Life Lessons: Stuck

Hey, yall!

I don’t think any of us like being stuck, do we? Practicing the same techniques over and over, unable to get it. Unable to move on. Feeling like time is slipping away; like you’re wasting the precious gift of life that you have been given. It’s not a pleasant feeling, is it? Not a season that you generally wish or ask for. 

And yet, that’s where we are in several areas of life right now, isn’t it? Waiting.

For Corona– and, for some of us–active quarantines to be over.

For the recounts and electoral college votes to figure out who our president and vice president will truly be.

For Thanksgiving (in the US) and Christmas (or Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever it is you celebrate).

Not to mention what each of us individually are waiting for.

For Cor and me? We’re waiting for Lesson 7. We’re waiting for a certain fear period to be over. We’re waiting for me to have seizures so we can get a swab and start scent training again (they haven’t been happening as often, which, like, yay! But also… can I have, like, three at points when I can actually get swabs?)

In lesson six, we have one task/trick video we’re working on mastering. We’ve been working on mastering this one video for a couple weeks now. It’s the last one in the lesson. I say “go to bed” or “place”, and he goes and lays down on his mat until I release him. The level of this that we’re working on right now is me saying it from five feet away and taking away the pointing, and him still understanding. And that… that’s where we’re running into trouble. He gets the general idea, but when Hooman is five feet away, clearly “place” means ‘come sit in front of me’. And, maybe, ‘jump up and give me a hug’. 

…sometimes it’s that last little aspect that trips us up: having a foot position just so. How this strike or that kick in karate changes when actively advancing. When to swing the bat. How hard to shoot the ball so as to make it in the basket or goal. How you’re supposed to make the freaking middle of a story work. But what is the title for this thing? How do I hold the hook and yarn so as to get the right tension?

Little aspects (oh, how we love them…) are what makes the difference between good and great. So, we keep practicing. We keep pushing.

We keep reminding ourselves that, in this time, Cor learning/doing anything new in this time is hard and big and makes for all the praise and treats.

Why?

Because welcome to the lovely part of raising a puppy that is the third fear stage!

Normally, fear and adolescent stages aren’t happening at the same time. This one, though…

Well, the second adolescent stage normally happens around 8-14 months. The third fear stage is somewhere around a year. (A little earlier for Cor, apparently.) 

This overlap is showing itself in any number of ways in a given day: barking at the window in the middle of the night (normally no more than three times, so I’m counting my blessings on that one), stealing anything that’s not screwed down, sleeping most of the day, snuggling, not wanting to do the thing, focusing on me in public more than normal, deciding the best place to sit in car rides is on my lap/chest/face, chewing on a lot of sticks and antlers (the joy of which Yaha showed him)… so many ways.

We love each other, but there are times I find myself thanking high heaven he’s as much of a low-energy dog as he is; because, there are times we just. need. a. break. from each other. (If anyone tells you puppies are easy or they love every aspect of puppyhood–read my lips–they’ve either never raised a puppy, or they’re lying. I love my puppy, but puppyhood is… well, imagine the human ages of baby through teen years condensed into two years.)

As someone who likes to be doing something every moment (even if that’s just crocheting), all this waiting is kind of grating. Doing the work with the results only showing up later is not what much of our young lives train us for. Or jobs. Jobs don’t really train you for that, either. Right now, it feels like I’m doing ten units of work for one unit of results (less, some days). It feels like I’m stuck. And no one likes that feeling.

But we keep going, you know why? Because, one day, we’ll be doing one unit of work for ten units of results. One day, when Cor understands what I mean when I say “place”, we’ll look at that with far more pride than we look on him knowing what I mean when I say “bring it”. Because this one took far more work. (Bring it took work, too, but not over three weeks’ worth of practice.) One day, when he’s full grown, and doesn’t feel the need to be sassy any time he doesn’t know what to do with himself, I’ll be thankful for his puppyhood and how he’s grown through it and handled it.

I’m not doing nothing, no matter what it feels like. We keep pushing forward–as the team we were always meant to be. Games and battles are won at practice.

So watch out, world.

Because we weren’t born to fail.

💜(And that includes you.)💜

Lauryn

…*yawn*

We going to write now, Hooman?

I already did. Go back to sleep, Cor. Everything’s alright.

Zzzzz…

P.S. Recently I got a new phone and I’m now kind of obsessed with these personalized sticker things.