okay then

I usually like to start my post with a great sentence but today I’m drawing a blank! I could start with the weather like I often do or get right into it with tales of the tail… I’ll start with the weather!

Mid March has arrived, along with SPRING! Ha ha! Today is a mixture of sun and cloud with a cold wind which isn’t exactly springlike on the surface, but if I look closer, I can see the snow starting to become granular (so many yellow snowcones!) and the snowbanks have shrunk by a few feet. Like what I’m learning about dog training, I have to pay attention to the small details to get a better bigger picture. So yes! Spring!

In that vein, I saw a memory on FB of ‘this day’ in 2012 when it was 25C! We were out for lunch on a patio in the market with Bruce and Tina - we had to ask to be moved to a table in the shade as we got too hot!

I’m still in the thick of dog training… I’ve gone from confident to overwhelmed to feeling like I don’t know anything and back to a shaky confidence. I think the dogs are going through the same thing as I figure out this new way of training. Old dogs (me) have a bit of trouble learning new tricks! I’m getting better at record keeping and making a plan although it’s definitely a work in progress!

I’ve not been helped by the state of my mind… I may celebrate spring on one level, but I have a long history of a few weeks of mental discombobulation in March and April which makes the transition a bit rocky. Not only does my brain slow down but it misbehaves in other ways, often inserting negative thoughts where there should be none. As I wake up, these unproductive thoughts swirl around in my brain - it takes a concerted effort all day to get them in control… sometimes I give myself permission to lay a bit low and maybe not accomplish as much - I think that helps to a degree but isn’t the best way to move forward!

I know the drill so don’t get too upset about it - I’ve been through it enough to know it’s temporary… 🤪

Putting down the training layers has been fun and a bit frustrating. The two dogs are so different to train! Lupa is a speed demon while in comparison Adia seems as slow as molasses. Adia has 4 years of old habits that I trained her to do which are slightly incompatible with our new games. Her default behaviour if she is uncertain is to either sit or lie down and she gets stuck there sometimes. Lupa doesn’t have such a long history so she’s able to figure new things out more quickly. I have to be super quick with the clicker to catch the right behaviours. It’s coming though.

Here’s a video of Lupa today learning to jump from bed to bed. It’s our second day of using a cue to get in and out of the bed. Lupa Hot Zone Game

One thing that I’ve learned that was lacking with my ‘old’ training is that I had no cue to say ‘the behaviour is over so you can stop doing it’. This cue adds so much clarity for the dog! When I ask you to sit, stay sitting until I say otherwise… and remember to say it! So no ‘sit, stay’, just ‘sit’ and an implied stay until I say either ‘search’ (to find food that I’ve thrown on the floor), ‘break’, ‘out’ (run out the door and play), ‘get it’ (attack the toy that I’m waving in your face)... we are still working on these cues! I sort of used ‘okay’ but gosh, I say that all the time! So much confusion for us all!

Remember! OKAY is not okay!

I’m also in the thick of a book called ‘Mindset’ which is an interesting read about… you guessed it - mindset! It’s really interesting and worth the $ download. 

With all this fun the days zoom by and before I know it another week has passed.

Awesome!

“I know there were awesome things but I can’t think of even one!”

“a whole page of training notes”

“progress”

“yellow snowcones are a sign of spring”

“starting to think about the camper - it’s still under a lot of snow though”

“Remember that failure is an event, not a person” - Zig Ziggler