If you have one of these small animals living with you, such as a dog, cat, etc. You know that they have their signals, they read yours, and many can build up a vocabulary of spoken human words. Just like we come to know a particular bark or yawn to have meaning.
Training this pup is a form of meditation in what feels like a topsy-turvy world. The effort everyone in our family is putting into finding a way to peacefully coexist with our new little buddy, reminds us all that even when the shared vocabulary is limited there is a way to come to an understanding.
It's not a perfect world and we evolve our approach when things don't seem to connect. We are in constant conversation with our trainer. But, we recognize failure as an event, not "something Louis (like Armstrong) did wrong." We just keep our focus on rewarding what we want to continue, ignoring what is irrelevant, and talking through what we want to change.
For our family, the value of integrating a pet has been in the need to constantly evolve our approach. Life is dynamic and as we learn more, we ground and grow at the same time.
