Dog Training and thinking inside the box seems like a natural subject for me. If you’ve participated in my dog training programs or read my book you would justifiable think this blog idea resulted from some human/dog team interaction. While I often speak about training inside the box I was inspired to write this blog post from @dino_dogan’s Twitter post.

Thinking inside the box vs. thinking outside the box

Thinking inside the box
As usual I feel that dog training is a great metaphor for other areas of our lives. In dog training as in other areas of life we can consider thinking inside the box as the straight forward orthodox approach. You can learn more about box training by enrolling in my online dog training school

I believe that we’re always training within a box, the Awareness box. Training inside the box is the first spatial orientation exercise in my dog training program. First we must learn to train within a structured system before we can move to a more fluid form of expression. The box represents that structure. I believe in Chinese mythology the square represents Earth. Until we have a solid understanding we must remain firmly grounded. And even when we move beyond the orthodox we must remain balanced.

The Awareness Box is comprised of eight directions or positions. The eight positions consist of four sides and four corners. These eight positions makeup the angles of movement and the reference points for orientation. The complex version of the Awareness Box is best imagined as a three dimensional cube.

Thinking outside the box
In dog training as in other areas of life we can consider thinking outside the box as the roundabout or unorthodox approach. I hope to cover this in a separate post.

My dog training logo is an interesting example, although it’s completely backward from how I usually teach the Awareness Box concept. But it’s close enough that even though it is reversed, it still visually conveys the concept. After it’s understood we can explain the details. The Adaptive Dog Training logo visually encompasses both thinking inside the box and thinking outside the box, It is both conventional and unconventional at the same time. In a traditional context I think it is a type of unorthodox orthodoxy. This may be a difficult concept to understand in a Socratic sense but it makes more sense when contemplated in a Taoistic system. As China rises to greater world power we must strive to understand different systems of thought if we are to flourish. Dog training is flexible enough that it can be used as a vehicle for learning about many aspects of human nature.
If you are interested in learning more about what humans can learn from dogs go to http://RenChenZa.com

Wishing you the very best in dog training and in life,
Andrew Ledford
I can be reached at 714-827-4058