I’ve taken some time off social media this last little while to have more time to devote to things behind the scenes, and one of the things that has been sharing my attention is my new puppy, Lupin.
Lupin and I have been having a fabulous time together playing with the clicker and just generally getting to know each other. Working from home means that she is with me most of the day, and we have been taking little windows here and there to train some basic behaviors and get some things established between us so that both humans and pups are happy!
Once I knew that we were going to be in each other’s lives for sure, like most people, I enrolled in a Diploma of Google Searching to update myself on everything puppy-related and took it upon myself to join some (what I hoped would be) relevant Facebook groups.
Well, what a slippery slope to puppy owner hell that was 😆 Had I not had some familiarity with horse groups on the internet, I may have lost the will to live, but experience there told me that if I were just to randomly google horse training videos without knowing whom I was watching, I would most likely poke my eyeballs out (and fear for my life), and similarly, if I invested in the advice of all the people on all of the Facebook threads I would have about the same amount of fun I would if I sat down and pulled the hairs on my arms one by one.
Turns out the dog world and the horse world share similar parallels. So, whilst I fought against thoughts of my inevitable demise and predictions how my dog would probably eat my children if not socialized well enough prior to 2 days old as predicted by the Google McDoggy Institute, I felt an overwhelming empathy for new peeps to the horse world and the quagmire they go through.
With that in mind, I put my head back on straight and did what I do with my horses. I…
- Had a call with a doggy expert to see how best to set things up for success from the get-go and asked questions on things I had found confusing over the course of my random searches
- Found a trainer online through recommendation that shared a similar ethos and used this as my reference point for tips
- Reminded myself that training principles whether horse, human or canine are transferable and went on my merry way
That aside, looking forward to getting back to normal programming this week!
Onwards,
❤️ Jane
