One true dog woman to another…
I failed HARD today.
The whole morning I was dreaming up a training plan for my dogs, because I’m going to train them every day! (*Nervous laughter* at my own intensity). Then I realized I had fallen into my old trap of researching, researching, researching and planning, planning, planning and all it was doing was causing me anxiety.
I was feeding the internal friction of staring at the gap I want to fill and not focusing on adding to the gain.
In the past month or two I’ve made huge leaps with bringing the dogs back into being part of my daily life.
But my determination to train and be sophisticated in teaching my dogs awesome new behaviors and getting back to feeling more like myself for the first time in years…
Well it wasn’t moving me physically forward because I was stuck in my head. (And, let’s be honest, on my phone).
I think I may have said a prayer to God because I could feel myself getting more and more dysregulated.
And suddenly it hit me, and I can’t remember where I heard this originally (maybe from a Leila Hormozi podcast?)…
…get out of your head and into your hands.
So it’s hard for me because I LOVE research and reading and gathering all the facts and nuggets of wisdom and training philosophy and then spending hours and days thinking about it and writing about it and coming up with goals and plans for training my dogs.
And that’s FUN for me.
But it creates a LOT of internal friction because my body is like, “okay you’ve been revving the engine, it’s time to move us somewhere”.
And so I had to move myself.
I started with reminding myself that I can’t train the entire behavior chain in a day, but anything I do today will develop my dog’s understanding to more than it was yesterday (I hope, if I’m doing it right anyways).
Then I said “I’ll just make my own target stick with a clicker and a wooden spoon and some super glue.”
Then a bit later I decided I may as well cut up some treats and try out my new target stick. I’d watched a Susan Garrett video on training a dog to use a target stick, it didn’t look that difficult.
But it was much much more difficult than it looked. A humbling reminder for me that Susan Garrett has a LOT of years practice more than I do. She’s been getting out of her head and into her hands for decades more than me.
I am proud that I didn’t completely unravel during the session, but I was definitely fraying at the edges.
My happy go lucky black lab started flinching every time I used the clicker. And then that developed to her flinching every time I presented the target stick.
And I mentally noted those behaviors but DIDN’T ADJUST MY TRAINING. (Cue the anguished groans and gnashing of teeth).
I just kept on presenting the target stick over and over, clicking any little approximation of interest in it on her part. At one point I even marked her flinch when I presented it – WHY DID I DO THAT!?!!? I DON’T WANT TO SPOTLIGHT HER NEGATIVE REACTION TO THE TARGET STICK!?!!!?
Sorry for the all caps, but can you see how I was feeling? How my dysregulation just kept expanding and swirling and crashing like waves in an ocean storm until my poor little lizard brain was being tossed around like an untethered buoy?
At one point I did a good thing, I positioned my hand behind the target part of the target stick, and present it the same way I would for a nose touch. She got it then pretty good, despite me fumbling the treat delivery.
Did I make sure to really layer in the success rate by giving her lots of reinforcement that way before slowly moving my hand back towards where it should be on the handle? NO.
Then I got smart again and loaded the clicker for a few repetitions – that helped until her confusion turned her into a little over-aroused snapping piranha and my ego and sore fingers pendulum swung me back into the bullheaded belief that I should be able to achieve what Susan Garrett achieved in her YouTube video.
Long story short I was near the end of our training session and I realized I’d wracked up a pretty high error rate all in the name of getting myself a high rate of reinforcement. I figured more cookies in a short amount of time is better, right?
Yeah, but only if you’ve split the behavior down to increments the dog can succeed at so you’re actually shaping a behavior and not just rewarding your dog for making attempts despite having no clue what you are asking for.
Now, at the risk of really spiralling out of control into the depths of despair (as Anne of Green Gables might say) it gets worse.
My friends, while this is all happening my sweet sensitive dog-loving little boy starts peppering me with questions, “what’s that thing you have mom? Can I see it? Can I have a turn? What are you doing mom?”
Even as I’m saying, “no buddy mom is busy right now and no you can’t have a turn because I’m doing this right now” and I’m sure I kept running my mouth and digging myself an even bigger hole.
What I could have done, and what I wish I’d done, was called him over before I got my dog out and shown him my training tools and explained my plan (at which point I would have realized I was SORELY lacking clarity for myself and there was no way we’d succeed). It would have been a wonderful learning opportunity for him, and then I could have been kind and gentle and encouraged him to watch but explained that when mom is teaching something new to the dogs it is best for just her to work with them so they don’t get confused. (Haha, we wouldn’t want to confuse the dog right? *Facepalm*)
So – now that you have benefitted from the lesson of my terrible failures I am going to pivot and look at the gain. What did I do right?
I. Trained. My. Dog.
Yay, that’s great! I did something with one of my dogs and yes it was far from well executed but I did the thing that makes me feel like me. Like the best version of me that I lose sight of sometimes.
I built a new training tool for myself
I got out of my head and into my hands
I learned that while you shouldn’t over prepare you SHOULD have more clarity before starting to train.
I got started and I could criticize myself over and over until I’m blue in the face for how much of a dumpster fire that training session was.
But I’m not going to (well, not any more than I already have).
Instead I’m going to practice some self compassion, it’s been a while since I tried shaping behavior with my black lab and so we’re both rusty.
I will go and rewatch the Susan Garrett target stick video again and
Tomorrow I will try to improve even just by a tiny bit.
So, I encourage you my friends, whether it’s with your dogs or with your kids…
…get out of your head and into your hands.
Sincerely,
A true DogWoman (Jess)
P.s. I mention the gap and the gain a few times in this post and it is in reference to the concept laid out in a fantastic book called The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
P.p.s. Here are the links for Susan Garrett’s Target stick YouTube videos I mentioned.
https://youtu.be/TqsEEWCXze0?si=TizNAZR0N1GOsxD9
https://youtu.be/MzePo7RSQu4?si=-M68kp0yMak9IQ_q
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