living in a world where the subjective displeasure of others is becoming more and more of a factor in our legislative policies and in our social practices.
This is why I started Strong Bond Pack Development (now Strong Bond Dog Pack).
To help people understand and practice the transformative power of personal responsibility with the aid of some of the most patient, forgiving, and loving teachers in the world.
People’s own dogs.
Strong Bond’s ultimate mission is to create and nurture a world where personal responsibility is the norm, and where meaningful relationships are seen as the pinnacle of success and achievement.
Batman passed away three years ago today (4/24/19). All the work we’re doing with Strong Bond is a testament to the power of personal responsibility and the legacy of his uncompromising strength, his patience with me, and the joy he brought into my life, and into the lives of so many others.
Thank you, Bats. You’ll always be my hero.
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