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15 · RITUAL

Discipline, the calm assertive way

Discipline is calm guidance and punishment is anger, even when the act is the same. Walk him first, then hold one rule in three parts, with no words and no affection in the middle, and never chase him for a shoe.

  • 23 min read
  • 13 figures
  • In the book
Text

A street mother dog lies at the mouth of her den with her pups, and lifts her head to look at the one pup who has wandered too far. The pup has stopped.

When I said the word discipline in a house, I watched the faces change. Somebody looked at the floor. Somebody said, we do not believe in that. They had learned the word from school, or from a father, or from a trainer with a stick, and to them it meant a dog being hurt for being a dog. I understood the face. I would like to take the word back from the people who ruined it.

Watch his mother. From about the seventh week she starts to say no: to the pup who drinks too greedily, to the one who bites too hard, to the one who wanders too far from the den. She does it with her body and her mouth, it is short, and then it is over, and the pups are calmer for it, not more afraid. That is discipline. It is the thing his own kind gives him, and it is the thing a family forgets the moment a puppy walks in, often only weeks after his mother began it, because he is so cute that every piece of us wants to hold him and nothing in us wants to say no.

Three panels at a den under some steps. A mother dog stands up and turns away from a pup still reaching to feed. She rests her open mouth gently over the shoulders of a pup who bit her ear, and he lies flat and still. She stands across the path of a pup who wandered off, and he turns back., open the figure larger
Discipline as his mother gave it. From about seven weeks she says no to the pup who drinks too greedily, the one who bites too hard, and the one who wanders too far. Short, with her body, and then over. The pups are calmer for it, not more afraid.

Chapter 09 gave you three rules and one method. This chapter is the method itself, taken apart so that you can see what you are actually doing with your body, your hands and your voice when you hold a rule, and what you must be while you do it.

Discipline and punishment

The definition is short, and I want you to carry it in one piece. When you guide a dog with calmness, with confidence and with compassion, that is discipline. When you are frustrated with him, when you are angry at him, that is punishment. That is the whole difference.1

Notice what the definition does not say. It does not say that walking him out of the kitchen is punishment and giving him a treat is discipline. The act is the same act. You can walk a dog out of a kitchen as discipline and you can walk the same dog out of the same kitchen as punishment, and from where he stands the two are not similar at all. One is a calm body guiding him to the line. The other is a tense body dragging him, a voice saying his name three times and out, out, out, and a human who has lost, and a dog knows when a human has lost. Whether you are disciplining him or punishing him is never answered by what you did. It is answered by what you were while you did it.

Two panels at a kitchen doorway. A tense, frustrated person drags the dog out by the collar as he braces against her. The same person, tall and calm, leads him out with a loose hand on the collar and he walks easily beside her., open the figure larger
The same doorway, the same collar, the same dog. On the left a frustrated person drags him out with his name and out, out, out, and he learns the anger. On the right a calm person walks him to the line and lets go, and he learns the line. The act is identical. The difference is in the human.

So this chapter is as much about you as about him, and chapter 05 warned you it would be. Everything below assumes the calm. If you do not have it on a given evening, do not take on the rule that evening. Walk him instead.

The rest of chapter 15 is in the book

Chapters 01 to 03 are free to read. The other 21 chapters cover, in order:

  • The rest of the Foundation
  • The Six Rituals
  • When Something Is Wrong

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Until then, these are free and cover the same ground: