– said the dog trainer…
February 2019 my world fell apart. Koda – my heart dog – was diagnosed with cancer. Stage III T-cell Lymphoma.
I was devastated.
The thing about his type of cancer is that the prognosis on paper looks awful. Statistically, without treatment you get 1-2 months. With chemotherapy, it’s a big question mark. A survival rate somewhere between 6 months and 2 years.
That is not a lot of time for a dog diagnosed at just 7 years old. He has a whole life ahead of him.
We opted to go through chemotherapy (MANY thanks to the people who supported me through that and a sincere **** you to those who gave me grief about it). Koda went in remission after the very first treatment and he is still here living life to the fullest! (Update - Koda passed in June of 2020. He lived a full and healthy life up until the very end. It was worth every penny and every trip to the vet. Many heartfelt thanks to the team at Blue Pearl Veterinary Partners for saving his life and then helping him pass peacefully.)
Koda on Chemo day! You wouldn’t know he had cancer!
But while he was in chemo, I realized my priorities were all out of whack.
Because I didn’t know how many months – or even days – I would have with him.
I realized… that I spent so much time training my dogs, running through the motions, making to-do lists, and worrying about what events we were at and what titles we could earn that training became a chore; just another thing that had to get checked off a to-do list.
So, I worked to switch my mindset and made it my mission to live each day in the moment. To just enjoy one day at a time with my pack. Koda and I went out hiking, he learned new sports, went swimming, did hydrotherapy, got monthly massages, and we occasionally stopped on a whim to split a hamburger…
Our training sessions often looked like me putting in headphones and running around the yard making a fool of myself. And the dogs would be trailing behind and jumping on me in hot – happy – pursuit.
We just PLAYED.
And what happened was the most glorious thing. I started looking forward to training and our training became better and better. My relationship with each dog became better and better.
When I did get out to trials with the other dogs, we performed better and better. And the grins on my dogs’ faces? They got bigger and bigger!
All just because of a mindset shift.
“I get to train my dogs” rather than “I have to train my dogs.”
So listen guys – dog sport people especially – just stop for a second. Stop with the intense training sessions every weekday and eventing every weekend. Take a break from the constant manners and good behavior only. Stop coming out of the ring telling everyone about what you did wrong, thinking “oh, I have to go train this now…”
Stop making training a chore.
And just start by going outside and playing with your dog. And enjoy every single day that they are at your side.
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