Training Tuesday
I've been busy.
I've barely had time to sit down for an extended period of time to think about what I need to train let alone train it.
In the busy flurry of my life, the dogs often take a back seat and we go into maintenance mode for a lot of things, meaning our advanced skill sets slide.
I'll be honest, it's been several days since any of my dogs got any 'formal' training. Yes, we are doing little things (small heeling sessions inside, practicing our chin rest, etc). but some of the larger behaviors (aka odor work) have not gotten work.
The concept of 'work/life balance' does not really exist. What actually happens is a cycle of focusing on what is needed in the moment. At certain times my dog training takes precedent, I train consistently and have a plan, we follow it and I see huge progress.
Then the next week we have to sort 150 beef cattle and get cows ready for artificial insemination and the dogs are lucky if they get a 2 mile run every other day.
This is how life works whether you work on a farm or have an office job. There are times where things take precedent and we have to make trade offs.
During one of these runs I had a little 'aha' moment....

All of the advanced behavior sequences I want are made up of small little behaviors.
What if....I acknowledge that I am tired and it's okay to work on a perfect sit in the comfort of my air conditioned basement....for just 2 minutes.
What if....I acknowledge that some days a simple line up of boxes/buckets or blocks is sufficient for me to work on latency or discrimination.
What if....by slicing my complex behaviors thinner I am working on the few weak links in the whole chain.
Just typing this I am finding my shoulders relaxing and a deep sigh of relief coming out.
What simple behaviors are you working on this week?
K9 Team: Jenn Hirakawa & K9 Moose
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