The Weekly High Five 🐾

Hey Reader,
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Every September my inbox does the same thing.

Somebody writes in a little sheepish. They were doing great in June. Practicing daily. Then the kids were home, the schedule went sideways, and somewhere around mid-July it all just stopped.

Now the calendar has flipped and they're bracing for the answer they expect from me. That they blew it. Back to session one.

Listen. That is not what happened.

First and foremost, the thing carrying your training in June was a routine. Not willpower.

You practiced after the morning walk because there was a morning walk, same time, every day. The reps rode on a schedule that already existed.

Summer took that schedule apart and the reps went with it. That's a scaffolding problem, not a discipline problem, and the two need different fixes.

Your dog didn't unlearn anything either. Ten quiet weeks don't erase a skill. What went rusty is the cue to practice, and that lives with you.

Essentially you're not starting over. You paused a conversation. Training is a relationship, not a project with a deadline you missed.

I worked with a family who had three kids, the youngest barely three, and a Great Pyrenees mix puppy named Henry.

Henry's thing was flopping. Mid-walk he'd find a patch of grass, throw himself sideways and refuse to move. Not scared, not stuck. He just wanted to lay and chill.

Some days his dad could wait him out. Other days there was a pickup in ten minutes.

So we quit adding training to their day and used what was already in it. Half of Henry's dinner went into a bag and got handed out on the walk instead of into a bowl at home.

Same food. Same walk. No new fifteen minutes to go find.

Try that version this week.

Take one meal your dog already eats today. Put half of it in a bag. Hand it out during something already happening. The walk you're taking regardless.

Don't add a session. Attach one to something you can't skip.

You're not chasing a great walk here. You're after one day where a rep happened without you scheduling it.

Henry's family didn't find more time. They had less of it once fall hit. What moved is that the training stopped needing a slot of its own. Everybody in that house could hand out a piece of dinner, including the three-year-old, and that's the only reason it held.

Five minutes hooked onto your actual day beats the perfect twenty-minute session you keep meaning to start on Monday.

Where this gets harder is picking what to restart first. A skill gone rusty and a skill that never transferred out of your kitchen look identical in week one, and they need opposite work.

If the walk is the piece that came apart this summer, start there with my Loose Leash Foundations Guide. If you already grabbed it, this is a good week to pull it back out. If you never did, here you go. https://looseleash.down4paws.com/

Nothing you built is gone. It's been waiting on the routine to come back.

Happy training,

Pam,
CCDT

Find me on IG: @down4paws