Be Brave

“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I don't think any of us, or our dogs plan to wake up in the morning and to be afraid of something  But, we will often go through a day dealing with anxiety or a worry, or things happening to us that are scary! Our dogs can't intellectualize it, or process why they may be afraid-like we hopefully can. Not that all people face their fears and are brave, some hide behind words-but unlike our dogs, we can at least know when and why we may be less than brave and hopefully work through it. Being brave is very hard. 

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

- I shall not fear anyone on Earth. 
- I shall fear only God. 
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. 
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. 
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

If someone is mean to me, my first reaction is to avoid conflict and wonder why, my second is to straighten my back, look them in the eye and say to myself, "don't pick on me". It is hard to be brave, but I can think it through. Our dogs can't always know why they don't feel brave-some is a young dog and new or overwhelming experiences, developmental periods, hormones, hardwired instincts, Fight versus Flight response, etc. etc. Dogs can't intellectualize fear of failure, that is all on us. We can look fear in the eye, and decide what is real and what is perceived, or who or what is a real threat-dogs may not always be able to do that, without our help.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I see one of my dogs being less than brave, I will normally ignore the initial response and wait for them to switch gears emotionally, before intervening or redirecting. When this involves a vocal display in public, that is harder and I will normally try to redirect more rapidly. Most of us are afraid of being embarrassed in public.  Managing the bravery bubble that each pup has, is part of exposing them to what scares them, but not making it so negative or so intense of an experience, that they can't catalog it, for positive future reference. Same goes for us-face your fears, and the next time it is easier to work it through-but we can anticipate the trigger, dogs can't always do so.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

My brilliant, lovey-boy Scream!'s 2nd birthday was yesterday on Halloween. Last night he was suddenly being a weeny-maybe the high wind whipping around or the change in the air, as a warm, low pressure system blew in? Who knows, it was brief, and he worked through it quickly on his own. But, this morning I saw him really thinking about lifting his leg to pee, for the first time-he has been more of a stretcher, open thigh peer. For all of his intensity & drive, he is not territorial or showing any signs of being a marker, or lifting his leg. I actually wondered about it. 

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius

Scream! is a bit of a soft marshmallow whose feelings seem to get hurt if the other dogs pick on him- so like me, he chooses to avoid conflict, so maybe not peeing like a big boy, is part of that. Watching him kiss and clean the face of my older girl Reve, with his bum tucked and wagging like a baby puppy-well it is just heartwarming! Anyway, as always I digress....so he was suddenly worried about something last night-yet hormones kicked in this morning? Hmnn something to think about.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie

I wonder if Dale Carnegie was thinking of socializing dogs in the quote above? :) If one of my dogs is suddenly frightened or less than brave about something and I know that I can redirect their attention to me, for a hand touch/reward or a game of tug for example and that reduces their response to something scary-I will go for it. But, I do not try to "work them through fear". I expect to help my dogs think it through when they feel something is attacking them or are afraid, but I am there as support, not "trainer". I try to help them build on being brave and looking their fear in the eye, but not work on reminding them where they have failed or were afraid before. Each time we set out, we have the potential for a new brave response. 

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”
Johnny Cash

The excerpted list below from Nancy Gyes blog post, is perfect!!! Read her whole post for the context, but as I help Starlet work through her fear of being attacked and strange dogs coming at her-it reminds me of what we are working on, and where we are. NG's list goes against some of the logic of "never reinforce fear" but I am all for comforting and not trying to train through fear. It just works! 

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
Vincent van Gogh

I think that if we try to micromanage every second a dog is awake, or that we feel may be less than brave behavior with counter conditioning and "training", when do they have time to process and learn to be brave, or in some cases just be puppies and grow out of an experience?

“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”
Buddha

As I am working with Starlet, who is learning to be more and more brave with new dogs, I have assigned her a dog "buddy" of Reve-who is rock solid everywhere and loves to just go anywhere she is invited. Having a solid, friendly dog to show her the ropes, out and about is helpful, to boost Starlet's bravery. The tides may turn as Reve's hearing & eyesight diminish, Starlet may become her brave eyes. 

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Starlet has also assigned herself Ggrail, as her BFF at home and at agility trials. She loves her, prances around her to get her to play, gently takes her hock in her mouth to initiate the silly, and her face smiles when she looks at her. There is a bond there, makes me smile. 

It has also been good for Ggrail to have one of the other dogs look up to her, like being a big sister. I see her being more brave and standing out in the group, rather than the quiet one who takes back seat, or is just along for the ride. She is not an overt, in your face dog, or pushy in the group-yet because I built our relationship away from the group, she has a strong sense of who she is and can turn on drive, with the flick of an eye. At home, she is very easy, never a question she's there, but it is like she rolls back her energy and just chills, when we aren't doing something specific.

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.
Robert Anthony

At the point I started working more on Starlet's retrieve one-on-one, and some baby disc skills, Starlet stopped choosing Scream! as her "key" dog to move along with or off of, in the big dog group play. Building our relationship, reduced her need to be a migration pattern follower, on the V-point of another dog's motion-she can now easily come through the group to me, for a tug, for a game, just very cool.  

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” 
― Jim Morrison

We are at the point for the last few months, that if I pick up a frisbee, she can be in sticky mode on another dog running, and I can call her off to engage for an extended game, while the others swirl around. I could have easily let her grow up to see her role in life, as an "assistant" to the other dogs, but that would not be fair to her. Each of my dogs, if I am going to have more than a couple, deserve to have and develop their own identities with me, as themselves, with the group, without the group, etc. I am using this love of the game, to build Starlet's bravery with new dogs elsewhere.

The group gives a sense of security to some dogs, like it does to some people-taking cues from others, instead of being brave and going it alone and in the spotlight, or showing a behavior, that is their own, not influenced by another. Some can seamlessly shift in and out of a group, and be strong individuals, some can not. Some dogs need the comfort of the group to feel confident, some do not-yet can get along in a group quite well. Some are just followers and let the group dictate their behavior-they "lose" themselves in the midst of many. 

Some BC's easily can fall into being followers, if they show that and are given the chance to repeat that pattern. They can fall into a rut of looking to the group for cues, rather than being a brave individual. Starlet actually has a very strong personality and sense of who she is, in certain aspects-so the brave Starlet is the one I am working with. 

Bravery never goes out of fashion.
William Makepeace Thackeray 

Our dogs may learn to be afraid of something, for whatever reason. Our Border Collies, some who can notice of hear a speck of dust on the wind a 1/4 mile away- even moreso.  I am working on my own bravery, and I am working on helping my beautiful little one be braver, as well. Always a journey.

From Nancy Gye's Blog. Working with her fearful BC pup on her worry of cars. Can be applied in many contexts! Just really good stuff!!!!

DIDN’T HELP

• Walking her on my country road meeting the occasional car using food to counter condition- too scary, not good
• High level of exposure to individual moving cars-she can’t tolerate that much exposure
• Walking her ON leash in the scary fields- no way for her to retreat,  not good
• Trying to use a recall with high level of food reinforcement  to me after she saw a scary car- good bye recalls there and everywhere else for a while
• Taking her places to socialize on her own without a stable dog friend as support-really bad
• Trying to distract her using food and toys after she was in a fear scenario- useless at best and possibly counter-productive as when the toys and food appeared she was already frightened. Rewards = fear?
• Doing any kind of control training (stays, positions, static targeting) with her if there was even the slightest chance a car might arrive. If she had a fear moment when she was on a sit stay, she did not want to stay again in that environment for a while. Her ears would flick and she heard all sorts of imaginary cars.
• Trying to train anything when she was having a “moment”.

 HELPED

• Spending hours hiking and playing around fields on dog show weekends that have constant traffic sights and sounds.
• Foot targeting cars.
• Going out for occasional car “experiences”, but not flooding.
• Making her tug toy crazy.
• Making agility crazy fun- The catch 22 is that it’s hard to make agility an “arousal activity”  when you can’t train agility.
• I never start training when she is in a fear moment-I always wait for it to pass, but she will train and tug now through a car arriving if I don’t let the arousal end before the car disappears or turns off its engine.
• Comforting her when she is afraid- If we are in the field when a car arrives and she is far away from me, I kneel down and praise her and she runs to me, or if I am next to her I just kneel down and cuddle her. We play the “you are such a brave girl” game. I cover her eyes and whisper right into her ears that she is the bravest girl ever. She can’t see the car, and my silly vocalization helps to distract from the car noise. I think:)
• Ignoring her if she does leave us on a walk, and I just loudly play with the other dogs making her jealous until she returns.
• Sending her to my friend Laura’s home for visits when I am out of town teaching- This really helped. The social experience was good since she missed out on much of that growing up. Laura and her dogs go for a few mile walk daily where they meet cars on a more regular basis than she does on my walks with her and she was with her best friend Brew. I think those visits made a huge difference.
• Letting her grow up and not really trying hard to be perfect in our agility training, but using agility NOW as something that can actually distract her from her fears.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
Steve Jobs