Lesson #6: The Importance of Moving Forward.

Dogs live in the moment. They're fully present in every scenario. Humans, on the other hand, typically live in the past or in the future. It's a conscience effort for us to actually "be" in and savor the moment.

Moving forward: it’s a practice, a conscious effort and a choice we make.

Scenario:

You have a dog-reactive dog and you're out for a walk. In the past, your dog has lunged, barked, and put on quite a big show every time you all encounter another dog. Now, as soon as you see a dog approaching, your brace yourself for the inevitable. You tighten the leash around your wrist, your arm tenses up, heart rate increases and a billion butterflies start flitting about in your stomach. You start looking for exit strategies and alternative routes. Cars to duck behind and hide. No luck. So you move way off to the side and put Fido in a "Sit". The other dog gets closer, and Fido loses it. Just as you expected.

I get it, I’ve been there before. It's not a fun place, for you or your dog.

But let's try it another way.

Mulligan:

You have a dog-reactive dog and you're out for a walk. In the past, your dog has lunged, barked, and put on quite a big show every time you encounter another dog. You quickly detach from the past, and stay fully present. A new outcome could happen, if you simply release the story and shift your focus. You know this now. You choose to feed the scenario you want to happen instead of what you don't want to happen.

You begin to envision you and your dog walking by the other dog with no issues, no displays. You’re breathing deeply, you’re calm, and feeling oh-so confident. The leash is short, but not tight or tense. Your arm is long and relaxed, head is held high, shoulders are down and back. Fido is saying to himself, “Oh, okay. My human’s got it. Well, this is new. I like it. I think I’ll go with it.” You're going in, and you're cool as a cucumber.

Fido may begin to revert back to his usual patterned way of behaving; but each time this gets consistently practiced, you’ll notice his reactions are becoming less and less intense as a new story is being written. He's not in a "Sit", a stationary position, where his only option is to hyper-focus and fixate on the oncoming dog (trigger). You’re both moving forward and through the obstacle together. You're both becoming more confident and more trusting in one other. Fido feels you asserting yourself and guiding him through this usually hairy situation in a far different manner; and you see Fido in a new light as he’s making different choices and practicing a different behavior as a result of this guidance.

Moving forward: releasing the story.

Humans tend to cling to story when it involves dogs, fueling and feeding them with emotion. This is particularly common with shelter and rescue dog, or dogs that have simply come from a bad situation.

Whatever the story may be, dogs can and always want to move forward. More often than not, it’s us preventing them from doing so. We attach ourselves to their story, keeping it alive with our thoughts, emotions and words. Constantly feeding it.

We don't introduce our dog simply as "Joey", but as, "Joey the dog we rescued from a puppy mill who'd spent his entire life in a cage and never had human contact". We spend our time trying to compensate for every wrong ever done to the dog, giving him love, love, love, and more love. Giving affection to every state of mind: fearfulness, anxiety, and nervousness; thus conditioning and creating more insecurity, instability and unhealthy dependencies.

It's in Dog's nature to live and be in the moment, as it is ours; but it takes conscious effort and mindfulness to reach this space. To be fully present. To release afterthought, assumption and illusion. To acknowledge prior chapters of a story, but detach from them as we author new ones.

We can't and won't help anyone move beyond tragedy or trauma when we remain attached to the story.

Moving forward. It's a process, a daily practice, a conscious effort and a choice we make. Release. Re-associate. Re-acquaint. One foot, one paw in front of the other. Honor the past by having the courage to overcome, move forward and evolve. Each moment is an opportunity to re-write the story and begin again.

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