Learning New Shit Sucks: Early Updates On How My Temper Regulation and Dog Training Are Going

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The learning process is as follows: Set your objective; try; fail; adjust; try again. Even though, objectively, I know this, I still always want to skip the part where I fail over and over and over again. It's embarrassing. It's demoralizing. It's not fun no matter how you spin it. It is, though, an inevitable and ugly and unfortunate step you must take when you are learning something new.

Against all logic, I thought that with enough planning and reading, maybe I could skip this step with my dog training. But alas, three days into our (re)training as I was clinging onto my dogs on our daily walk as if I just jumped onto a runaway steam train, I knew that failure would not elude me in this arena.

Neither, it turned out, would I be able to skip this loathsome phase in my own human reactivity training. I thought the process of learning to control my temper and communicate more calmly would be a follows: Read a few communication books---bing, bang, boom-- I communicate effectively now! But that's not how it went. (Or how it's going.) As you can probably guess from the previous paragraphs, I failed big time at that, too. (Or more accurately, I am actively failing at it with no bottom in sight yet.)

So, here my dogs and I are. We've started our (re) training. I am working on being a less reactive human. My dogs are working on being less psychotic. We've got our books and our YouTube videos.

We did a little training over a long weekend and for a split second, we were feeling hyped about our collective self-improvement even though our accomplishments were:

• 1 week of thinking

• 1 week of attempted training while on break from work

We managed 15 feet of loose leash walking at one point and I also had not lost my temper for 24 hours. We had something going on here!!! Right??

Wrong!!!!

After our glorious long weekend of training wins, my husband and I had to go back to our actual real life (not vacation) and our dogs' training progress fell apart faster than every Ikea dresser I put together during college.

The dogs IMMEDIATELY went back to zig-zagging all over the neighborhood and losing their shit at foxes as if they did not have 100+ lb humans attached to them. I Immediately crashed out on an assistant superintendent who took away over 50% of the adult only bathrooms in our school and didn't see what the problem was. WORSE, I was NOT EVEN SORRY.

Even though I had been feverishly rereading, highlighting and dog-earing the book Crucial Conversations, nodding along with the points and logically understanding that NOTHING would get done if I alienated the person I needed to solve the problem, I still broke that rule the minute I popped my little head back into work. Big, big, big failure considering the audience.

One of the many books Reactive Human is using to work on her reactivity.

On top of my biting (biting remarks ha...ha...ha), there were still the dogs to worry about.

Trying to layer in the training we were doing on a vacation on top of our standard routine was dumb but understandable at the same time. We quickly reverted to our old routines and habits because that was how we had managed to take care of four dogs thus far. We also didn't/don't know what we are doing with training, so we made some basic mistakes there, as well.

Learning new things sucks and comes with so many mortifying failures. Unfortunately, sucking is part of the learning process. (I know; it sucks.)

Below are some of my early failures in dog training and temper adjustment. They might help ease your learning curve a bit, but most likely you will have to walk these steps as I did. Welcome!

Mistake # 1: Being in a High Distraction Environment While Trying to Train a New Skill

I am struggling with this one as much as my dogs. My reactivity goal was/is to learn how to communicate with the adults in my building and county without popping off. In dog training, trainers talk about how you should not try and teach the dogs a new skill while they are in an distracting environment because this will hinder their learning. First, practice in a calm, distraction-free space and then slowly ratchet up from there.

Easier said than done, people--at least for the human reactivity training.

My whole goal is too not lose my temper at work, but unfortunately, I am teacher, so trying find a distraction-free environment to calmly practice my new communication skills is like saying I need to JUST need to differentiate for the 31 students in the class in order to maximize their learning objectives-NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

I use every ounce of energy I have to have good interactions with my students while under intense attention pressure. I do not have enough mental bandwidth to re-train my brain not to pop off at the adults that I work with, especially when I I have a big problem with our current leadership and how they treat teachers. In hindsight, trying to practice a new communication skill, especially one that is hard, will not be easy (or even possible?) in this environment.

The exact same is true for the dogs. I followed the advice of trainer Molly Arvin of Pete's Adventure Pack and started their loose-leash training the middle of a boring parking lot with slip leads or martingale collars. This went a long way in helping the dogs to understand what I wanted them to do, but when we went back to work and our normal routine, my husband and I threw on the harnesses, jumped back into our walks in the woods or around our deer riddled suburban neighborhood, and then got upset when the dogs wouldn't do anything we had just started teaching them.

Everyone would end the walk crabby and drained and, worse, no learning had taken place (or we went backwards.)

Solutions For Problem # 1

(Training in a High Distraction Environment)

To combat the backwards slide with the dogs, we made the walk less distracting: We did not go in the woods for a bit. We did shorter walks around the neighborhood, in the middle of the road, if possible. (We live in a quiet area so this is usually possible at 5:30 am in the morning when we walk them, but not in the afternoons.) As they calmed down, we inched closer to the sidewalks. This is where we are currently. Cheeze and Porter are doing well and are going to be ready to try going back into the woods soon.

For obedience training, I also cleared out a space in the house where I could train each dog individually. This one probably seems obvious, but I had been trying to train the dogs together all of once to save time, but really I was not saving time at all since no one was really learning. It was better to work with each one for 5-10 minutes in the obedience room than to try and do everyone all together in the middle of the living room with the cats running around (with nothing getting done).

Spots and Brindle Training Center (an empty guest room/closet/cat room/office)

As for how to combat the distraction problem in myself- I'm not even sure. If I followed the line of thinking that I used for the dogs, I would need to put myself into a less triggering environment, but this is a lot harder for me than it is for the dogs. For the dogs, I just moved them from the sidewalks to a less distracting location until they learned the necessary skill.

But for me, a less triggering environment would probably have to be a new school or a new county. I could:

• a. Stay in my current school and county. Accept that my progress will be very slow.

• b. Try a new, smaller school in the same district. This may give me less people to deal with and more space to work on my interactions. I can also figure out if the main problem is the school or the county. If this doesn't work, try the next options.

• c. Try a new school in a new county and see if it's a good organization. If the district is a good organization, I will have less to pop off about and more space to practice my skills when the need arises. If it's a bad organization, I'd be back where I started but with less money.

  
  

• d. Go to a new organization all together with only adults. Take a break from teaching

  
  

• e. Hide in a closest forever and not come out.

I don't really know, though. Change is hard and comes with financial implications.

If you have ever tried any of the above scenarios and have any insights, please let us know in the comments section. Reactive Human does not have any wisdom on the best path forward at the current moment, as I am scared of being broke again... but I am also scared of continuing to be the person I am.

Mistake # 2 : Trying to do formal training before the dogs had gotten their wiggles out.

Solution # 2: Don't do.

Last week I had decided that the dogs were never ever going to pull ever again! But similar to my mistake above, this just led to frustration on everyone's part. We wanted the dog to walk with loose leashes even though they had just woken up and were full of energy and not focused or ready to train.

Ultimately since we walk the dogs first thing every morning, and this is meant to tire them out before we go to work for a full day, we decided to teach the dogs that they could pull if they were wearing harnesses and they had to loose leash walk if they had just their collars on. This way, we could all just go nuts in the morning sniffing or running and pulling and getting the wiggles out. In the afternoon, we were ready to do some training when I got home from work.

Unfortunately, this trick did work for me even though I am a die-hard non-morning person. If I could find the willpower to somehow wake up at the ungodly and should-be-illegal hour of 4:00 am to drive to the big box gym and workout before work, I was WAY more able to cope with challenges. I am not a morning person, so getting up even earlier than my 5:15 am normal time was super depressing and not a commitment I could keep even if I did feel awesome on the days I accomplished it. The best compromise-since I really do like working out before work but also have a commitment to help with the dogs before work-was to wake up atf 5:15, walk the dogs wearing a RUCK sack and then do a 45-minute small group weight lifting class at the small gym 6 minutes from my house from 6:00-6:45.

Helpful for getting in a workout while walking the dogs.

This definitely made it so that I was skittering into work late but it was better than showing up In My Mood. And I didn't have to wake up at 4 am. I don't really like waking up at 5:15 either, but I chose to have these rescue dogs so one of my responsibilities is to get up and take care of them even when I don't want to. My husband is a natural morning person so he is up helping with them no matter what.

Mistake # 3: Not Having Dogs "Lock In" Before Attempting Training

When it did finally come to training time, I would just kind of jump right in with out getting the dogs focused on me and then I couldn't figure out why everything was going wrong. It was almost exactly the same mistake I made as a new teacher: just starting the lesson while the kids were still talking straight over and hoping they'd focus as some point.

Solutions

In his book Lucky Dog Lessons, Brandon McMillan is adamant about creating a training situation where the dogs are focused first. He usually uses a leash and a quiet area, but if the dog is unruly, he will use what he calls the "Double Leash Lockoff," which you can check out here. This is where you hook a leash to the backckip on the dog's harness and then tie the other end of the leash to something immovable like a post or hook. Then you clip another leash to the front of the dog to keep the pet's focus on you. Basically, the dog doesn't have much choice except to focus at that point, because their field of exploration is tiny.

The book that started my training curiosity.

Molly Arvin will do long line work or "back and here" until the dog is focused on the human and then the training can begin.

I wanted to skip straight to the loose leash walking (the fun part), but the dogs usually could not nail that without doing the brain work to get focused first. Ugh. First vegetables then dessert kind of situation.

Mistake # 4: Not Giving Ourselves Enough Time to Be Consistent

One huge mistake we made was not leaving ourselves enough time to actually do the training. If we woke up late and were in a rush to get to work, it was guaranteed that the dogs would be having one of those days where they were pulling every two steps and we would need to stop and wait.

Or, we would just let them run straight out the door without working on calming down at the threshold.

But, of course, since we had no time to wait, we would revert back to old habits and let the dogs pull, effectively erasing some of our work from the week before.

Solutions

Ultimately, we had to temporarily shorten our morning walks to accommodate time for training so that we wouldn't feel pressured to rush.

The other solution as I mentioned above, was just to agree that harnesses were for pulling and we could have a free-for-all in the morning. Then in the afternoon, we'd be able to do some formal training.

I also had to remind myself that all of this would get better with time and we would not feel as frustrated in the future...hopefully.

Mistake # 5: Not Doing Individual Training When Attempting To Train Loose Leash Walking

If you want to get frustrated real fast, ditch the no-pull harnesses on your pack walk, switch to Martingale's and send it. You will immediately be angry.

Although we did see a decrease in the kind of "pull mom off her feet" pulling once we implemented the "stop walking when pulling" technique, it was hard to fine tune the loose leach walking in a pack for two reasons:

• We had them in a pack.

• They were wearing no-pull harnesses.

  • Although our harnesses have been really helpful in giving me control over three to four dogs in a pack walk, they do not provide the fine tuned feedback I need when trying to teach loose leash walking.

Sense-ation Harness helps me walk 3 dogs together.

I wanted the dogs to pay attention to me when we were out Doing Fun Things, so, ultimately, I had to start training each dog individually to loose leash walk. I ended up using slightly different tools and techniques for each dog, which I will describe in another post. Suffice it to say, it was worth the individual training in the reward I got in the pack walks, but it does require a lot of time if you have four dogs like we do.

Having each dog by themselves and on a martingale or slip lead instead of the no-pull harness allowed me to tell them exactly when they were pulling (pressure from collar) and when they were doing well (no pressure on collar).

A Martingale collar can help you start learning how to use pressure as a communication pathway with your dog.

A slip lead allows for more intense and fine tuned pressure.

The leash drills I started in order to train loose leash walking (long lining and "back and here") were from Molly Arvin's online dog training modules (Pete's Adventure Pack).

Even just doing 10 minutes of individual training with each dog made the pack walks a ton calmer even though they are far, far, FAR away from being off-leash in a pack.

Mistake # 6: Not Temporarily Pausing Old (BUT FUN) Routines

I like to walk with my dogs and my husband after work so that I can tell my husband every single infuriating detail about my day and he can tell me about all three of his. I'm sure he loves this routine too, which is why it was a bummer when I had to tell him that we needed to put this routine on hold for awhile so that we could train dogs individually instead. He did not seem sad when I told him this, but I am sure he was just putting on his brave face for the sake of the dogs and I.

The End For Now

So there you have it! So many mistakes!! So little time!!!!! I'm sure I'll make many more, though, so subscribe above if you'd like to come along for the ride or let us know in the comments below about your early problems and solutions.

Learning is sometimes and unpleasant process but hopefully this post will make it a bit easier for you!

In the meantime, fail fail. fail fail fail. Fail again. Keep adjusting. Keep trying.