Train For This Moment

Yesterday was an interesting day.

Magnus and I went to an agility practice at a big arena where they have a lot of agility and obedience matches. We had friends practicing there so we got to watch and do some fun training of our own.

We worked a lot of the basics and he did fabulous!

But once again for me the 4legged lesson was not one of sits, downs, mat work or beautiful loose leash walking, although all of those things were great.

I know I’m silly. I know I was in a building filled with talented, well trained dogs. Dogs dreaming of and training for world-class competitions. Dogs that know more than my dogs may know in their whole lives.

I know Magnus was not achieving things anywhere near that level, but I was beaming. I wasn’t beaming because he nailed his contacts, or had the fastest weaves. No, I was beaming because while I filmed our friends run, while dogs, people, and even a stroller went past him, he laid peacefully on his mat next to the ring.

I was beaming when he learned the elevator wasn’t a scary place, but instead the little moving room where treats magically appear out of the floor. I was beaming when he ran up that big row of concrete steps that he bee-lined away from the first time he saw them.

And when he went in his crate and took a nap? Oh, glowing with pride is more like it!

I know! I know! I am absurd. I mean here I am surrounded by some of the most talented dogs and handlers in our area, with friends with titled dogs, spent hours and years training, and have dogs with skills mine may never achieve and what am I gushing about?

My dog can take a nap in a crowded place! Miraculous!

I’m rolling my own eyes at myself so go ahead and have a laugh on me.

But having a pup like my Maizey who spends so much time on guard and is so uncomfortable in so many places has taught me the little things really count to me.

Now that’s not to diminish the achievements of anyone else there. That’s not to say I don’t want my dogs to learn those things. But life is teaching me a lesson right now. It’s a lesson I have been long in learning, and am still fighting with in some ways.

The lesson is that this moment is all there is. There are no small victories. There are no small accomplishments. If it is pure and brings you joy in this second that’s all that matters.

Your heart already knows this lesson. The other day my friend told me your heart only, “beats this seconds blood, not one second ago or one second from now.” He was reminding me this second is all your body is living. This moment is all that matters and if you can let go of the past and the future and stay in this moment, we will have achieved what some of our dogs already know.

If you can lay down in a safe place and take a nap, or hang out on a rug and watch the champions, or soon to be champions, it doesn’t matter if you are one yet. If doesn’t matter if you were one once. All that matters is being in a pleasant moment with a friend, no matter how many legs they have.

So I have a new Maizey Promise: I will try to be happy in this moment with you, and I will try to infuse this moment of happiness to you.

I know this is a lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo for a dog blog, but it’s a lesson that is helping me. It’s helping me not get bogged down in the past mistakes. More than that, the lesson to live in this moment is helping me not get overwhelmed by expectations, plans, contrivances and projects, but to train whatever presents itself in that moments opportunity.

The lesson to live in this moment is helping me not get overwhelmed . . . but to train whatever presents itself in that moments opportunity.

Perhaps not a new lesson to most, but a profound one for me in many areas of life.

This is a good thing for me and for my dogs. As an relatively inexperienced trainer my anxiety about what to do and if I am doing it ‘right’ can discourage me from trying at all. Using each moment to teach and learn whatever presents itself is freeing me of that pressure. It just lets me have more fun.

Yesterdays 4legged lesson? Learning is in the moment you use to the full today, not the one you passed up yesterday, or the one you will love tomorrow.

So now we are off to walk in the moment. A cold moment since it’s only 15 degrees, but you all are doing so well in the walking challenge I have to get our there and catch up!