As we’re continuing to navigate the current state of the world, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with our own limitations. Buying toilet paper is now a challenge. Visiting a loved one is an ethical struggle. And the limitations of our control on the virus itself - whether we catch it, and what happens to us if we do.
But light is always found in darkness, if you look for it, and virtual training has been the most recent light added to my little internal candelabra.
Not mine, mind you. I highly recommend my services, but the virtual training I’m talking about is the classes I’m taking, the classes I will be taking - and, importantly, the classes I now can take.
Taking group classes with Mouse is historically an endeavor in finding the light moments in a time of stress. She’s highly reactive, and usually amped by training environments that smell like a whole lot of dogs and their arousal, and people with their treats, and me with my stress over how she’s going to behave. To say I get “tense” is probably a generous description of my blood pressure levels. It’s a challenge for both of us, and one I plan carefully - not too often, and not too many at once. But my girl will be 9 next month, and sometimes she is starting to feel her age. There are so MANY classes I want to take with her, and heartbreakingly little time.
So when a friend had a smaller-sized Rally class and offered to send the Zoom invitation, I immediately accepted. I didn’t even think about it.
And when I saw that Coventry was offering some strength conditioning classes, I messaged the instructor and asked her to sign me up.
Two classes in the same week, and I didn’t even blink.
When my Beginner class was graduating, they commented on their focus their dogs had in class, and how they learned the skills I was teaching much more completely because they weren’t focused on redirecting their dog from the people and dogs in the class.
When my husband and I were playing Dungeons and Dragons last night, he mentioned that playing virtually felt like so much less of a time commitment and was much easier to commit to a weekly session.
When my children were outside learning how to tie knots and exercising addition skills by counting the birds that they were seeing in the trees, I noticed how peaceful it was to let them learn at their pace in a flexible environment.
I thought about the way we - and our dogs - learn. How much more prepared for learning we can be if we are in familiar surroundings. When we feel supported and flexible - if we’re able to take breaks and have fun and not get frustrated. If we have a little more green space in our lives.
There is certainly a great deal that’s stressful about our lives right now. There’s a great deal that is unknown, out of our control, and outside of any of our experiences. But in looking for the light, I realized one of the gifts I have is the time to train my dog and the opportunity to work with her on whatever we want - without fear of reactivity, without concern for her stressors, without management against distractions. And it’s right at our fingertips.
