March 14, 2016

Springing Forward Into Optimism

happy jack russell terrier with tongue hanging out

Trying to fall asleep last night at an earlier hour than usual because I knew the time change would be taking its toll on Monday morning, thoughts and conversations from the weekend coalesced into something thematic:  
 
Take the leap, spring ahead, trust in what you don’t know. 

Before turning off my light, I had just read the first few chapters of Relaxed and Forward, a collection of horse training essays written my friend Anna Blake. We share the idea that training is about relationship, and that's why her training book is less how-to and more meditation. We had dinner together Friday night and discussed the life-changing magic of the long-line and flying disc for Ruby. Earlier in the month I wrote about using the long-line for recall training but we’ve been doing much more goofing off than training. The interesting thing is…goofing off is working wonders.

Anna always leaves me with words of wisdom that ring in my head, much like the prose that sings from her books. Friday night was no different – she said something about acceptance being one thing, but no animal or person being immutable. We are who we are, until we’re someone else, and hanging on to old ideas limits that possibility. My old horse, Coro, has proven this in several ways since he first came to live with me. I fretted about his spookiness and wondered how he’d possibly survive move after move in a horse trailer between barns. He’s been moved five times in as many years, handling each trip like a pro. I agonized about separating him from his lifetime companion; he’s food-aggressive, a bit of grump, tends to think he might still be a stallion. These days he spends his days babysitting a weanling and a yearling in a large pasture who follow him around like groupies. Anyone can change.


I’ve written a lot about Ruby’s reactivity and how my acceptance of it as part of who she is was one of the best things I did for our relationship. I never thought a 50 foot length of coated nylon and a 7 inch round of hot pink and lime green nylon would combine to significantly alter our lives, but in the past few days, I’ve seen improvements that no amount of distance, redirection or treats could produce. After she had already played until her tongue was hanging out, snatching the disc out of the air, looking around for approval and returning it to me proudly,  we saw no less than six dogs in succession across the street and across the lawn and I was able to redirect her with the Frisbee. The next day, Ruby was engaging with me and making lots of eye contact on our walk even though she wasn’t on the long line and I didn’t have the flying disc. I think she finally thinks I’m cool. I can't describe how wonderful it is to see my little frantic dog gaining confidence by doing something she is good at and enjoys.  Who knows what we might now accomplish with our new tools, our extra hour of light. 

13 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you are finding something that works for Ruby! Ziva's achilles heel is her tennis ball, it works great for redirecting her attention when she becomes over stimulated by other dogs.

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  2. That's wonderful! I am hoping I can make this kind of progress with my pup. I'm trying to be accepting that she might never be able to greet a person in the 'normal' dog way but I don't want to give up on trying to improve!

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  3. That's the tongue of a happy, hot dog!

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  4. Awesome to see such improvement. Sometimes it is the things we don't expect that help the most.

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  5. I'm so glad you found something that works so well :) Buster plays tug and fetch like crazy at home, but it's hard to get him to do that in public, which is probably my fault because I've always done food reward vs. play reward. I'm taking a reactive dog class that focuses on personal play though, so I'm hoping that will help and translate nicely.

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  6. I'm so glad you're seeing improvement! Pike isn't reactive, but play helps his confidence more than any CC/DS I've ever done. It's quite interesting to me.

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  7. Expect nothing, but hope for the world. So glad you and Ruby have found some new possibilities! :)

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  8. So glad to hear Ruby's making such great progress! This makes me so happy! Thanks for giving me a little nugget of positivity to make this Monday that feels extra Mondayish a little better :)

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  9. A tired dog - tired from doing fun stuff - is a happy dog! Perhaps less likely to be reactive? Could it be that simple - at least on some days?! Whichever way it goes so glad for you and Ruby for this progress.

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  10. Good job, Ruby!! I'm so happy for you both! Reactivity can be so stressful and I totally feel your pain. Acceptance is hard! I am still trying to accept both of my dogs for who they are and training the dogs in front of me instead of what I wish I had. That's awesome she's doing so well and loves her frisbee so much!

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  11. Love the pictures! Schooner & Skipper are having a little trouble with the time change because they are getting fed 1 hour earlier. Me too lost 1 hour but in a couple of days we will be fine! Have a great week!

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  12. I'm glad you are seeing so much progress with Ruby. I bought a long line for Gretel years ago but it's still sitting in the package. I need to solidify her recall for our long hike this summer (she will be on leash but just in case she slips away from me) so I've been thinking of digging the long line out. I'm heading over to your other post to read about recall.

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