Thursday

 Our day began by locking ourselves out of our house for our first early morning Toby walk, caused by a cavalcade of errors by both of us. It’s a wonder we haven’t done this on a regular basis. Our back up is our lockbox on the back door with a key inside. The only problem is that we never use it so we forgot the combination. Of course, the combination is in my phone, but it, too, was locked in the house, charging. Some days, you should just stay in bed!

Since we had nothing else to do, we proceeded to walk Toby. When we were almost home, we started wracking our brains for the combination. Finally, John remembered: it wasn’t a sequence of numbers to remember but a pattern of numbers on the keypad. Once he remembered the pattern, it was easy to get in.

Training was a challenge tonight. Above, John has Toby heeling and auto sitting which he learned in obedience training.

Here, Toby is learning to get between John’s legs and sitting. This maneuver would be useful if there were a loose dog and you’re trying to protect your dog, at least that’s what the trainer said.

Toby picked up on it quickly, but I don’t see it happening in the real world. Maybe, I don’t have enough trust that a dog is going to do that with another dog on the loose.

We really struggled tonight. We get that with this training we are bonding and Toby’s getting to think and be around other dogs. That is all good. But many of the tricks seem pointless and silly. They each require a huge amount of effort and many repetitions. We feel we’re still struggling with basic obedience. For the second time in our almost two years of training, we both wanted to just walk out and go home.

There were times tonight when we were both clueless. It’s very frustrating. John said the other dogs struggled too. Next week is our last class. We both need a break from dog training for a while. We dread going all week, and we feel guilty for not practicing enough. Blah, blah, blah. It’s easy to take it personally and get down about it, especially when some of the other dogs are doing really difficult tricks and are so well behaved. Our trainer reminds us not to compare. All dogs are different and learn at their own pace.

The main criticism we both get is that we’re not being the alpha dog to him and that allows him to be too assertive and too hyper. I hear the criticism but I don’t know how to be that person 24/7. I think we are tough on him and make many, many demands. It’s all very confusing. Maybe, we’re closer to a breakthrough with him than we know, and soon things will begin to click. Our trainer says to “keep on swimming.”

Maybe it’s like the lockbox from this morning: it’s not the number combination that got us inside; it was understanding the pattern of the numbers. In our dog training, we’re punching numbers and feeling “locked out,” when we really need to see the pattern.

Miles walked: 5