And We’re Back at it!

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Have any of you ever had what I will call boredom-by-rote? When you’re bored of something simply because you’ve done it over and over and over again, and, at this point, it has simply lost its shine and any meaning it may have originally have had?

I’ve dealt with that situation on multiple things, among them certain faith disciplines, even. Here’s the thing. When you get boredom-by-rote, normally you’re not bored because you no longer think the thing is important, or want the results of it in your life. Normally, it’s just that, when you stare at grass (or, in my case, yarn) for so long without looking, you slowly start to loose recognition of the idea of the color green. It’s weird, but it happens. When you stare at the thing, and it becomes such a given, the allure of the color, the softness of the feeling, or the annoyance of the sound, slowly starts to just become routine and normal and, well, rote.

I think that’s where I was with training with Cor when I left Texas three months ago. We’d been doing training together for about nine months, I’d been doing it for longer, and we’d been on the same lesson for a couple months straight. Glory, we’d been on the same video for a couple weeks with everything else already done and passed off on. Cor is a very quick study, but this was a video he just wasn’t getting. So we’d been doing the same thing for a long time, and it was all just sort of getting to that weird what-color-is-this-grass? moment. Like, I knew this was good to do–I knew the grass was green–but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see the difference it was making, I was scared as to whether me and him would be the first team this strategy of the dog working with another human for a while wouldn’t work for. It was all starting to look… not exactly colorless–you can still see the green in that situation–but it tends to loose its green-ness, if that makes sense. 

Over those three months that we were apart, it was like I started to look at the sky, (or, as sometimes happens with me when I get to the point of what-color-am-I-working-with-again?, work on a different colored project). I started to see another color, to focus on something else, to adjust my eyes to something else, so that, when he came back last week, I was able to look back at the grass with something akin to new eyes. I was able to see the green again. I was able to appreciate the rich green in a way I hadn’t been able to. I was able to come back together with Cor and, within that first week, hand in and pass off on half of the videos for the lesson, and submit a few practice videos for other parts of the lesson. 

This specifically illustrates something I’ve been learning about Cor, but, as I understand, can go for so many dogs that are training to be a service dog, simply because of the kind of mind that necessitates. He can’t not be learning or doing something new. I have learned that I can not get to the point with Cor where we only have one video left in the lesson, because (and this is all on me), we’ll generally let the other tasks/tricks/skills that we’ve worked on to this point slip in favor of doing that one thing over and over and over until we get to the boredom-by-rote point, because, with the other stuff, “well, we’ve passed off–we’ve done it, and so, clearly, don’t have to keep working on it, right?” WRONG.

Cor, when bored, thirsty, overtired, overstimulated, hungry, or a handful of other things, will get feisty and/or punky. He’ll grab towels or shoes or things from the trash and play an nonconsensual game of “catch the puppyyyyy!!!”. He knows it’s naughty and that he’s not supposed to do it, but he also knows it’ll get us to chase him, and, thus, exercise him mentally due to playing keep away. This is because, as a poodle, he is smart. That can be good. That can be bad. When he’s bored and Hooman isn’t helping tire him out mentally, that shows up in a ‘fine, I’ll entertain myself’ type of way.

I should’ve known this. Amanda has told me. Figz told me. Other handlers have told me. Other people with smart breeds have told me. And yet… unfortunately, sometimes, the only way we find out the stove is hot is by burning ourselves.

What I’ve found out in this time, though, is that I’m far more like a poodle in this way than I thought. One of the reasons I bounce from project to project, book to book, job to job, on a daily basis. One of the reasons I’ll have several writing projects, several crochet projects, several books I am currently reading, and several sources of income going at any one time. Because I don’t let myself get bored. I have to have several things going at once to keep my mind going and entertained. I know this about me, but, for some reason, I never figured it’d go for stuff-I-do-with-Cor as well.

That said, I am currently trying to teach him the shell game:

…and figure out what I’d need to do to get him a couple trick dog titles, because why not. 😀 It’s something fun to do outside of service dog training, and, as has been shown, we both like options in our daily activities.

Long story short? As with so much in the service dog life–and life in general–training isn’t a one and done thing. It’s an ongoing discipline that will permeate your entire life, and you can either have to do it, or get to figure out how to keep it interesting for both of you. The outlook on it is up to you. Personally, I suggest you have fun with it, because…

You were not born to fail

(act like it.)

Lauryn

Puppy pictures!