"What I love most about working with dogs..."

I love this quote from one of my current reads, "Bones Would Rain From the Sky" by Suzanne Clothier:

"What I love most about working with dogs is their willingness to sccept new ways and discard old ones. If you show a dog a more comfortable and productive way to experience life, he is usually quite glad to trade in his confusion, anxiety, anger or fear for more pleasant feelings. Humans, on the other hand, can be a bit resistant to change."

I like to think of myself as a fairly flexible person but when I work with dogs, I'm always amazed at how quickly they assume new behaviors. In my behavior training class at Austin Pets Alive last night, we worked with dogs on how to not pull on the leash. At the same time, Suzanne in "Bones..." describes the same method we went over last night. After a brief tug, allow the leash to become slack and walk up to the dog, giving a treat (especially to reward eye contact). The dog learns it's good not to tug pretty quickly.

It's pretty logical, but how often do we see folks and dogs pulling and being pulled along on "walks"? Easy Leaders are nice (and I've used them on my 80 lb Lab Martha when she preferred to let me let her pull me around) but letting a dog know it's easy to walk sociably is far more preferable.