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)

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

One true dog woman to another…

I get ahead of myself. And I often miss what is really going on for what I want to have going on because I have the perfect fix for it.

But it’s not a fix if I have misunderstood the problem.

Which is why the lightbulb I had this week was so embarrassingly obvious once I could see it. My problem with dog training is not that I don’t know enough or don’t know the right things or I’m lazy or I don’t have time.

It’s because I was trying to solve a surface problem with a surface solution. But what I had was a heart problem.

My heart was hurting for that deep meaningful connection I used to have with my dogs (or with any dog for that matter). I used to have an ease and peace around dogs that I haven’t found again until just recently.

That was the problem I needed to solve for. I needed to go back to what made me fall in love with dogs in the first place.

Just being in the moment with them. Loving them because I knew when they looked at me that I was enough. Feeling at ease with them because I knew they weren’t offput or overwhelmed by my insatiable curiosity.

And when I  realized that it suddenly shed light on how I’m best at connecting.

Through curiosity.

Genuine, gentle, and kind curiosity.

The pieces of that epiphany clicked into place when I was watching a Susan Garrett video and she highlighted how she waited, watching, to see how her dog would respond to a certain distraction.

She said, “I was waiting to learn something from him, about him.”

And I realized how training a dog for me is about figuring what the real disconnect is, and I can find that through getting curious and gathering data (by watching my dog and keeping training logs) and then I can use my love of deep thinking to mull it over and puzzle it out.

But I have to start waiting. Waiting to learn something from the dog (or person) I’m hoping to connect with.

I can see how this would make a WORLD of difference with my son. If I’d just let him be, if I’d just watch him and let him make choices without my own ego getting in the way of his learning.

And with my dogs, if I could just find joy in watching them to see who they really are as a dog and how they want to connect with me.

I think the new training game I learned from Susan Garrett’s Recaller’s Archetype series “From Me and Them to Us” will be a great way for me to train this new level of patience and practice this renewed curiosity. Susan Garrett called it Vito’s Thinking Game and explained “the purpose of Vito’s Thinking game… putting a dog in the position to figure out how they can earn reinforcement”.

So I played this game with Puzzle. I practiced the mechanics first to minimize my own fumbling. I realized halfway through playing that I should have written out the steps in big easy to read lines and put them up so I could reference them as I was working through it for the first time (I’ll remember that for next time).

It was great fun and while I haven’t gotten a chance to do it again and grow it to her going around a cone, I am not going to criticize myself for that because I ENJOYED a training session with my dog. And for right now that is solving for two of my problems.

1. I want to be connected to my dogs again.
2. I want to enjoy training my dogs again.

So, if you’re reading this, go connect with your dog, or go train your dog, or go look up Susan Garrett’s Recaller’s Archetype series and learn some really cool new ways to approach dog training.

Here is the video of Puzzle and I playing Vito’s Thinking Game

Sincerely,

A True DogWoman (Jess)

One true dog woman to another…

I get distracted easily. I forget the point of why I want to do something because I’m worried about being the best at it or proving that I’m the most knowledgeable or capable.

Even if I’m the only person I’m trying to prove that to.

I worry about things like being the best and canine husbandry, grooming, training, showing, evaluating dogs, analyzing pedigrees, memorizing facts about canine behavior and breed standards.

But all of that is pointless if I’m disconnected from my dogs.

Connection with dogs is what got me into all this. That peaceful feeling I’d find in the company of animals that I never could find in the company of other humans is what I was searching for when I decided years ago (albeit with less clarity than I have now) to become a dog woman.

It was when I started hanging the security of my own ego on my dogs that I started losing that connection, and lost my motivation to be present as my best self with them.

One could even venture to say that is when I lost view of my best self altogether.

These days as I struggle to be a good person, let alone a good mom, for my kiddos I need to keep that best self in view more than ever.

As I reflect on that thought, of how the basic connection is where I need to get back to with my dogs I start looking for it in other areas of my life.

And it shows up in my relationship with God. How the basic practice of sitting down and reading the Word with a readiness for something (anything) to resonate maybe doesn’t make me feel connected in the moment but definitely has an impact on how I’m showing up.

Like that practice of connecting to God with little moments of curiosity as I read the Bible is focusing my internal spirit lens on the identity I have in Christ a.k.a my best self.

So while I’m not trying to draw parallels between my dogs and God, and I’m not deifying dogs in anyway, I’m seeing that when we pour our connection energy (using curiosity to guide us in doing that) we can find fuel to step into our best selves.

So as dog women, when we pour our energy into connecting with our dogs in that fully present and zero stakes way–without ego and without a striving to prove our worth or our dogs worth–we can find an authentic connection with them that brings us into alignment with our dog woman identity.

And, at the risk of going off on a tangent, if you’re a wife or mother as I am, it’s worth exploring how investing time and energy into the simple low stakes moments of connection can grant us larger returns in our home lives.

The last few weeks I have not done much of anything with my dogs. I’m not going to dwell on that. But I am going to be grateful for what I felt was a win this past week.

I packed up my two boys, a preschooler and a nine month old, and took them to their Grandma’s house for three days. She lives about five hours away.

The win as a dog woman? I took my seven year old whippet with me. She was a dream, except for when I missed her cues and she pooped in the guestroom at my mother in law’s where the boys and I were going to be sleeping for the next three nights.

No harm no foul, I cleaned it up and kept a careful eye on her the rest of the visit.

It felt good to have her be part of things even in the simplest way.

It soothed the sadness I felt over mine and my husband’s mutual decision to forego a puppy for the foreseeable future (more on that in another post) and it also soothed the grief I felt when we stopped in at a dog show on the way home to watch a friend take her Beagle puppy into the hound group (also something to talk about in another post).

I encourage you, my fellow dog women, to keep your foundational Layers at the forefront. Connection with our dogs is why we do this, we can’t lose sight of that in the high distraction environment of expert husbandry, dog competitions, and breeding programs.

So, until next time, let’s go connect with our dogs. Even if that just means sitting on the front step with them and taking a few deep breaths before diving back into the busy-ness of family life.

Sincerely,

A True DogWoman (Jess)

One true dog woman to another…

I worry way too much. No matter what I’m doing I’m often thinking about the other things that need to be done but can’t be because of what I’m busy doing, or where I’m busy doing it.

For example, I am spending a week at my mom’s place with my two kids and my sister’s two kids. Every morning I’m taking the two older boys to vacation Bible school with the baby in tow while my two year old niece stays with her Nana (my mom). Yet I keep thinking about the garden at home that needs weeding, the grass needed mowing, the house is in shambles because we’re getting Renos done, and my dogs are alone all day while my husband is at work. I’m doing what I should be doing for my kids, as a mom, but I’m worrying the whole time about what I should be doing as a wife and dogwoman in my home.

It’s silly really when I step back and look at it objectively. Even world class trainers and dog sports competitors must take weeks off or have time away from their dogs.

And then I think about the last time I did do something with one of my dogs. And it sheds so much light on why I’ve struggled with the dogs, and the kids too, since becoming a mom.

I wasn’t aware of what it is about dogs, and animals in general, that I love so much. What is it about them that brings me so much peace. After some reflection I realized it’s because they don’t worry.

What they are doing at any given moment is the only thing they’re doing.

Kids are like that to.

And to be with a dog, or a kid, and find joy and peace in it, you have to be at least a little like that. You have to slip into a state of presence, and if you let them dogs and kids can help you slip into that state of presence.

I went looking for a term that described a dog’s ability to be so present in the given moment. I found the term “unconscious presence”.

It’s their ability to be 100% present and focused on the moment at hand – not the day before or the day ahead. They do it without thinking, without intention, it’s just in their nature. Kids are like that too.

Back to the last time I did something with one of the dogs. A few days ago I took Garmin, the black lab, out for a walk. Just her by herself because I wanted to teach her how to play fetch. The Whippet is a bit of a distraction so she had to stay in the house.

Garmin is a black lab who’s mother constantly was carrying something in her mouth. If you called her to go with you to do something she’d search for something, anything, to carry with her. Garmin, however, didn’t have the benefit of early retrieve training the way her mother did – hence teaching her how to play fetch now.

I thought if she could play fetch it would be so wonderful to just hang out and throw the ball for my dog. It really is the simple things that help us build connection and relationship with them.

Except she wouldn’t fetch. Sure a couple times she ran, got the ball, brought it back and dropped it at my feet. That’s a behavior chain not innate to all dogs that she was able to do maybe twice out of twelve tries. Without me doing much teaching.

What she didn’t get was that I wanted her to do that Every. Time. I threw the ball. But she was too focused on the treats in my pocket to understand the behavior chain she already knew how to do was exactly what she needed to do to get the treats in my pocket.

Now I could get into the technical “why” and “how” to correct my mistakes as a trainer to make it clear to her what was expected and I’m sure after making those corrections she’d have been close to 100% on board with a game of fetch.

But first I want to talk about how my emotional state and stinking thinking sabotaged my ability as a trainer to make those course corrections.

I was worrying about the baby crying in the house while my husband supervised bedtime so I could get a bit of a break. I was worrying about the dinner dishes in the kitchen needing to be done. I was worried about the Renos and the overgrown state of my yard.

I was also carrying the baggage of shame and guilt over how neglected my dogs and my identity as a dogwoman has been since I became a mom. Worrying about whether or not I would actually be able to stick with it this time as I tried to get back into the habit of being the dogwoman I want to be.

Worrying that I’d break that promise to myself again.

And all that baggage weighing me down and sending off alarm bells in my head was pushing me into a stress response so I completely missed out on the relaxed fun time I wanted with Garmin.

Not only that but the pattern of punishing myself for my past behavior prevented me from snapping myself out of the present behavior I was practicing with Garmin that wasn’t working.

In the back of my mind I saw right away that she was too distracted by the fact that it was evening, a time when I usually feed them their daily kibble rations, and her most favourite time of day. She was so distracted by it that she didn’t care about the ball or me really. She wanted food. So the treat in my hand became a distraction rather than a reinforcer for the game of fetch.

As a trainer I knew I needed to reset. Remove the distractions (maybe go back and feed her evening meal so she was less hungry and more able to focus) or ask for less.

As someone just wanting a bit of time to unwind and enjoy my dog I could have told myself “this isn’t going to work tonight, she has the instinct to fetch but not the understanding to do it, so if all I want is to enjoy time with her a simple walk through the pasture is best and we can try fetch another time with less distractions”.

But I dug in. And got worked up and tried more times than I should have to get her to retrieve the ball.

If you’re familiar with positive reinforcement training frameworks you know that the goal is to get a high rate of reinforcement right away to build confidence and encourage them to continue practicing the desired behavior.

But instead I sabotaged both our efforts by allowing her to repeat failures.

Not her fault.

Mine alone.

And what really gets me is she wasn’t at all concerned about the life she has had. A life of minimal training and fairly little daily interaction with me. A life of mostly just being a dog, getting out on the acreage to sniff and dig and run and enjoy each moment.

I was the one that brought my baggage and wounded ego and desire to prove myself into our time together.

So while it is incredibly simple it feels profound to me to realize that what I love the most about dogs and what initially attracted me to them is the same thing that could heal my relationship with them and reinforce the habits of being a dogwoman.

It all comes back to that unconscious presence.

I’m thinking that maybe jumping back into training or husbandry isn’t what I should be doing.

But rather slipping back into the infectious unconscious presence of dogs.

It isn’t hard to do, once I have given myself space and permission to do so.

As a mom I know it is also what I need with my kiddos and what my kiddos crave from me.

I’m not going to turn this into a sermon but it isn’t lost on me that Matthew 6:34 tells us not to worry about tomorrow and Lamentations 3:22-23 reminds us His compassion never fails and is new every morning. That sounds like being present to me.

I asked God when I found out I was pregnant with my second son and was heading into maternity leave that He would use this year of being nothing more than a wife and mom to teach me how to love it for what it is. That He’d teach me how to find joy and peace in motherhood. So much so I wouldn’t feel the desparate need to get away from my kids that I sometimes feel when I’m stressed out, overstimulated, and constantly triggered.

This feels like part of the answer. It feels like a double blessing that I’m learning it from time with my dogs.

A blessing not just for me. But for my dogs and especially my kids too.

Now, I’m not at home so I can’t say it’s time to train (it just wouldn’t be fair to myself). But it is time to be present.

And while my presence may not be unconscious yet it can be practiced anywhere.

Wherever you are in your journey. Whether you’re in a season of motherhood, dog trainer, both, or neither – may God bless you with the chance to slip into some moments of unconscious presence.

Sincerely,

A True DogWoman (Jess)

One true dog woman to another…

I’ve been away for a while. Like, a long while. Not just from this website. Not just from my dreams of being a dog woman. But from my identity as a dog person.

Why? I told myself it was because I was finding myself as a mother, but I’m still floundering in that and I’m almost 4.5 years in. The truth is… I miss my dogs.

If I’m even more honest, though, I was never much of a dog trainer. I was an enthusiast, a sycophant, a philosopher. But I didn’t commit to the daily grind of applying the theory I was learning as actual skill.

To give myself some credit, each dog I bring into my home is better in their crate and on the leash than the last but I’m far from raising and training the incredible family pet that I always dreamed of. The one I wouldn’t hesitate to throw in the truck to take with me when the kids and I visit the park. Or the one that can wait patiently outside while I run into the corner store to grab us all some icecreams.

For a small blip there, before becoming a mother, I was getting out and sharing my meager morsels of knowledge. People asked where I learned what I knew and I’d shrug and say, “obsessive reading and consuming any and all dog training material I could get my hands on it.”

What I wasn’t prepared for as I entered the ranks of adulthood and found myself doing the responsible thing of building a career was that the time I had to do those obsessive deep dives was dwindling. It disappeared when I had children and found myself clumsily navigating my way through newborn, infant, and toddler stages. God brought me through despite my inherent lack of grace (it forced me to rely on His grace) and now I’m doing the newborn and infant stage again with my second son as I navigate the new phase of preschooler with my first.

A 4 year old that so badly wants a play mate looks for it in our maturing dogs. He found great joy and built a foundational layer of confidence when he walked into the show ring as a PeeWee Junior handler for the first time this year. And as a momma I cried tears of joy to see my first baby growing up and sharing the past time I have loved with me.

I haven’t shown much since becoming a momma. I finished my first champion in the winter of 2019 and didn’t pursue showing her as a special until two summers after my son was born.

I miss it. I miss the people I met at dog shows. I miss sitting ringside and discussing conformation and showmanship with fellow enthusiasts. Laughing over the antics of dogs and handlers alike.

But I don’t miss the pit in my stomach when I’m getting ready for a show and start to see all the ways my husbandry and training don’t measure up. Part of that is coaching myself in the same way I had to coach my son when he thought he would be too scared to go in the Junior’s ring, “We came all this way to do this, but I won’t force you to go in that ring. Nobody will. But you wanted to do this, you heard about it and had the instinct that it would bring you joy to try this. So you may be scared, but if you can do this even though you are scared you will know you can do hard things. You will know you’re brave because you did a scary new thing and found out for yourself if you will love it.”

Part of me needs that little pep talk. Because if something doesn’t do that for you then the ribbon is irrelevant. The championship is irrelevant. It’s how our choices shape who we are before God, ourselves, and the people around us that means something.

The other part of what I need – beyond just a pep talk – is action. Consistent daily action that is aligned with my values and moving me towards my dreams.

I started Truchoice Training in memory of Truman, my crossover dog. He was the dog that could not find himself under the coercive pressure of bribery and balanced training approaches I attempted out of my ignorance. My heart closely bonded with that dog, but my knowledge and skill level failed him. He got lost in fear as I tried to lure him into doing what I wanted and then forcing him when that failed.

So I looked for a new way. And found first When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion. Her “box game” transformed my relationship with Truman. Then I found Susan Garrett’s blog and her suggestions for improving a recall. I would have loved to join her online Recaller’s program right then and there but I didn’t have the funds at the time. So I spent a very precious 30$ to buy her Crate Games dvd. That added another brick to my foundation in choice based positive reinforcement dog training.

Now more than a decade later I haven’t picked up a clicker or pursued a training session with a dog since training Garmin, my black lab, as a puppy in the winter months leading up to my first son’s birth. I focused heavily on playing crate games and crate conditioning with her.

To this day she is the best I’ve ever had a dog be in the kennel. (And leash walking too!)

So the methods work. IF you work them.

So why have I abandoned training my dogs altogether? Because I’ve been floundering in motherhood trying to get a handle on it before allowing myself to return to myself.

This summer, though, I wonder if God isn’t point His finger towards my dogs though. As if to suggest practicing choice based training with my dogs again will remind me of the values of gentleness, curiosity, and connection that first endeared me to the training methods. The very values I am struggling to embody as a mother.

I blame dysregulation. I blame anxiety. But the truth is – behavior is what changes our nervous systems. Choosing the behaviors that align with our values is what frees us from the confines of anxiety on our lives.

As if to add confirmation I listened to a Susan Garrett podcast the other day and heard her talking about how the way we choose to train our dogs is a reflection of our values. The training method we choose dictates the relationship we have with them.

So maybe practicing the way I know I want to be with my dogs will bring some clarity to how I want to show up for my family.

Now as I seek to be a gentle mother that provides the structure necessary for her kids to grow up as strong members of the family and some day society I see an opportunity.

An opportunity to use my foundation of dog training as a practice ground for the person I want to be everywhere else in life (especially as a mom).

An opportunity to invite my son into someone I was before he met me. A calmer, more curious version of myself. One who looked to connect with any dog that crossed her path.

Maybe if I offer to show him how to handle a leash and use a clicker we will find a new kind of connection.

Because to value something and not diligently pursue it in my life is to live in hypocrisy.

Now we wouldn’t that would we?

It’s time to train. I’ll start with the Collar Grab Game* tonight, and trust that the joy and connection will grow from there.

*The Collar Grab Game is a game I learned from Susan Garrett, I believe it is a foundational game in her Recaller’s program. It is great for classically conditioning your dog to have their collar grabbed – it saves you in a pinch if your dog is about to make a mistake (maybe even in a dangerous situation) by training them ahead of time to move toward the hand reaching for their collar instead of away from it as many dogs will instinctively do. It has the added benefit of encouraging a dog to make eye contact with us – which helps to create connection between us and them and either establish or reinforce the bond we so badly want with our pets.

Truly yours,

Jess Wagner