Just Grow

Being seen can be seductive. Getting those clicks, likes, little heart emoji's and all that jazz. Did you know some of the highest employers of behavior analysts are the social media companies? They are trying to figure out how to keep all of us glued to our screens. Any one who is trying to sell you something is trying to figure out how to keep your eyes on their page, screen, or reel for more than three seconds. (BTW, thanks for reading this far!)

I found that limiting my screen time has been really important. I have more time to train

my dogs, a lot more time growing and developing my training chops, and working on skills that I had let become rusty.

A lot more time refining how I think about training, and teaching, not only my dogs, but my students.

A lot more time reading, thinking, and watching trainers more advanced than I am train. Because we can always be better.

Reaching out to old mentors and cultivating relationships with new ones.

A lot of growth, even when watching videos of myself is not fun.

Each time I train I watch the video. Most of my training videos never see the light of day because they don't meet my standards. I missed a behavior, I set a problem poorly, my body language was off, my timing was slow and so on. I think this may be one of the reasons I spend a lot of time breaking things down into such thin slices, so that I limit the number of factors where I can possibly make a mistake. Thereby setting my dog up for success.

At the end of the day, dog training is not a competition with someone else. It is actually about how well you communicate with your canine partner.

One of the best compliments I have ever received was after a routine training day someone I didn't know well said to me, "the relationship you have with your dog is amazing, you were so in tune." That feeling of being in sync and mind melded with your dog is like a drug.

In a time where there is so much focus placed on what other people think, focus on your own growth.

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