Big Journeys Start with Small Steps

This is very true for all of us.

I was working with a new student the other day who was just starting their detection dog journey. Their first step was the evaluation of their dog, to make sure it was suitable for the work.

The dog would hunt for its toy in an unknown environment for over five minutes and could care less about my livestock or me. I am pretty much on board with this dog doing detection work.....

For this person, it was a big step for them to reach out to me to have their dog evaluated. But this was a small step in their big journey into the world of detection work. I gave them all sorts of options as to whether they wanted to pursue sport, SAR, or professional detection. Because to be honest, it depends on their passion, time commitment, and their why.

For our dogs, big journeys start with small steps. All of those small steps we do every day matter with our dogs. Just like this video of Jack (Stacy Barnett's super puppy) working on his footing in a new environment, he's learning to move through things in a fluid manner so when asked to hunt and find target odor later, he's not worried about his footing.

Building a detection dog candidate is coordinating a giant big journey with thousands of small steps. There are lots of things in life that are like that. In fact, most things in life are like that.

And often those small steps need to be repeated in many different environments, you know, that concept of generalization.

What big journey are you working on lately?

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This fall we are going to be having some of our own big journeys coming out that will result in new classes for next year! Students will also start big journeys of the K9Sensus DDTA in January. Make you you get your enrollment application filled out. We are going to start sending out confirmations in September!