The Counterintuitive Reason Your Havanese Won't Listen to You

Picture this.

It's 7 AM. You clip the leash onto your happy little Havanese. You take one step out the front door.

And it begins.

Your Havanese starts barking incessantly when left alone, jumping on everyone, and refusing to walk because they'd rather be carried.

Your shoulder aches. Your hand is raw from the leash. A neighbor walks by with their dog — heeling perfectly, no tension on the leash — and gives you that look.

That look. The one that says: “Why can't you control your dog?”

You love your happy little Havanese. You chose a Havanese because of their sunny, velcro-dog devotion and playful spirit that makes them irresistible companions who hate being alone.

But right now? At 7:03 AM? With your coffee getting cold on the kitchen counter and your arm getting yanked out of its socket?

You're wondering if you made a mistake.

Havanese are incredible companions — when you know how to communicate with them.

Here's what nobody told you when you brought your Havanese home:

Havanese are not "easy to train" just because they're cheerful and devoted companion who bonds intensely and follows their person from room to room.

In fact, that desire to perform and love of praise that makes them natural trick learners and eager training partners is exactly what makes them harder to train with generic methods.

A small, moderate-energy breed like the Havanese processes the world differently than other dogs. Their brain is wired for sunny, velcro-dog devotion and playful spirit that makes them irresistible companions who hate being alone — which means the cookie-cutter “sit, stay, treat” approach from YouTube trainers and $200/hour behaviorists doesn't just not work...

It actively teaches your Havanese to ignore you.

Think about it:

• ✕You say “come.” They look at you. Then they look at the squirrel. Squirrel wins.
• ✕You say “heel.” They heel for six steps. Then it's back to separation anxiety and velcro behavior — right back to the same behavior.
• ✕You try “positive only” training. It works indoors. Outside? Total chaos.

This isn't a training problem. This is a communication mismatch.

You're speaking English to a brain that processes the world through sunny, velcro-dog devotion and playful spirit that makes them irresistible companions who hate being alone.

If you're like most Havanese owners, you've already tried:

None of these failed because you did something wrong. They failed because they weren't built for a Havanese.

Here's what changes everything.

Three years ago, a team of certified canine behaviorists started cataloging breed-specific training responses across 83 breeds.

Not theory. Not textbook stuff. Real-world data from thousands of owners documenting what actually moved the needle for their specific breed.

What they found was striking:

The same command, taught the same way, produces dramatically different results across breeds.

A Havanese responds best through desire to perform and love of praise that makes them natural trick learners and eager training partners. A Golden Retriever needs food motivation and short, enthusiastic sessions. A German Shepherd needs structured authority and longer repetition cycles. A Beagle requires scent-based engagement that most trainers have never even heard of.

The data was clear: breed-specific training isn't a nice-to-have. It's the only approach that produces lasting behavioral change.

That research became the foundation of what we now call:

For Havanese Owners

Every technique, every command sequence, every troubleshooting guide in this system was developed specifically for Havanese and their cheerful and devoted companion who bonds intensely and follows their person from room to room nature.