I’m a big fan of doing things consistently even though it goes against my general nature. I basically grew up being told that the things that need to get done always get done so don’t sweat them too much. And this took me a long way-kind of a procrastinator’s version of follow your bliss. But with physical training and working with animals, consistent practice is super helpful. With that in mind I have gone on many programs of doing things for 100 days in a row. There’s an entire website devoted to starting 100 runs in a row in November-this gets you through the tough holiday season without having to think. Just do a 30 minute run of any nature and it counts. Just get out the door-my attitude when I start thinking I don’t have the time is to look at my watch and say what would the difference e if it was just 30 minutes later than now? Usually no difference so I head out the door.
Last week I heard that the Olympics are starting in 100 days and I couldn’t believe the banality of that news story. There is no reason for me to hear that unless I make use of the information-and here’s the thing, I did. I vowed to do 100 days of training every dog 3 times each day. This takes away all need for planning, being goal oriented, the stress of setting up different situations, and indeed getting my video camera set up to try to make a video.
The irony of course is that in less than a week I’ve gotten better at all of these elements of dog training and the dogs are loving all the extra attention and are thriving on the regularity of the training sessions. I have their circus set up in a spare room and in order to train the dogs efficiently I have given them each a spot to be while I’m training an individual dog. Then when I’m done with that dog I can immediately get the next dog started.
It doesn’t matter what I work on-and it’s a good thing too. As always I find that the dogs don’t know sit well enough to really use it as well as is needed. Improving a sit is always an easy way to burn up a training session. Keep it fun by pushing boundaries and the dog will be fully engaged.
I’m including a video of Squirrel playing with a snake that happened to be close by the circus ring one day. This has turned into each dog interacting with the snake in different ways. Moose swings it around and bashes its head on a box, lays still while the snake slithers over her (this is a great way to work on her staying in a “playing dead” pose). Mouse is jumping on the snake to make it squeak, Skeeter is grabbing it and running around it, Jingles wiggles on her back while it attacks her from the top, Coyote snuggles with it, and Squirrel-well, we can never quite figure out what Squirrel wants to do. Squirrel really is the three year old spoiled brat of the family. But here’s a video of what happened today.