K9 Musings

I’ve thought about writing this blog post for two years now. But when it came right down to it, I couldn’t. The time wasn’t right yet, the emotions still too raw. This year, I think I can finally do it.

Looking back and my Facebook memories for this day I am reminded of two distinct things that happened three years ago. In 2014, March 28th was the day I found out that the reason why Kipp was ill and rapidly declining. And it was the day Kolt was born.

It was devastating. My working partner, my steady buddy had a particularly nasty form of cancer with few options for treatment. He went from happily working one week deathly ill the next. Meds would fight the cancer, perk him up and give us a few more really good weeks together. But it was a gut punch with precious little I could do. We did all of his favorite things the next several weeks. He ate good food, he played frisbee and tug. He was bound and determined to still work sheep even when his blood work said he should hardly be standing. He became more and more anemic, but he just kept fighting until his body wouldn’t go anymore. He was the epitome of heart and try.

I found out about Kolt a week and a half before I lost Kipp. I hadn’t planned on a pup that soon. I thought that I’d be waiting at least six to twelve months for one that fit my needs for a search dog. But there he was. The leftover pup that fit my list to a T was being offered to me. In one way it seemed providential in a way. Like God looked down, saw the hurt and offered me a hug in the form of a puppy.

I mentally hemmed and hawed. It was an odd, weird place to be thinking about a puppy when the main reason I was doing so was because my dog was dying. The dog who was supposed to be with me for four or five years yet. I didn’t *want* to replace him. Yet I needed something to fill the hole that was happening.

After thinking about it for a week, I said yes. Because I knew what was coming. I knew that the emotional roller coaster was almost over and that *I* needed something happy again. I needed a purpose for the summer. I needed to fight my way out of the looming depression. I took the hug.

I picked up Kolt five days after I lost Kipp. Happy, full of life, wanting a person. The day after I picked him up I sat on my bed and bawled into his fur. Because life still hurt. And then we went and did puppy stuff. Because puppies don’t let you sit still for too long!

It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. Sorrow and happiness etched in the memories of one day.

So here’s to the dogs of the past who you still miss like crazy and that are still larger than life in your heart. And here’s to the dogs of the present who bring you joy today and broaden your horizons.

And finally, here’s to taking those hugs that come along when you need them most.

I’m not the type to give my dogs free rein over everything. They have rules, they have boundaries, certain privileges need to be earned – and can easily be revoked! I call myself a benevolent dictator around the house.

Despite that, the idea of choice for dogs is a fascinating one for me. I think it goes hand in hand with good training. You train, build habits, create emotional responses, build value and eventually give more freedom and choice. My end goal is a dog who is a willing, thinking, almost equal partner. I mean, they’re still a dog and I still have the final say. But in choosing a dog for a partner, I am choosing them because they’re able to bring something to the table that I cannot. In search work, it’s the nose. And I need to trust them to make the right choice with their nose and alert me accordingly. Look for human scent, not rabbits. Ignore where the coyotes have peed, don’t investigate it.

In order to do the job, I need a partner who can actively choose to ignore the millions of scents out there that I cannot see and focus on the one that I have built value for.

I usually don’t see my dogs ignoring scent because it’s not often something that I can visualize. But the other day I saw it. I was working a search problem with Kolt at training. He was about 100 yards away when a small bird took off right in front of him a flew low to the ground. His prey drive kicked in automatically and took off toward the bid. And two seconds later, while I was still processing what he was doing and hadn’t yet told him to get back to work, he abruptly stopped and went right back to searching. He redirected himself and made a choice to do his job over the instant gratification of chasing a bird.

Let that sink in a minute. A dog, on his own, actively choosing delayed gratification and it’s job over something else that they would enjoy (while it’s something I don’t encourage, he occasionally chases birds in our off leash hikes around home).

These dogs amaze me every day. And I’m working to allow for more choice in other areas of life.

Now, if I could only get them to choose to stop rolling in poop…

If you’re going to be a dog trainer, you’re going to have to come to the place where you take charge. Take charge of you, take charge of your dog, take charge of your training. You need to own it to make it work.

When we start in our dogged pursuits, we want to do it right. And we quickly realize that there are a lot of people who know a heck of a lot more about it than we do and are awed by their skill. This is good, this is healthy. We need to gravitate to those trainers who resonate with us. Those trainers who get good results and have a relationship with their dog that we want to emulate. We need to listen, to ask questions, to watch.

But we can’t fall into the trap of handing our training over to them – physically or mentally.

Don’t fall victim to the list of “buts”

“But they know better than me”

“But I’m not completely sure about what I’m doing”

“But I’ve never done this before”

“But I may make a mistake”

All of the above are very likely true.  Big deal. It’s okay. You have a dog and they are always learning and adapting. Whatever trainer you’re learning from had a very similar beginning and worked like crazy to get to the point where you want to learn from them today.

When we allow another to own our training (and it’s just as often in a mental sense as them physically doing our training for us) we become adept at following, but not so much at doing. We’re not taking responsibility but placing it on someone else. I believe that this tends to create a bit of a learned helplessness. A “I’ve never done this before so I can’t do it” mentality. Or a “I have to do x, y, z or I’ll fail”, or “if only I was as natural as them, then I’d get better results”. We become either more passive and let them do the work, or frantic and overwhelmed because we can’t do it all right, can’t do it all just the way they would.

Those frames of mind are incredibly counterproductive in training. Because you’re letting things happen to you and don’t have confidence in what you’re doing.

And if you don’t have confidence in yourself, how in the world is your dog supposed to have confidence in working with you?

So get out there, keep learning, but start owning up to what you’re doing. Get out of the “but I don’t know how” and start trying stuff. It doesn’t have to be everything, you can start with small with this. Your future dog training self will thank you for it. And so will your dog.