It’s a War Zone
- Jul 22, 2025
- 5 min read
Imagine coming back home after one week abroad when you had the best time ever just so that less than 24 hours later your country will go in to war mode.
Well, that’s exactly what happened to me last month.
The first alarm caught me unprepared and I was so shocked that it took me a few seconds to react but what was way worst were the days that followed.
Instead of enjoying my time at home with my dogs, I was in constant anxiety and my mind refused to work properly, so in this blog entry you will see some sessions where my head was definitely not on the right place.
And as much as I tried to work with Seraphina and the rest of the pack, it was emotionally so hard for me so there was a lot of freedom and a lot of behaviours that I had and still have to fix.
Let’s start from my home welcoming that evening which was super fun - all the dogs were happy to see me and Rhythm again and I took the opportunity to get Phina’s attention on me.
The next day, I had a real first session with her.
I started from luring to kind of get a feeling of where we stand after a week apart and I felt we were on one page so I allowed myself to make some progress with the next tricks.
I went to work on the middle position and it’s variations which we started already. She was doing really good, except she was sniffing a bit more, but it’s not a big deal at this point, only something for me to look at and pay attention with the breaks.
I started to work with her on our joint move in middle position and I have to say that this girl is going to have a beautiful flow🫠
I finished this part of the session with 2 short sequences and she chose to reward her self at the end with entering the position and finally a nice jump in to my arms😊
To end this session I brought 2 toys ad I wanted to work on some games patterns combined with tricks and I was so happy with how she did! I try to use big voices and make it clear to her that I am happy with how she is because I want her to have more confidence in our relationship and I need her to trust me even when we make mistakes or when we are not in perfect sync.
It was an amazing session and I loved every second of it, really.
I guess that’s why the next weeks were so depressing for me when I wasn’t able to really work the way I wished to.
That night already the Israeli airport shut down and we started to feel the war during every moment of the day.
It took me 5 days to get back to training with her as I was too scared to even spend time outside in case there will be an alarm and we have to run to a safe area.
I tried to keep it simple and do only really basic stuff because I knew I can’t handle more than that. So in our next session I started from the followups to improve her default front position but as you can see on the video, I was not concentrated enough and my timing was worst than bad.
Next I did some nose touches - but it wasn’t a good idea to do it without barriers as she tries to turn during the touch. But I rewarded her anyway and just noted that to my self. I tried to give big social reward at the end so that she knows that she is great, it’s just me who isn’t fully present.
I then did some of the basic tricks she knows including slaloms, heel, middle position, around me and even a mini sequence and I finished with tossing some treats.
It was not a long training but it took away all my energy so the next day I wanted to try to do more dynamic things with her. maybe I thought it can help me keep up with her.
I tried to work some moves combined together; sometimes with more luring and sometimes less, but it was a high tempo session with more motion and some background music.
It wasn’t a really well organised session but not in a bad way.
We covered many behaviours and even worked on newer ones that she didn’t understand yet at all with entrance from motion.
After the dynamic set I changed to stationary behaviours transitions between sit, down and stand rewarded by a spin and she LOVED it! I was really happy that despite my low energy I was able to read her and her needs and decided to go back to more motion because it clearly makes her feel better and then I called it and finished the training.
After three days we trained again.
And I started with delayed rewarding, a super needed skill in dog dance, that she handled very nicely! We even managed a 5 tricks sequence without food in my hands, but looking back it might have been a bit too much because she started to get distracted afterwards.
So when I finally got back her attention I had to go back to smaller stuff but even that was too much so I had to calm her down and get back to work with food in my hands.
It’s not a big surprise that it was hard for her to handle it, but I was a bit disappointed of my self for not realising it on time.
I gave her a break and went back to different stuff to try and restart the situation.
I brought the full body long platform to work on direction changes, forward focus, and even some touch indifference exercises. It was a good decision to change to this type of work as it is very different than what we did just a few moments before that got her so frustrated.
Afterwards I just did some platform send-outs from different positions and directions. This exercise is really great as a foundation to develop distance abilities in the future and also as a foundation for transition between dynamic to static.
The food part didn’t went 100% smooth, but overall it was a good session with a nice ending that even included some self control.
But the toy part….. that was a whole different story!
We did a training that was about understanding different Q’s with the toy.
Catching a toy in the air, catching it from my hand and even getting it from the ground, all in one session!
Of course, it was also including many tugs and retrieve opportunities and it was super good for our connection after the chaos with the food before.
At this point it’s not only about catching the toy but about reacting to the signal correctly and not just trying to guess.
This will also help with self control in the future because she would understand what’s expected of her at all times.
It felt so nice to finish with this exercise knowing she enjoyed so much!