One true dog woman to another…
I have the weirdest way of having fun. I’m learning though, as I try to find my way back to being my dog woman self, that leaning into it makes being myself a lot easier than resisting it because I think there’s something wrong with me for what I find enjoyable.
I find it enjoyable to deep dive into researching really specific training techniques and training plans and making lists and schedules for how I’m going to try all the things. It’s like my brain is this hungry hungry hippo always looking for cool new concepts about my favourite topics.
The only problem is… I find I can spin out by doing all the researching and planning but never getting out of my head and into my hands. By never actually practicing the physical skills of dog training. My dogs sit out in the yard and in my head they have been trained to the highest levels, but when I go to get them I’ll have to face the reality that was all a day dream and they won’t reach the level of training I can understand and write about if I haven’t actually used it to teach them.
So I need to train my hungry hungry hippo that it doesn’t get another tasty ball of new training concepts until it has finished digesting the last one. Until it has taken the last tidbit I learned in my head and used it to fuel my hands.
But boy oh boy, once the dogs have learned how to do that behavior and you’re ready for the next one in the chain, go and deep dive into that learning again!
And that makes dog training so much more fun for me.
After the hot mess of Monday and trying to train Garmin, my black lab, on the target stick I was really reluctant to train again. I knew that being a dog woman means I need to get over that reluctance and do it.
I was really hitting a wall of resistance when I realized that I didn’t need to jump back in the way I did on Monday. I could take a step back and think about the behavior I have trained that felt the easiest and most satisfying.
And I recalled training hand targets to Puzzle. She still has really high value for hand targets to this day. And I feel so much joy when she does hand targets, to this day.
When I was training hand targets I took videos of the session and watched them every 30-60 seconds to improve what I was doing. I practiced my mechanics BEFORE I got my dog out.
She learned them fast and she learned them well.
So if I’m not too chicken to keep pursuing my dreams of being a world class dog woman, I know the success pattern in myself I need to replicate.
Research, write down what I learn, make a plan, practice the plan WITHOUT my dog, then practice the plan WITH my dog WHILE recording video, review the video and come up with a new plan to improve for our next session.
Today when I was training Garmin and Puzzle I made the same mistake with both of them about halfway through each session. And surprise surprise! They both responded in basically the same way. They slowed down and would rock back and look at me as if to ask, “What do you want now? Because what you were doing changed and I’m confused!”
It was so obvious when I watched the video. I felt it during the session and caught myself. The fact that it happened later in the session made me think that while the dogs weren’t making mistakes and showing me they needed a break, I maybe did.
When I rewatched my video I had to laugh at myself because I even laughed and said, “oops I guess I should have taken a balance break”.
But I laughed. I was fairly relaxed. I didn’t feel wound up and frustrated after the training session.
That feels good. That more than the successful target stick reps feels like a HUGE win for me.
I’m really grateful for how far God has brought me in the last few years. There are so many lessons I’ve learned since becoming a mother that I can see are just going to make me a better dog woman. And there were so many things my dogs taught me before becoming a mom that I have used in parenting.
I’m going to take this slow. I’m going to be happy to do just little tiny bits at a time, because then I know I’m building rock solid foundational skills in a way that I find fun.
I’m not just learning how to train dogs, I’m learning how to train myself to do the things I want to do but struggle to.
Anyways, if you feel inspired, share with me something you find enjoyable that might make other people go hunh?
And then go have fun with your dog! (Even if it’s just watching them have fun doing dog things).
Sincerely,
A True DogWoman (Jess)
TruChoice Trainers 