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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

knowing when to stop, and when to stop worrying.



Wild dog.

I am my own worst enemy, particularly when it comes to 'the unknown future' and when those 'unknown future' events happen to involve anything slightly competitive.

So can you guess what really stresses me out (and not always in a bad way, but sometimes in a bad way)...? 

Training a young dog to eventually compete in agility.



Here's how my head reads:

I need a good collar restraint.

If I don't have good collar restraint, I won't have good drive forward.
If I don't have good drive forward, I won't have good cik/cap or running contacts, or weaves, or whatever.
If I don't have good (insert thing), I won't do well in agility!!!

MUST TRAIN COLLAR RESTRAINT....!!!


**spend every waking moment thinking about collar restraint and how she's not doing as well as I want**
**train madly, several times a day (luckily for her this is all about playing and racing me to food)**
**obsess about how to get her faster, stronger, better-- NEW TOYS!! BETTER FOOD!!! HOSE!!! MEAT!!!**
**realise I've only been properly training collar restraint for 2 days, and she's gone from just staring at her toy like; uh... are you gonna let me get it? to pulling forward - big improvement!**
**take breath, try and relax**

I don't know if anybody else lurking around here is as obsessive as me, and it's a bit sad because I know I should just let it go and have more fun but I can't, it's not who I am. I problem-solve and analyse, and over-think, and worry and I plan. And if I can't plan and lock-in an outcome, I worry. 

I suppose this is a note to myself:
Dude. Relax. Your dog gets better, just not straight away- it doesn't take long, but it takes longer than you think it will. She's a prep kid- they don't learn to count to 20 in one lesson. It takes them a LOT of lessons (so she's smarter and quicker than them, anyway). In fact, in that case, if you feel bad, compare her to the preps. 

Just not maybe some of the really smart ones. They put us all to shame.

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