On Writer’s Block and Dog Training

On Writer’s Block and Dog Training

Hello! I’m back, and lately, I’ve been having a bit of writer’s block. What is there to write about on a travel blog when I can’t even travel? Nothing. But after much thought, I realized that I’m taking a bite out of the world, which could mean travel, but it also means pets, cooking, or school. It’s my blog, so I can write about, well, me! 

This brings us to dog training. How can writer’s block and dog training relate, you ask? They… don’t. But maybe trainer’s block (a new term that I coined that means writer’s block for people trying to train their dogs) brings them together. 

A few weeks ago, my family welcomed another furry friend- Milo. Milo’s case is an interesting one. We have no idea what circumstances he came from, just that they weren’t good- the rescue that we got him from only knows that he was a stray. He’s a black and white mutt, with big floppy ears and a pitbull face. He looks like a hound from the side, and he has a nice little black dot right on his behind. He’s housetrained (thank god- I could not handle a dog that uses the house as a toilet), but as to basic training, like sit and stay, he knew nothing. For us, it is very important to have a dog that knows some commands, just for practicality, not to mention the bond that training builds. 

So before we got Milo, I watched hours and hours of videos. I learned how to teach a dog to sit, stay, heel, come, and I thought that maybe we could even teach him to give high fives! I have friends who have dogs, and they told me that training was no problem. I thought that I had it in the bag. What could go wrong, right?

After a week of having Milo, I was thoroughly confused. He hid in the basement (it’s perfectly safe for him to be there), only perked up for walks, ran away if we tried to go near him, barely touched his food, and craziest of all, he didn’t bark! This isn’t a dog, I remember thinking. Something must be wrong with him.

Flash forward one week, and Milo seemed to be coming out of his shell. He started to eat on a regular schedule and ventured out of the basement often, even if only to hide under the table. I was pleased with this, and I thought that maybe in a week we could train him. My parents had other ideas. He needs to start learning, they said. If we don’t teach him now, he’ll never learn, they explained. They were right looking back on it, but at the time I only wanted to do it if I knew that I had a 99% chance of success. 

However, after a few days of them irking me about it, I had to step in. They had already started to try some things. They would take him and position him correctly and then say, “Sit! Sit! Good sit!”  It didn’t really work. He would either not eat the treat, or just ignore them fully. So in comes me. I was no stranger to my parent’s failed attempts, and I knew I had to try something different. I researched it, watched so many videos, and read so many articles. I finally understood it. I did as the videos said. I put him on an indoor leash, pulled him into a small room. I grabbed a treat from my pocket, almost barfing at the strong chicken smell. I let him smell it and then slowly, I inched it over his head, trying to push him into a sitting position. I moved the treat back, and back, and back, seeing victory… and then I realized that Milo wasn’t moving. I tried it again. Nothing. 

Frustrated, I let him go back under the table and stormed off. It’s impossible, I thought. I had a classic case of trainer’s block. I had tried everything – or so it seemed – and still gotten no response. It felt like I was trying in vain to do something that could never be accomplished. 

And here’s where we connect back to writer’s block. Sometimes when writing, or at least for me, it seems like an impossible task. There’s nothing to write. I can’t remember. I need to be funny. This block is what makes writing feel so gratifying and frustrating at the same time. The frustration that I am trying to do something that I feel that I can’t, and the gratification when I do. 

If you must know, Milo’s story did have a happy ending. We ended up FaceTiming some friends who had gotten a dog a few months earlier, and they had some amazing tips for us. We started to work our way up, starting with trying to get him to eat out of our hands. We didn’t set high expectations- we expected failure, which meant that when he started to nibble out of our hands after a few days, we were overjoyed. We tried to get him to sit again- it didn’t work. But that was okay. We didn’t expect it to work anyway. When we tried the next day, we had him nibble out of our hands as we lured him into sit and… it worked! 

We had done what I thought was impossible. Now, Milo knows how to sit and stay, and to come when called 50% of the time. He’ll always take a treat out of our hands, barks sometimes, and doesn’t hide under the table anymore. 

If I had known that there was an easy way to train Milo, I would have. But the experience of trying and having to push past my trainer’s block taught me a valuable lesson that also applies to my writer’s block, and pretty much anything that you can put the word “block” after. It’s not always going to be easy, but we keep trying. That’s all we can do, right?

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Dora