It’s funny how the lessons that we need to learn in life seem to reappear in a never-ending cycle until we learn them properly. I think dog ownership is the same. How many times do we find ourselves stuck with the same training problem, or unwanted behaviour that only seems to be resolved when we change tact and try something we’ve been avoiding? Maybe that’s just me?
Over recent months I’ve been reminded of that fact more times than I can count, and I wanted to share that experience in the hopes that it might resonate with some of you.
The Problem
As you might have noticed, things have been pretty quite on the blog of late. There are a few good reasons why that’s been the case, none of which I’ll bore you with at this point (don’t worry, Josh is still my better half). All I will say is that, I’ve ended up in the position where I’m now rethinking what the rest of my life might look like… And that’s been both terrifying and holds promise. Life is but a paradox!
With that, I’ve been encouraged to do a little more deep thinking than usual… because that’s totally what everyone feels like doing when they’re going through a rough patch. I’ve been reminded that although this process can feel quite ugly, there’s actually some real magic in it. You might be wondering how any of this relates to dog training or gundog work. Stick with me, this ones a slow burn but hopefully worth the wait.
For some time, I’ve had a vision of what I’ve wanted my life to be like; it’s slow, purposeful, and in tune with natural rhythms. Gundog life fits well with all of those things. It is inherently seasonal. We have the hunting season, the trialing season, and best of all, the dogs get me out and about appreciating each of the different seasons. Gundogs are also fantastic for keeping you in the moment. Whether that’s because you’re out hunting and keeping your eyes peeled for the next bird to flush, or because you’re taking a quiet moment by the fire to warm up and dry off after a wintery walk. Gundogs are the perfect excuse to slow down and appreciate the little moments.
But, one of the ugly realisations I’ve had while doing my deep thinking, is that while I know I want to live a life that’s true to all of those core values, my current life, or the life I’ve been living for the past however many years, has not been in alignment with any of those things.
Yes, I have the dogs, and yes, we do the hunting and the time in nature, but there’s been an unspoken rush to it all. That dreaded hurry-sickness that prevents me from experiencing every moment for what it is. This underlying feeling of needing to constantly be productive has stolen a lot of peace from my life; and it’s affected my dogs too!
Five years ago, or there abouts, I had a real crisis of identity. As part of working through that, I did a lot of reading and a lot of sitting with my own thoughts. Back then I identified that those core values (slow, deliberate, sustainable) were important to me… but as I sit here, five years later, asking myself the same bloody questions, I can see that I haven’t been living it.
That rather stark realisation was really brought to my attention by none other than my trusty live-in therapist, Hail. Training her is the single best, and almost cheapest, form of therapy a girl could ask for!
Working with her has this uncanny habit of exposing the parts of myself that need some attention. I know that I need to get my shit together when our training starts to wobble, and by crikey has it been wobbly.
For me, wobbly looks like:
- Inconsistent commitment to training
- Training one behaviour on repeat because my brain can’t handle more than one task
- Getting frustrated quickly when things don’t go well
- Finding every excuse under the sun not to train, but then feeling guilty about the fact that I didn’t train
It all came to a head when I went training with some friends a few weeks ago (read: a few months ago).
We were doing some simple marks in a field that Hail has worked in many times before. The exercise was to send her out for what should have been a relatively straightforward retrieve, a single bumper with a mild amount of cover…but she stopped! Like, sat down in the field on the way out the the bumper, looked at me, and then didn’t budge. She sat there for at least three minutes, just looking at me, until she was rescued by a hand thrown bumper from my friend in the field.
Once we’d recovered her, we had a conversation about why it had happened. We deduced that it was likely a lack of confidence. But it was a simple mark, so how had this happened!?
Unpacking the Problem
As is always the way, it had started with me.
In the previous weeks, and if I’m being honest, over the last six months, life had become really overwhelming. I’d been dealing with some really big emotions, and to cope, I’d tried to simplify my dog training so that I could continue to engage with it, without that becoming overwhelming too.
To feel like I was in control, I’d spent all our training time working on drill work; specifically, casting drills. While the highly controlled setups were temporarily soothing for my brain, I’d not given a second thought to how they might affect Hail. Casting, for those not fully fluent in the gundog language, is when you send your dog in one direction, but then stop them while they’re out in the field and ‘cast’ them, changing direction to pick up another bumper.
Now that I look at it, I can absolutely see how this would erode Hail’s confidence over time. For weeks all she has known is, “I get sent in one direction, and then I get stopped and sent somewhere else”. The lesson that I’ve been unintentionally reinforcing is that the she doesn’t know where she’s going, or that the bumper she thinks she’s getting isn’t the right one. No wonder why she staged a sit in!
After a fair few cups of tea, and a good chat with an actual therapist, I am now able to see the error of my ways. I’ve also been reflecting on just how much this way of thinking has impeded my growth as a dog trainer and in general as a person.
My natural tendency is to want to control or micro-manage situations when wider aspects of my life start to feel out of my hands. This gives me the illusion of being in control, which feels safe. What this latest episode with Hail has shown me is just how nonsense that is.
The illusion of control is exactly that, an illusion. What I haven’t been able to see, up until now, is the unintended consequences of my actions. And that’s what makes this so interesting. In trying to create a situation that I felt fully in control of, I ended up creating the complete opposite. Dogs are ever the reminder that we aren’t in control, we are in a partnership.
I’ve neglected my roles and responsibilities as a teammate to Hail, and as a result, she has lost confidence in herself, and possibly in me as her handler. This isn’t something I’m going to feel guilty about. This is just another one of those fabulous life lessons that she has taught me. All I can do now is learn from this situation, and do things differently moving forward.
And about those values?
They are absolutely the values I want to live by. They are the guiding principles that I base all of my life decision making from. But they are not a milestone. They are not an item on a to do list. They are aspirational.
The next parts of my recovery will be trying to understand why I find it so hard to relinquish control and why I seem to create barriers that prevent me from living in true alignment with the values I hold so dear. Many cups of tea and packets of biscuits will be consumed before I get anywhere close to the bottom of this rabbit hole!
I want to get to that point in my life where I don’t feel the hurry-sickness lurking in the back of my mind. That awful nagging feeling where I need to reach an imaginary (and completely arbitrary) goal in my head. I want to be able to take my time, and do things just for the sake of it. I want to feel completely in the moment, immersed in the things that bring me joy.
And here in lies the rub! Even that as a goal, to my hyper-fixated brain, could be considered as a milestone that I just need to reach as fast as I can. This is why I love dogs, because spending time with them is going to be a huge part of that recovery process. Using them to help me co-regulate, will be the best medicine. We really don’t deserve dogs!
The Take-Home
Anyway, I wanted to share this because if you, or someone you know, has been dealing with the sucky parts of life, it’s possible that they’ve also likely been feeling sucky about their dog work too. And, if you’re observant, it’s likely that you’ve already noticed it.
I guess that’s the great thing about dog training. You don’t get to have secrets.
Gundog training isn’t the kind of sport where you can leave your life drama at home. It comes with you, likely wearing a blaze orange shirt, blowing a whistle, while galloping through your training sessions with gay abandon.
If anyone was every going to give you up, it’s your dog. Bless them, they don’t mean to. But they just can’t help themselves. Our dogs are such a reflection of our state of mind, our training sessions, our current lived experience that they can’t help but give it all away.
If you’ve noticed that something feels off with one of your dog training mates, check in with them.
This can seem daunting, especially for blokes, so rather than asking the question up front, “are you alright?”, you might ask them if they want another pair of eyes on a particular training aspect they’re struggling with.
It’s amazing how often a seemingly innocent question about a dog handling quirk can open up a conversation about life. Remember, be there for them, whatever they need. That might be advice but more often than not, it’s just a listening ear.
Field Notes & Follies 
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