Trying my best
- May 12, 2025
- 4 min read
The next few days were not easy at all!
Between a performance I had, illness and organization a competition I was barely able to keep my head above the water but I was trying my best to work with Fina as much as I was physically and mentally able.
Some days I did better and some days I felt like the worst puppy owner in the world 😕.
It’s really hard to know that you have a puppy and that you need to work and give the attention and just not being able to do it because life comes in the way, but on the other hand, I try to remind my self - I am just a human and I can’t be perfect. I can only do the best I can and look back and tell my self - that if there was something more that I was able to do I would have done it.
I’ll continue where I stopped last at.
Our next day started with an introduction of a new toy. A cow bite toy that may have been a bit too big for her at this moment but she definitely enjoyed it. I can see that she is starting to generalize what I want her to do with different toys which makes me really happy because I was feeling a bit scared with the toy work as you may remember from previous posts of the blog.
Afterwards, we switched to food;
I am still just repeating the most basic stuff; some eye contact exercises, basic moves like going around me and around my leg as well as some spins and of course all the focus games. I am starting to use more and more words from the communication system I am building with her and I can really see how she is starting to pay attention to what I am saying and not only to what I am doing which is really nice.
I am trying to make sure she has self control and that she is using her brain in everything she is doing because I know that a dog as fast as her that won’t think is doomed to get injured. This is why I am also really training the Zen exercise as well and not only dynamic stuff 😉
That day I was not able to do anything more because my body shut down so the next time I trained with Seraphina was the next morning, moments before I had to leave to perform with Rhythm on the international dog show.
I only had a few minutes and feeling so sick I just tried to play with her a bit so at least she would be slightly tired when I leave the house.
She did her best for me but I was not at my best for her and my energy was not as good as it could be so it was not our best training.
When I came back home after the show I slept for an hour to find the power I needed in order to train with her and while I still felt sick, those sessions were already a lot better.
First we did some platform work with focusing on treats in my hand and I could feel how much she is improving in it.
We then did some luring for tricks and in that session I focused on the meaning of the keep going signal. It was not perfect but I can see the wheels in her brain moving and that’s the most important thing for me.
I am also starting to combine an empty hand in luring and rewarding from that hand so sometimes the difficulty for her is a bit higher.
The thing I loved the most in this training is the moment when a bike passed by and did a huge sound and even though she was scared, she moved her ears and came to me instead of trying to solve the situation herself by making distance. That made me the most proud mommy in the world 😍🥹
When the evening came I was totally done but didn’t pass on the opportunity to do something small before going to sleep.
It was a toy session with the ball that she loves and We kept working the retrieval which is harder with that toy for her. She is feeling more comfortable to come near me with the toy but not necessarily in order to being it.
I also started to combine some commands with an empty hand lure and rewarding with the toy for success which is a really important step for me in our training!
This couple of days were really not easy for me to handle but at least I know that we are improving even on the days that I can’t do much or as much, and this is part of the team work with our dogs.
Some days we need to cover for our dogs and other days they need to cover for us ❤️