Getting out of a slump

Long time no motivational art blogging! Actually, this time I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, but it's all applicable to anything and everything that you might be working on a lot at any given time, plus it's a quick read so ho hum. ;)

Today hasn’t been great, I’ve been a bit off-colour in the art department (’scuse the pun) and things have been feeling a bit iffy with my webite, shop and general social media stuff, like I know there’s more I could do, and that I could do it all better, but something is holding me back. The thing is I’ve had this sort of crises with my work so often that I know it always inevitably precedes a kind of leap of progress, so I’m not getting too worked up about it (it also helps that one of my favourite video bloggers, Lachri Fine Art, mentioned having a similar sort of revelation with her work: a slump generally proceeds a big improvement). That’s not what inspired this blog post though, funnily enough – but it does involve the exact same thought/panic/revelation process as art!

See, it’s actually dog sports I wanted to talk about. My dog is fantastic, as I’ve mentioned many times before, she’s all you could wish for in a sports companion: endless motivation, enthusiasm, very fast and agile, is willing to work for toys and treats alike… So colour me surprised when every now and again (not frequently, thank goodness!) we have a really terrible training session.

Tonight it was frisbee. Freija girl LOVES those disks to bits, and usually I have no trouble getting her to at least attempt a catch (we’re not great at flying catches yet, not least because I am completely useless at throwing what is essentially a rubber pancake in such a way that it’ll fly smoothly). That was not the case this time, she wouldn’t go for the disks till they simply dropped in front of her to pick up. We wrapped up the training session fairly quickly when I realised things weren’t going to work, and left the little football pitch we practice on in a decidedly frustrated mood.

As a dog owner it can be difficult to hide that frustration, especially if it’s aimed at yourself (“why can’t I get this throw right?” “why am I not giving commands clearly enough?” etc.). What I try to do is take a deep breath, pause the training for a few minutes and figure out what’s going wrong while giving girly girl a chance to sniff around for a moment. If it seems like she’s too excited to focus on catching practice, I’ll let her chase a couple of rollers (where you throw the disk on it’s edge so it rolls instead of flying) and end the training there. If it seems like she’s getting irritated at not getting the catch right and receiving no praise, I’ll have her do a trick she knows and end the session on a happy note. And if it’s simply me being rubbish at throwing, I’ll go and practice that throw without Freija so I can get it right for her next time.

When we practice anything, whether it’s painting, crochet or even doggy tricks, there will be moments when it feels like we’re up against a brick wall. The first time (who am I kidding, the first ten times) this happens, we’ll get annoyed or even angry at ourselves for not being able to overcome the obstacle. That is not going to solve the problem – you have to make yourself take a step back, take a deep breath, and work out what’s going wrong. This can take a minute, a day, or several weeks, but you’ve got to let yourself get over that frustration and really focus on what you can fix in order to get better, and once you do you’ll soon forget that you had to go through that process in order to progress. That’s why I’ve written this post, as a little reminder that you’re capable of improving in whatever you’re working towards, as long as you give yourself a fair chance. :)

Just a hint of courage and a yellow ribbon.

I’ve talked about Freija’s anxiety before, and how difficult it is for her to meet strangers. These past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a bit of a new development… Girly girl has been going up to people voluntarily to sniff, or even be petted! To put that into perspective, it took her over six months to build up the courage to happily sniff and follow our agility class trainer. Can you imagine my sheer surprise when girly girl goes and parks herself at a complete stranger’s feet, and is quite happy to be stroked and made a fuss of? Make that a tall male stranger, which has been her number one worst nightmare up till now?? That NEVER happens!

I’ve also noticed a little change in attitude from dog owners approaching us since I tied a yellow ribbon to Freija’s lead. They know not to let their dogs pounce up on her and to just take the meeting very slowly and peacefully, so none of the dogs involved have any cause to fear. Not everybody knows about the yellow dog scheme of course, but those that do are a great help to us. Basically if you see a dog with a yellow ribbon, or perhaps a special yellow vest or lead with a warning, you shouldn’t approach it without permission. There’s any number of reasons for using the yellow ribbon – we use it to signal that we’re still practicing our social skills and I tell other dog owners this so that we can make the encounter calm and not too frightening for girly girl, but some use it when their dog is in heat, ill, or on fear-aggressive dogs… It could be anything, so unless the owner gives you permission, stay away.

From the Yellow Dog UK website

Off-lead situations are another matter of course. I don’t let Freija go off lead during walkies, there’s no safe space to do so around where we live, it’s all busy roads - besides which, when I have let her go without a lead on special forest hikes and things before, she’s simply trotted along beside me so there’s hardly any point! But the one place she is let off lead is at agility class. We’ve just started our fourth course which has a couple of new members in the group, who aren’t familiar with us or know that Freija is still working on her socialization. One is a large, excitable short-haired collie. As we were about to do a run of the practice course, this cheerful big lad runs up to us for a sniff and tries to get girly girl to play. My heart does a leap at this point, usually I’d expect a snap and panic from Freija, she’s not great with surprises like that. That didn’t happen – instead she just watches the collie, has a bit of a sniff herself, and turns to me as if to say “let’s get on with training, shall we?”. My jaw could’ve dropped clean off.

Could it be that we’re really making progress? Will Freija be the perfect city-dog when we move to Bath? I wasn't too sure before now... But dare I say, I really think it could happen! :)

Holiday with the doggies: A game of frisbee in Lapland

Most of my holidays away from home are the big seasonal family ones; Christmas, Easter, midsummer and Halloween. We pack up clothes to last for a good two weeks, all the dog supplies, my shop inventory and art bits and bobs (because I can't go shutting up shop altogether, and most of my products are fairly easy to lug around the country), and head up north to my grandparents in Rovaniemi. The trip up is long and can be stressful for the dogs, depending on how long it takes to pack up and leave - if they see us packing for most of the morning, it can lead to anxiety, especially on Freija's part. Sometimes we do get away with it, and the eight to nine hour drive is fairly smooth and panic-free.
Upon arrival, there's a lot of excitement both for us people and the pooches. New people, new environment, it all takes some getting used to. Girly girl does sometimes get a bit hyper at this stage and the only thing that'll calm her down is a good long walk and a night of sleep (which is my answer to any kind of problem or ailment whether human or canine, by the way!).
After the initial doggy culture shock, we all calm down and go about our daily routines as normal. Walkies, breakfast, nap, lunch, pee break, nap, walkies, sleep. That's what we base the day around at home and indeed on holiday. Although there may be additions of us people popping out or visitors arriving, it all fits in with the dog schedule.
The one big difference is no dog sports class during the holiday. Since this is such a major part of our week, I do try to think up ways in which to get some practice done on our own. Thankfully one of our new sports is perfect for this: frisbee!

So during our evening walk we diverted to an unused sports pitch near the path, doggy disk in tow (but well hidden, because if Freija had caught a glimpse of it, doing her business would've been categorically out of the question!). There are a few great open areas up here in Lapland, and since there's still snow on the ground we can do a bit of disc throwing without worrying about hurt paws on gravel or swallowed sand. It's quite hard to find a good place to practice otherwise, the only other really sensible type of surface would be an open grass field or an indoor sports hall.
I've only got the one disk, but ideally this kind of practice would include two, since it's a lot easier to gain the dog's attention when you've got a toy of equal value to swap with the one being fetched - I discovered this in flyball class, where a string ball will simply not be good enough to merit swapping for the tennis ball, it has to be an exact replica of that squeaky tennis ball Freija fetches from the box. Anyway, we got up onto the pitch and I got the frisbee out to excite girly girl into fetch-mode, then sent out a roller onto the snow. She goes to fetch it, and as I expected keeps it to herself for a bit of a chew. Since all I had to bargain with was a tug rope toy, I soon gave up on her returning the disk and went to pick it up myself... A grave mistake.

A word to the wise: if you're up in Lapland in April and the snow has just about started to melt, do not chance a walk across an unplowed pitch.

There I was, waist-high in the snow, very stuck and highly uncomfortable. After considerable wriggling, rolling, and heaving with the help of mum, I got out, grabbed the frisbee and we tried again, this time on firmer ground near the side of the pitch. We did get some good throws and fetches in, but oh my dear sweet lord it was difficult. At one point I was thrown flat on my back while Freija was some five to six meters away desperately pawing at the fribee which had turned upside-down (she's not mastered turning it yet). After about twenty minutes to half an hour of falling about and laughing ourselves silly, one soaked but happy terrier, one bruised and battered owner, one amused mother, and one disgruntled spaniel headed off back to grandma's to recover.

So that was our first go at what I've named snow frisbee. Onwards and upwards, eh? ;)

Baby steps towards Canicross

Last summer when I started thinking about going to university, I decided if I was going to live on my own I'd have to get fit - for Freija's sake just as much as my own! I need to be able to work long days and still have energy to spend time playing and going for walks, and that means having a bit of a lifestyle revamp. My first goal was to get out and do something sporty, but finding something I was motivated to do took a bit of searching. Canicross, which is essentially cross-country running with your dog, popped up a few times in the dog groups I'm part of on Facebook, so I did a little research and decided that's what I'd start working towards. I say towards, as what I do can’t exactly be described as cross-country running. Combining a complete lack of stamina and horrid asthma does not a cross-country runner make! However I have found a way to run that works for me and the dog.

I first read about combining bursts of sprints and walking on Pinterest. Essentially it said work your way up from four minutes of walking and half a minute of running to equal amounts of each till you can run non-stop, which sounded easy-peasy, so I thought I’d give it a go. As it turns out, running like this wasn’t as taxing on the old wheezy-lungs as I'd dreaded, and a good 5km each day was surprisingly manageable for the first couple of weeks I ran in July.
After one or two of goes with me holding Freija’s lead, I opted for getting a proper canicross belt (well, it’s actually a skiing belt because this is Finland after all) – running while holding it in my hands was not only awkward but also led to accidentally yanking Freija along every now and again, NOT GOOD! The belt is far more convenient and the lead has an elasticated handle that gives girly girl a bit more leeway to shift gears from walking to running. It also makes us look like we know what we’re doing! ;)
This hobby was put on hold when we started agility and it started getting colder out, but now this year despite it still being winter I’ve taken running up again alongside our other dog sports. Thankfully I’ve managed to slightly boost my fitness through those hobbies during the past eight months or so – running for short periods of time is essential for agility after all, and of course is part of many of the other sports we try out!
That gave me confidence to try walking and running for the same amount of time. In January I started off with a minute of walking with half a minute of running, and now can sort of manage a minute of each (although being a bit of a moron I do sometimes get a bit over-ambitious at the beginning with the running and have to go down to half a minute again towards the end of the route). The great thing about sprints is that I don’t feel like I’m dying after the first kilometre or so, and can manage what would amount to a reasonable run which I wouldn’t actually be able to do in one go normally.
Freija enjoys this method too because she gets to sniff and do her business during the walking bits, and loves a bit of a race when we run. Plus we get to go on longer routes than on normal walks, since we get further in shorter spaces of time. I do look forward to proper long walks in the summer mind you, and especially exploring new places when we get to Bath… I wonder if by then we can manage real Canicross runs? :)