Hi, I'm Kim. I'm a procrastinator.
Now, obviously this group doesn't really exist because who would ever get around to organising it? (Just a bit of procrastination humour there). I am a prime candidate for such a group. I put things off. The other week I made an 'I really must do that' list of things that I had been putting off for months just so I would actually get some of them done! I have good intentions - I *think* about doing things. It's just the actual DOING part that I fall down on.
When it comes to dog training for instance, I have LOTS of good ideas, I spent LOTS of time thinking about what I want to teach the dogs and how I can do it, and what I want their final performances to look like. I understand the theory behind how I want to train. But when it comes to actually training... well, then the excuses come out. I work full time, so my week day daylight hours are pretty much taken up by that. As we know from my previous posts, I hate getting up early. Though I have managed to 'shape' myself to getting up a little earlier, it's nowhere near enough time yet to give me proper training time with the dogs. When I get home at night, the first excuse is 'I'll just let the dogs out so they can toilet before I do some training' possibly followed by 'I'll just sit down for a few minutes since I've been at work all day and I'm tired' followed by 'Must do some cleaning in the house, empty cat litter trays, get stuff sorted for work tomorrow' followed by 'Ooooo Masterchef is about to start, I'll just watch that' followed by 'I still haven't fed the dogs yet, really should use their dinner for training, but that will take so long...' or 'It's raining out there now, it's all muddy and wet' followed by 'Perhaps I'll just do a quick training session tonight and do some more tomorrow' and usually ends up with me doing something akin to doing a collar grab and having the dog drive into his crate then giving him his dinner. Or if I'm REALLY organised I might release him from the crate over a bar and send him back into the crate, practicing my decel cue and front cross. But that's it. That's my 'regular' training. Not nearly enough obviously.
I do try to fit in little extra bits of training when I can, for example as in my previous post walking the dogs to the door in the morning, releasing them in/out the door and the dog yard, having them inside with me so they can learn to settle and so on. But I don't regularly work on skills and build on them. Yes, I have done the basis of crate games, and this is the game we play most (along with variations of It's Your Choice) but it's not 'proper' training.
Side note - somewhat ironically, I just took a break halfway through writing this. No, it wasn't intentional
So I do bits and pieces. I do try and keep records of what I do when I do train... but I only have a very broad plan of where I am heading (i.e. my current aim, which is very broad, is to not look like a total idiot when I do the Susan Garrett workshops in November). Nothing specific on what skills I working on and what my aim is for this particular session/day/week. Lack of focus. I think that is what I am missing. So I need a training plan. If I have something to go by I will know a) if progress is being made b) what I should actually be working on each session and c) what I need to change. I also need to simplify my record-keeping - it is too time consuming currently, so I hate doing it and therefore it sometimes doesn't get done.
So aim this week is to make a proper training plan, including the dogs' strengths and weaknesses and how I can use them to my best training advantage. Also so I can work out how to make the best use of my time - no use planning to drive the dogs out to a park on a night I do the late finish at work for example because it just won't happen. I also need to pencil in time to watch my many and varied training vids again. Perhaps that is something I could use to set up training sessions for the week - pick some skills from one of the vids and work them through then something different next time. Hmmmmm... lots of planning to do!
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