It's almost November already...

Published about 7 hours ago • 1 min read

It's almost November and 2027 will be here before we know it. Going back through my camera roll, I realized what a whirlwind 2026 has been.

When there was downtime, I seemed to create chaos to keep my brain busy.

Along with the sad, there was a lot of good chaos. We lost Jubilee. We gained puppy Runa. I retired Caly and started riding Zephyr. Camping trips, work events, family. But then I wondered why I had so little energy left for training.

Human or canine, brains love having a job, and if we don't give them one, they'll invent one. Runa proves it every time she finds one of my shoes to chew... or the wall... or the floor. She is a Labrador after all.

Sometimes it is easy to avoid the real training by keeping busy with things that feel productive:

Buying another harness instead of practicing loose-leash walking
Watching hours of training videos without ever taking the dog outside
Walking the dog in the dark or avoiding walks altogether instead of working on the actual problem

Busy can feel like progress, but it's really just shuffling papers around.

The real work is the small, boring stuff: short sessions, one piece at a time, as a part of our day-to day-lives.

Think I'm onto something? Hit reply. Do you find yourself 'keeping busy' maybe as avoidance?

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