It may seem obvious, but you and your dog speak completely different languages.
You speak English, French, German or whatever.
Your dog speaks, well, Dog.
And a dog lives in a completely different world from a human.
We have excellent eyesight and a rudimentary sense of smell.
Our world revolves round what we can see.
Your dog, on the other hand, has eyesight that is not rudimentary, but not a patch on ours.
He (or she) does have a wonderful sense of smell and that is what his world revolves around.
His eyesight enables him to interpret body language, but a blind dog can find his way round wonderfully in places he already knows.
But my dog understands every word I say to him, I hear you protest.
No, I'm afraid he doesn't.
He understands that certain sounds you make mean certain things.
Just as you understand that when he runs to the door barking he means "Hey, folks, we have visitors".
Which all means that we have a big communication gap to overcome when we want to get into some dog obedience training.
And it's going to be a 2-way thing.
You are trying to train your dog to do what you want.
Your dog, believe it on not is also trying to train you to do what he wants.
And that training is going on all the time - not just the odd few minutes when you have time for some dog obedience training.
Well, that's simple enough, you say.
A dog wants food, water, some fuss and some exercise.
I don't need to be trained to give those.
Is it as simple as that? What does a dog want from the humans he lives with? Someone once said that a domestic dog is no longer a wolf.
True, but there's still a lot of wolf in the dog.
They are a pack animal, which is why dogs are so much easier to train than cats - which are solitary animals anyway.
When you bring a dog into your home he immediately starts to assess this new pack that he's joined.
He expects to find an alpha, a pack leader who he has to obey.
If he finds one he may challenge for the position but, not having won, he will accept his role in the pack, at least for now.
If the pack doesn't appear to have a leader then the dog will assume that role.
That's when training the dog gets difficult.
Why should he obey his inferiors in the pack? Becoming the pack leader is not easy.
It means learning to speak a certain amount of dog.
No, you won't have to bark, but your attitude and a certain amount of body language will be needed to establish yourself as top dog in the pack.
If you can do this (and there are lots of sources of information on being a pack leader, from the "Dog Whisperer" on TV, through all sorts of books, print and electronic) then the difference in the way your dog responds will amaze you.
Go on - try it and see what happens.