The Days After Coming Back
- May 4, 2025
- 5 min read
The days following my return to Israel were a bit rough when it came to working with Seraphina.
After a week apart—where she had a different handler, and I was handling other dogs—it took us a little while to sync back up. So our sessions felt… a bit off.
It also took me a minute to process the trip and the return home, especially since the seminars I gave in the Netherlands were really meaningful for me.
So I worked with her a little less and spent more time thinking about how I want to work with her.
This post covers a few days all together.
Day One: Back to Reality
The first thing we did the morning I got back was head to the vet for her rabies shot. Seraphina handled it like a true little hero—everything went smoothly.
After that, we went home and I crashed for a few hours.
Later, I took her out for a play session, which… didn’t go as well as I hoped. I realized she was way too excited just by me being around again, and that made it really hard for us to actually play together. Every time I reached out my hand, she’d either drop the toy and come for cuddles, or lie down with the toy far away from me.
Even during food work, I could feel the difference. She was taking food just fine, but her focus felt weaker, and her checking after releases weren’t as sharp.
Part of me was really frustrated—we’d clearly taken a few steps backward in our communication. But another part of me knew this is just part of the process. It’s silly to expect otherwise. The best I can do is meet her where she’s at and stay flexible.
I decided not to do any more training that day and wait to see what things felt like the next day. Maybe it was just me, running on no sleep and post-flight fog…
The Next Morning: Starting Small
I started with a short session in the training room.
We worked on food focus and ignoring my touch. The focus part went pretty smoothly, but as soon as I started adding touch, I realized she was way more excited than I expected—so I had to slow things down even more than planned. But she quickly adapted and was able to stay focused even while I touched her!
We moved on to basic food work, and I started noticing some scattered responses. Her luring wasn’t as precise as I remembered, and she tried grabbing the food with her paws—something she hadn’t done fir a very long time. So yeah, we clearly had to rewind a bit and go back to basics.
The line between “appropriately excited” and “over-excited” is super thin, especially with dogs like Seraphina who have an extra sensitive nervous system. So the mission in front of me is serious—but I believe in us.
Then we tried some toy work. I used the fur tug toy she knows instead of the ball we’d been using lately, just to see if the toy choice made a difference.
Her biting was great, tugging was solid, and her drop cues were awesome—but retrieving was still messy. I brought in a platform she knows to help her have a clear target to return to. She didn’t fully get it, but it gave me an idea for a future session to help build better toy retrieval.
After that session, we rested. Our next training was in the early evening—this time back to food work.
Here, I just focused on reinforcing calmness and correct engagement with the luring hand. It’s never fun to go backwards, but it’s always better to choose to go back a few steps than be forced to by the circumstances .
Another Day, Another Toy
The next morning, we did a toy session on-leash so I could guide her and create successful returns. It wasn’t easy, but I was happy with how it ended.
This kind of work requires super precise handling with the leash. You need to guide the dog without adding pressure that could make them drop the toy. Every dog has their own pressure tolerance, so it took me a minute to find the sweet spot.
Later that evening, we trained outside—and it actually went really well!
We used both food and toys, and her responses were great. I felt like we were finally getting our clean communication back after three tough days.
Things Are Looking Up
The next day we didn’t have a ton of time to train, but the little we did was amazing!
We started with food work, and I was happy to see her hand-following starting to clean up—less jumping, less paws usage.
Then we moved on to working with two flat puller toys to encourage a full, committed bite. And wow—she loved the toy!
The session focused on creating a game pattern with two toys: tug, drop, tug again—with minimal returns. Then we shifted to food and used the excitement from the toy to build strong nose touches to my hand while in motion!
She gave me some really powerful touches—even held the contact for more than a second a few times!
One More Breakthrough
The next day we started with toy work again—but this time, I got a little sneaky.
I’d already noticed that she always wants to bring the toy to a specific spot on the couch. So I started sitting on that couch and just waited. Eventually, I was able to move to the next couch over and still get her to bring the toy to me. Finally—progress on our retrievals!
In the evening, I ordered food and used that moment to work on her neutrality toward delivery people. It’s not a common trigger for most dogs, but knowing my cooking skills… she’s going to meet a lot of them.
I trained outside with Bailey next to us to give her a bit more confidence. I was honestly surprised by how well she did—she stayed with me, kept playing, and kept working despite everything happening around us.
We started with some down-stays to promote calmness, then broke the tension with play—and repeated that cycle a few times. So by the time the delivery guy arrived, she was mid-play and didn’t really care 😍😍😍
After that, someone came to watch her and Bailey while I was away for two days.
Unfortunately, the next few days were a bit of a mess too—between national memorial days and the holiday in Israel, our schedule was all over the place. But we did what we could—and I’ll tell you all about it in the next blog post.