The Weekly High Five 🐾

Hey Reader,
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I was on a coaching call last week with a family who had been going hard since the first warm day hit.

Morning sessions. Second sessions after dinner. Extra training time on the weekend walks. They had actually increased their routine since spring started, because the chaos had increased.

Their dog was getting worse. More pulling. More zoning out. More spinning at the door before walks. They couldn't understand it. They were doing more than ever.

I asked one question: how is she acting by minute ten of a session?

A pause.

"Kind of checked out, honestly. Sometimes she just starts sniffing the ground and ignoring us."

There it was.
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Here's the thing most owners don't realize about spring training: session length was never the variable that mattered.

What matters is the state your dog is in when you start asking them to learn something.

A dog who's already tipped over before the session even starts isn't absorbing the reps. They're going through the motions in a brain that can't take anything in right now. More reps in that state isn't training. Essentially, it's just repetition of the wrong thing in a louder, more distracted version of the same brain.

Five focused minutes with a dog who can actually receive information wires in faster than thirty fragmented ones. Every time. That's not a pep talk. That's how learning actually works.

Sound familiar?
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This week, before your next session or any walk that includes training, try this one thing first.

Give your dog two minutes to just exist. Sniff. Stand. Breathe. Don't ask for anything. Don't start working. Wait until you see the visible shift: ears drop, pace slows, body softens. Then do five minutes of one skill they already know cold.

Notice the quality of their responses compared to when you start hot. That difference is the variable you've been missing.
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That family tried it three days later. Their dog wasn't calmer at the start. But they waited her out. Two minutes. She sniffed the fence line, shook off, looked back.

They did five minutes on loose leash. She was with them the whole time.

Not because she got smarter. Because they gave her a brain that was ready to receive something before they asked her for anything.

Before the skill, there has to be a brain that can actually take it in.
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If you want to know what's actually happening with your specific dog this spring, that's exactly what the Intro Call is for.

It's free. It's 15 minutes. I can look at what's really going on and tell you what to do instead of just doing more of what isn't working.

​Get A Free 15 Minute Intro Call​

You're not doing it wrong. You're just doing too much.

Happy training,

Pam,
CPDT-KA