Trust - reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person; confidence.
Does your dog trust you? Is there a trust that is unbreakable within your relationship? Trust is huge, in fact it is everything.
Trust takes work and it can take a long time to truly trust, depending on the dog and of course the human. Are you trustworthy? Does your dog easily trust? Many dogs do not naturally trust, they are suspicious by nature and to win their trust can be a great deal of work. But it is well worth it because once your dog trusts you, the two of you move onto a higher connection.
Luke was a worry wart type of guy so it definitely took work to get to a point where he trusted everything that I did. He never questioned what had to be done, although he occasionally had to check in to make sure that we were still good. If I accidentally pulled his hair or bump into him he worried that perhaps we weren't good. He'd reach his face up with a need to touch mine; once we connected physically he would stare into my eyes, just to be sure.
If he got hurt while playing or messing around somewhere he'd immediately come to me to show me what happened. Once I gave him some "you'll be okay" reassurance, off he went on his merry way. He was quite the guy. Earning his trust was not easy so when I did, it was something that was never broken. Even when I had to do things that he didn't enjoy, he trusted me.
Trust is everything. I tried to explain the trust factor to someone the other day. They were explaining to me how they attempted to house train their dog. They would yell and scream when they found pee or poop on the floor. What does trust have to do with this? Everything. Dogs don't associate pee or poop in the house with something wrong. So when you start to yell and get mad you are actually breaking trust which means ruining the bond that you have been trying to build. A trust filled bond is amazing.
When I had to give Luke his Vitamin needle, I knew it might hurt, but he trusted me. I did my best not to hurt him and he never even winced. He did trust me fully.
Building trust means never lying to your dog. It means always meaning what you say and never doing things out of anger. This is one reason that positive reinforcement training is so very important. The old yank and choke'm training is done through much anger, it is alpha ruler driven.
Dogs deserve our best and trust is #1.