In this week's episode of Enlightened by Dogs, Kathy Kawalec debunks three common myths around dog obedience training and old thinking that keeps us and our dogs stuck in old unwanted behaviors. As a dog mom, you may have fallen for one, two, or even all three of these myths that have been holding you back from creating a brilliant life with your dog.   Kathy shares her experiences from 20+ years of coaching, mentoring, and instructing other dog moms, helping them achieve a level of success with their dogs they never thought was possible. She believes that focusing on transactions and training behaviors is not the most effective way to live successfully with dogs.   Instead, she suggests going right to the root cause of behaviors and meeting both your needs and your dog's needs as social mammals. Once you start focusing on understanding your dog and meeting their needs, you'll see real progress towards creating a fulfilling partnership with them.   If you're ready to change the way you approach dog behavior and create a brilliant partnership with your dog, tune in to this week's episode of Enlightened by Dogs. Key takeaways:   Waiting for everything to be perfect is not an option, and the longer you wait, the less likely you'll ever be to start. Partnership is the number one thing that can catapult you to a level of success with your dog. Focusing on transactions and training behaviors is not the most effective way to live successfully with dogs. Understanding and meeting both our needs as social mammals is the key to creating a life of brilliant partnership with our dogs. Letting go of limiting beliefs around dog obedience training culture and facing our fears around making changes are essential to living cooperatively with dogs.   Quotes:   “Most of us dog moms don’t want to learn how to become an expert dog trainer. What we really want is to live effectively, cooperatively, peacefully, and enjoyably with the dogs that we love.”   “Most of us dog moms don’t want to put all of our time and attention on being a dog obedience trainer. What we really want is to live cooperatively, peacefully, and happily with our dogs … and the good news is we don’t need obedience training to have that.”   "Partnership, not training, is the number one thing that has catapulted me to a level of success with my own dogs that I could never have imagined."   "Focusing on transactions and training behaviors is not the most effective way to live successfully with dogs, and doing that often leads to getting stuck in a difficult, reactive spiral of stress"