Starting Over

I do this.
I get my mind set on something; a project, a craft. I feel like I cannot continue to move forward in life until I give this new 'thing' a try for myself. Need me to be more specific?  Crocheting, painting, woodworking, grooming techniques, sewing dog coats, ways to organize my home, a book, cooking, dog training...  I even gave chain mail a try. You know, where you meticulously and tediously link tiny jump rings together until they turn into something like a bracelet or... a vest?

I put my heart and soul into this 'thing'. Some things stick, some things end up getting kicked to the curb. (The chain mail?  Yeah, WTF was I thinking?) Some things I discover I'm great at and some it turns out I really really suck at it.

I love working with my dogs. But there are times when I fear that I just flat out suck at it. I've been somehow involved with some type of canine training since I was a teenager. But I began with correctional training, you see, and while the switch itself was not difficult, trying to keep up with 'today's' positive training methods has become frustrating and confusing for me. I follow many other positive training blogs and there always seems to be one aspect somewhere where they all disagree with each other. For someone like me who grabs onto a piece of information and clings to it trying to make it a reality, it can become increasingly disheartening when things that finally begin to make sense start to fight each other. What I learned yesterday may not jive with what I learned today.  And while my jumping from 'thing' to 'thing' occasionally makes this easier, my mind has officially become clogged with contradicting information and I've come to a training block. Stalemate.

Do this, don't do this. What is right and what is wrong?  Well that's the problem. There is no standard right or wrong when it comes to dog training.  You have to make your training decisions based on the dog you're working with. Which is obvious, I mean I know you didn't come here hoping to learn that. And it's not brand new to me either, but what I have discovered is that I need to remind myself what my end goal actually is. Should you aspire to make your dog look like the dog in that awesome Youtube video?  The thought is great, but no.

It's time for me to start over. My poor dogs!  One day I'm asking this, the next I'm asking that. One day I want to work on this, the next I want to work on something completely different because what I worked on yesterday didn't work.

Well f*cking give it a second, Emily!

Okay, just wanted to get that off my chest. I mentioned that I'm not a dog trainer, right?  Don't do what I do, because it's probably wrong!