Day 28: Makes an A** out of You and Me...(but mostly me)

So for anyone keeping track, I spent the past day chasing my tail at work because of a mistake that could have been avoided had I just taken the time to fully understand what was happening. Instead, I ASSUMED that I knew what was happening rather than going the extra mile to understand. After a long and stressful day, I drove home and started thinking about dog training. I thought about what I could do from a training session to write a cleverly didactic blog post about not missing small details, focusing not only on the outcome but on the steps, taking all measures possible to avoid failure; blah blah blah.

With this in mind, I headed out for the three Hs and then decided to work on his T drills which have been on the shelf for too long and which I assumed would make a great blog post and allow me to tie dog training to life lessons. I started with the drill as we have always run it. He hupped on the whistle, but in a very lackadaisical way which definitely took him further off the line where I want him to go as you can see in the following video.

So I decided  to crisp up his whistle hups and handling with this trusty new found collar tool that I have. I started with the device on a 1. I was hoping that a small blip would keep him from drifting over and that I would use this magical device to make a dog that runs like a pro...but instead, after I used it twice; he popped on the third one; and fourth one, and fifth one. Following this debacle, I made a new back pile (taking the sides away) and just ran him on it six times. We then transitioned to a bit of quartering and sit to the whistle drills.

All in all, it wasn't an awful session, but it made me realize something that I hadn't initially expected to extrapolate from this session. I learned that things don't always go according to plan, and when they don't there are no silver bullets or aces up the sleeve. Generally getting the most information that you can up front is the only way to ensure that when things don't go as planned that you can minimize the risk.

Tomorrow brings a new day at work and in training; so I'll be ready for whatever it throws at me...but no matter what it does, I will do everything within my power to make it a good day, not just assume that it will be.