The Daily Q: Groomed

I have been feeling a bit left out — I have not watched Tiger King, I don’t drink alcohol, and I cannot find yeast to bake bread.

But the other thing people seem to be doing is grooming their dogs — that I can do! And so yesterday I jumped into the Pandemic Activity Pool and gave baths to all four dogs.

Harper B is now 8.5 years young and doing just fine. She and her niece, Daisy, are BFF’s. It is interesting to see the family similarities and especially in their happy, friendly temperaments. I love knowing the many good things about Harper can carry on through Daisy.

Harper B for Beautiful

I like this photo of Sparkle, although it makes her eyes look light and they really aren’t so please ignore that part. Sparkle is also doing well — do you realize that Sparkle will be SEVEN in June?! How did that happen??

Sparkle Always.

There is so much to love about Miss Daisy. I am disappointed she will not have a chance to shine this year in the performance rings because she is ready — and she is good. Oh well. The path detoured and maybe that will be okay.

Daisy Rey

This is Claire and Sparkle — I love fluffy, clean dogs. You can see that Claire is significantly bigger than her mom, and yes — she is sporting her unicorn horn these days. I want it to grow enough for a bow.

Sparkle and Claire (aka Moose)

I just can’t do Tiger King and without yeast readily available, I may need to make a sourdough starter — or start grooming the cats. Bread seems safer.

Happy Sunday to you and yours.

The Daily Q: Platitude vs. Pivot

Platitudes and Pivots may seem similar — both suggest a directional change, after all. But they are actually quite different.

A platitude is a bit of a scolding, which nobody needs right now.

On the other hand, a pivot is a deliberate and empowering choice. It is, in fact, a self-care strategy.

But — this is important — the pivot happens in the context of honesty and compassion; a platitude is just kind of mean.

An example…

I had big plans for Claire in 2020.

Claire’s Big Plan: Chase more balls.

I spent months and months fine tuning her obedience skills — an entire year, in fact. I intentionally did not finish her CD in 2019 after her amazing performance at the last Specialty. I knew — after 25+ years of doing this — that Claire has the potential to be a High in Trial dog.

And so I was training specifically for the 2020 Specialty, and had her other obedience shows mapped out based on her High in Trial potential.

But that is not all.

Claire had early and often breed ring success. She finished her championship ridiculously easily at 17 months, and got a group placement soon after.

Her Grand Championship was also easy peasy, and completed at like 20 months. One memorable Best of Breed was over ten or eleven Specials, including at least one ranked male.

All that as an adolescent — and always owner-handled.

And so maybe you can understand why I see some fun potential in this dog.

Then I did something that is really hard for me: I practiced patience. I let her grow up — and we trained. And trained.

Claire is now three and ready to sparkle and shine. 2020 was to be her year.

Spring snow — yep.

Cue the pandemic.

Dog events might not be your thing but I bet you have a thing or two that has been disrupted, and so you can maybe relate to what this might feel like to me.

A platitude would look like this: “Self, at least Claire is young and you can show her again — someday (knock on wood).” Or how about: “Self — quit moping about this and get a real problem — people are sick and dying out there.”

Platitudes are both ineffective and additive — they don’t help us cope with hard feelings, and they toss Shame into the emotional stew.

The pivot is different. It is based on honesty and self-compassion. I acknowledge and feel my feelings: sadness, disappointment, regret, and so on. I recognize those emotions as the normal response to my lost dreams, and I create space to sit with them.

And then I pivot.

I make a conscious choice to turn in a different emotional direction. But because I have given all those feelings their due, Sadness, Disappointment, and the rest of that crowd are not yelling in one ear while Shame shrieks in the other.

Nope. Those feelings just needed to be felt. That is the nature of feelings.

Platitudes try to ignore feelings — to dismiss them as unworthy, and the Feeler as shameful for feeling them.

Pivots build a foundation on feelings. They are a choice made because of feelings — not in spite of them.

And so I felt my feelings — and I pivoted.

This is getting long and so I end by saying this about that — Perspective is a related topic for another day.

In the meantime, cry those tears for your lost opportunities and when you are ready and able — consider a pivot.

Stay safe and distant and well. And together. We got this.

A is for Attitude

Yesterday I posed these two questions about matches and run thru’s to The Edge group:

• What are your goals when doing matches and/or more formal run thru's?

• How do they support your training?

I appreciate the diversity of responses received; sharing our thoughts gets them out of our head, and invites others to help us refine and shape them.

Some of you may remember last Specialty when I was trying to decide whether to show Claire in Novice B obedience — this was happening literally at ringside. She was entered but not ready to show, in my opinion. I was teaching her a “finish” as we waited through the long class, for heaven’s sake.

I know how to have fun with my dog in a ring and do not suffer from Ring Nerves. Therefore, I decided — what the heck?! I would have fun and make it a great experience for her. Basically, I decided to treat it like a match or a run thru.

My version having fun with an unprepared dog was this: Claire was second in a class of something like 50 dogs, behind her Uncle Tristan who went High in Trial. She lost two points for her no-sit finish and still scored a 196.

And most important— we had a blast.

Had I seen one iota of stress in my dog, I would have excused us immediately — rehearsing undesired attitude in any kind of a ring is a Bad Idea.

If a dog is stressed in a match, she has practiced being stressed.

If a dog is worried in a run thru, he has rehearsed being worried.

Attitude is the foundation of focus — if you lose the confident attitude of a dog, you can kiss focus good-bye.

Therefore, attitude — not stress or worry or even actual skills — is what most needs to be practiced in matches and run thru’s.

“Working through” the concerns or worries is actually not what we want — it still brings the worries and concerns into the ring, and risks teaching the dog Learned Helplessness, which is a real buzzkill.

Most people can teach the dog skills — that is the easy part. The hard part, evidenced by the number of dogs being shown that look like they would rather be anywhere but a ring, is teaching and maintaining attitude.

Don’t risk poisoning the well. Once poisoned, it is tough to get right again (but it is possible!).

We all have different goals for our dogs. I would hope, however, that we share a commitment to ensuring our dogs have what they need to be happy and successful in whatever we ask of them.

And that, my Friends, means training skills and attitude to fluency before stepping in a ring setting — and then only doing what the dog can and will do in that ring while maintaining attitude.

For some dogs, that could mean a match in which we do two steps of heeling and then a toy is tossed before we happily leave the ring.

For Claire last year — it was the entire Novice ring exercises.

I have not shown Claire in obedience since the 2019 Specialty. When she enters the obedience ring again this Spring, my primary objective will not be about scores or ribbons or even what anyone else thinks about our performance. Rather, I will consider the runs successful if my dog maintains her pizzazz and attitude because that is, after all, the most challenging of training skills.

Game On.