Reflections on Year One
Cutie & the Beast is officially a year old! I thought it might be fun to dedicate this month’s blog post to some reflection on some of the cases we’ve worked so far this year and lessons learned:
We’re really in the business of training people! We are here to help you relate better to your pet and help you learn to live happy lives together. Often that means we are here to give the owners the skills they need in the long term to communicate with their pets.
Reactivity is a widespread issue. If you were feeling some amount of embarrassment or shame because your dog is reactive to people, other dogs, etc…don’t! We encounter people all the time wrestling with this and helping people and their dogs with reactivity issues has certainly been the bulk of the cases we’ve seen this year!
We can’t help everyone. This is always a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes it may be a case of personalities not working together well, or other barriers that keep people from following through. But we also learned that working with the people and pets that really want to listen and put in the work makes it all worth it.
Liz’s cases:
Azteca: Thanks for being my first client! I learned a lot about working with people, meeting them where they are at and helping form plans that can fit different lifestyles. Azteca is a wonderful boy and I’m happy to see him any time!
Woody: What a great case to help a new dog owner learn how to communicate and see it all come together. I feel Woody’s owner could be a dog trainer on his own given time! Their relationship really blossomed right in front of me and I got to help Woody learn how to be a great family dog.
Lucky: Absolutely a highlight of the year for me! Lucky was truly my first reactivity case and I learned how to navigate that and successfully teach his owners how to work with him.
Lauren’s cases:
Emmy: From white fluff fury at the end of the leash to being able to calmly walk past another dog only a sidewalk distance apart. Being proud of this team is an understatement! Emmy’s mom is such an invested and engaged learner in her own right. Taking each of our sessions and putting them into practice, often asking for more via email between sessions.
Ike: To get the update that he had done great with visiting family after having a hard time being comfortable with unfamiliar people in the home was a huge win. They really took to heart that recognizing Ike’s emotions and state of mind can help them strategically implement some management practices, especially when they combined that with putting in the time to work with him!
Sora: What an honor to help an over exuberant puppy grow into a confident adolescent with the skills to navigate the world, including calmly hanging out at the gym. An equal honor to help her parent gain insight and understanding to her behavior leading to a beautiful relationship built on trust and support.
Azteca and Sora
We really want to thank everyone that we’ve worked with this year! Also all our family and friends that have helped keep other things in our lives managed when we were busy with the business: you’re the best! The highlight of this year has been all the referrals we have gotten from our training peers. To be recognized as worthy of that kind of trust is amazing. Over the next year we have many exciting plans! We are looking to expand our offerings for rattlesnake awareness training as well as planning on going to a couple training conferences! We are happy with how things have gone and look forward to the future!
