At times, life can suck… hard!
You might have just undergone a major surgery, had some terrible or life changing news, you might be battling at work, or dealing with some tough stuff at home. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a case of one thing after another. And, if your not, it’ll be a case of when it rains, it pours!
Regardless of what’s going on, or how many balls you’re juggling, all or any one of these things affect us. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. It all takes a toll. We tend to forget that all of this impedes our ability to train our dogs with the fair, level mindedness that we would usually bring to each training session.
I wanted to get real this week and share how I manage when life fights back. It can be hard when you’re going through tough times and still trying to train a gundog. I want to reassure you, and probably myself, that we can and should adapt the plan when our lives are in the throws of chaos. So grab a cuppa, sit in the comfy chair and let’s talk about how we let go of the guilt, restore or salvage our relationships with our dogs, and keep a modicum of sanity when your life feels like an angry swarm of bees.
Own Where You’re At
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to kid myself with where I’m at mentally in the name of training. The problem with that is I’m a terrible liar, and Hail can see right through my bullshit in less than a second flat.
The problem with training when you’re trying to mask your lack of capacity is that our dogs sense in us that something’s different. By mistake, and with the best of intentions, we have brought an untaught form of pressure to training… a recipe for random behaviours. In short, we inadvertently affect our dogs ability to function.
For some dogs, like Hail, this means that her confidence and attitude decline. She’ll second guess my cues, she’ll be slow and will appear worried about making mistakes. For other dogs, it might look like them seeming disobedient because they don’t know how to handle the unknown pressure that’s been added to the training equation. I’ve even seen this play out as dogs that seem to deliberately be naughty when their owner is struggling… and really it’s just them trying to work out how to turn off a form of pressure that they’ve never been formally taught how to handle.
Rather than soldiering on and trying to fake it, the better call is to own where you’re at. Be kind to yourself, and to your dog, and say “I think we’ll give training a miss today”. Go down to the park, throw a ball in the back garden, make a cuppa and have a snuggle session on the floor with them. I often find, when I do this, I end up feeling much better, my dog and I still have some time together. And, on the odd occasion, I might do a quick ten minutes of very basic training an hour or so later once I’m feeling much better.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up About It
I would have made a great Catholic! I never cease to find things to feel guilty about, and dog training is no safe haven from this self-deprecating pleasure of mine. But I hate it. It achieves nothing.
Hustle-culture and toxic productivity have no place in the world of dog training… in fact, I’ll go as far as to say they have no place in the world at all. Feeling bad about the fact that you didn’t train today doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t train today. It certainly doesn’t make you a better dog trainer either. All it does is mean that your mindset becomes negative when you think about training, whichever way you look at it.
If you train out of guilt, your heart and likely your mind won’t be in it. Dog training is challenging and we can only deal with the demands of that when we’re in the right mindset. Training out of guilt is often fraught with frustration which leads to more guilt when you end up losing your rag with the dog… I mean, who didn’t see that coming!?
If you don’t train out of guilt, you’ll then guilt yourself into thinking that today would have been a good session and you let it slip through your fingers. Or you’ll feel guilty that your dog missed out on a training session. Trust me, you’re dog doesn’t give a shit what activity you do together, as long as you do it together.
The point I’m trying to make is that neither of these lines of guilty thought’s actually help you train your dog well. So, you have to learn to let go of the guilt. A guilted dog trainer is not a good dog trainer. Dog’s don’t care about your need to feel productive. And anyone who’s even half decent at dog training knows that training dogs never goes how you think it’s going to. It’s not a linear journey. There’s lots of three steps forward, two steps back. We need to let go of the illusion chasing productivity in dog training. Yes, aim for progress but don’t set yourself up for failure by focusing on a timeline of productivity. You’ll be disappointed every time.
Instead, let the guilt go. Be kind to yourself. Own your feelings or state of mind. Accept that today is not the day for training and acknowledge that in these situations training would, in fact, be detrimental to your dogs progress. And here’s why…
Protect The Relationship… At All Costs
Ever heard the phrase “it takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it”? The same goes for relationships. And this applies to our relationships with our dogs too. Training when your mind is elsewhere, when you’re frustrated, or when you’re not at your most patient will likely lead to a breakdown in your relationship with your dog.
Dogs are sensitive creatures. When you’re going through tough times our dogs can read that in everything about us. For them, our verbal communication is such a small piece of the puzzle. They’re picking up on our posture, our tone, how we walk, and the change in our smell because of the different hormones and neurotransmitters that our bodies produce as a response to the stressors in our lives. Their world is so much more complex than ours in that sense. We forget this because for us, verbal communication and facial expressions are our go to cues. And unfortunately, most of us are completely clueless at reading that correctly as well!
The point is, when we go off the deep end and lose it with our dogs, or when we put them under pressure because we feel under pressure, we make them unsure. We show them that we are unpredictable and that the outcome of getting it wrong could be unpredictable.
As we all know, good relationships are built on trust. Training when we’re in the wrong frame of mind creates an environment of uncertainty and distrust. We also know that it takes a long time to claw that back once it’s been damaged. And, in some cases, relationships can become unrecoverable.
So, knowing what’s at stake, if you thought you could irreparably damage your relationship with your dog, would you train in a compromised state of mind?
But How?
Owning where you’re at is the easy part. Or at least it is for me. I find cutting myself the slack to let go of the guilt is the tricky bit. Reminding myself what’s at stake is usually enough to snap me back to reality but, when it’s not, I think of this great quote by Banksy, “If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit”.
I love this quote because it really sums up what I’m often feeling in that moment when I start to feel guilty. I feel like I’m quitting. Like I’m somehow giving up on the dog or training just because I can’t do it this one day, or week, or month. The truth is missing a day, a week, or a month of training at a time when we really shouldn’t be training is the better call. Imagine the damage you could do to your relationship with your dog if you trained for a whole week when you were grumpy, sad, in pain, or frustrated?
Taking a break from training isn’t quitting. It’s taking responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of you and your dog. It’s acknowledging that the relationship you have built is the single most important training tool you have. And risking that training tool for the sake of a few substandard training sessions isn’t worth it. That is something that should be commended not condemned.
Just to be clear… It’s ok to feel ‘off’, under the pump, disinterested, sad, angry, or any other emotion that springs to mind. We’re human! During the course of a full and lived life we’re meant to experience all of these things. Should we train when we’re feeling these things? Probably not. And that’s ok. The world will not end, your dog will be ok. Make that cuppa, prioritise your relationship and make the most of what sounds like some much needed down-time.
Have you ever had to put training on pause because life got messy? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts in the comments… your story might just encourage someone else who needs to hear it.
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