From Sit to Stay Humble: Lessons I Learned from Training My Dog

My loyal dog, Sunny, graduated from dog training this week. There was a cap. There was an edible diploma, and there were hours spent over the course of the last two months teaching her new skills while stuffing her full of countless treats.

I sat there watching my golden doodle—who once ate an entire set of plastic dishware and showed zero remorse—demonstrate that she could now sit, stay, and wait on command. She touched my hand with her nose when instructed. She left things alone that didn’t concern her. She dropped things she shouldn’t have picked up in the first place.

And that’s when it hit me: my dog now has better life skills than I do.

This is humbling in ways I’m not entirely prepared to process.

Somewhere between doomscrolling at 2 a.m. and getting frustrated by strangers on the Internet about things that will not matter in six months (or six minutes), I’ve apparently forgotten how to function like a well-adjusted mammal. If a dog who believes every squirrel is a personal nemesis and every person is a potential belly-rubber can learn these lessons, surely I can too.

(Spoiler alert: I’m not sure I can, but I’m going to try.)

The trainer went through several basic commands that are simple stuff for dogs, but nearly impossible for humans. Or at least for this human, who can’t seem to focus on anything for more than 30 seconds unless it’s a true crime documentary or a plate of barbecue.

Because here’s the thing—every single one of those commands is something I desperately need to relearn.

Focus

“Focus” means getting Sunny to look at me instead of at every leaf, child, squirrel, and potential new best friend within a three-mile radius. This is harder than it sounds when you’re a dog who believes every living creature is either a long-lost sibling or a threat to national security.

But we’re not much better, are we?

We live in a world with approximately 47 million distractions at any given moment. Our phones buzz. Our emails ding. Our smart watches remind us to breathe because apparently we’ve forgotten how to do that on our own. Somewhere in the background, there’s a notification telling us that someone we went to high school with just posted a photo of their lunch.

Focus has become a superpower.

The ability to look at what actually matters—your family, your goals, your mental health, that book you’ve been meaning to read since 2019—requires the same kind of intentional effort it takes to get a doodle to ignore a squirrel. Which is to say: it’s nearly impossible, but worth attempting anyway.

Touch

“Touch” is when Sunny puts her nose to my hand. It’s a redirect—a way to bring her back to me when the world gets overwhelming or she’s fixated on something she shouldn’t be.

We could all use a little more touch.

And I don’t mean in a creepy way. I mean actual human contact. A hug. A handshake. Sitting next to someone without both of you staring at screens.

The virtual world is exhausting. It’s a place where everyone is either outraged or performing happiness, where context is dead and nuance goes to die. Sometimes the best thing you can do is log off, walk away, and go find an actual human being to have an actual conversation with.

I’m as guilty as anyone. I’ve spent entire evenings “connecting” with people online while ignoring the person sitting right next to me on the couch. (Sorry, honey.) But there’s something grounding about real human contact—something that reminds you that life exists beyond the glow of a screen.

Touch base with reality and the other human beings around you more.

Sit

This one seems simple, but it’s actually the hardest in our fast-paced world.

Sit. Stay. Be still.

Sit with yourself. Sit with your thoughts. Sit without your phone, without a podcast, without any stimulation at all. Just sit and let your brain do whatever it is brains do when they’re not being force-fed content every waking moment.

We all need to slow down sometimes and just sit with ourselves for a few minutes each day. Even if—especially if—it feels uncomfortable.

Wait

Sunny has learned to wait. She sits at the door and waits for permission to go outside. She sits in front of her food bowl and waits for the okay to eat.

This is a minor miracle, by the way. Have you ever seen a golden doodle wait for food? It’s like watching a tornado practice patience.

Waiting is not our strong suit as a species either.

We want what we want, and we want it yesterday. We’ve been conditioned by two-day shipping, instant downloads, and microwaves to believe that waiting is a punishment rather than a discipline.

But some things are worth waiting for. Some things require waiting. You can’t rush grief. You can’t rush healing. You can’t rush a good brisket. (Trust me on that last one.)

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to skip ahead to the good parts, to fast-forward through the hard stuff and get to the resolution. But life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you just have to wait—for the right opportunity, for the right person, for the right time.

If my dog can sit in front of a bowl of food and wait for permission, surely I can wait for the things that actually matter.

Leave It

“Leave it” means don’t touch that thing you really want to touch. For Sunny, it’s usually a child’s plushie or a bit of food that said child dropped.

For humans, it’s usually other people’s business.

If it doesn’t concern you, keep your nose out of it.

This is advice I wish I’d learned about 20 years earlier. I’ve wasted so much time and energy worrying about things that had absolutely nothing to do with me. What someone else is doing. What someone else thinks. Drama that I had no stake in but somehow felt compelled to monitor.

Leave it.

Not your circus, not your monkeys. Not your marriage, not your problem. Not your kid, not your parenting decision to critique.

I’m not saying don’t care about people. I’m saying don’t insert yourself into situations where you’re not needed, wanted, or helpful. There’s a difference between being supportive and being nosy, and most of us could stand to learn it.

Drop It

And finally: “Drop it.”

This is the command for when Sunny has already picked up something she shouldn’t have. The chicken bone is in her mouth. The shoe is between her teeth. It’s too late for “leave it.” Now she has to let go.

There comes a time when you should just drop it and move on.

Drop the grudge. Drop the argument. Drop the need to be right. Drop the relationship that’s been over for three years but you keep trying to resuscitate. Drop the idea of who you thought you’d be by now and accept who you actually are.

This might be the hardest command of all.

We hold onto things long past their expiration date. We clench our jaws and our fists around things that are actively hurting us because letting go feels like losing. But sometimes dropping it is the only way to move forward. This is especially true with arguments — political or otherwise.

Drop it and move on.

So there you have it. Six commands that can turn a chaotic doodle into a semi-functional member of society, and six lessons that might do the same for us.