Relationships are never 50/50

I learned a very valuable lesson last night at agility class: my relationship with Abby needs to be 100/100 - I have to give my all before she will give hers.

I've been giving Abby a good percentage of my energy, but it's been awhile since I gave her 100% of my energy in a class. Part of it comes from working a lot with mole first. That guy will continually give me 100% even if I only give him back 10%. In fact, mole does better when I keep my energy lower because it helps keep him out of his anxiety stage. The other part has to do with abby's accomplishments. As she started doing better I started expecting more. When I expected more I became frustrated when I didn't get from her what I know she could do. As I got frustrated Abby got stressed and worked less. It was a downward spiral that wasn't fun for either of us.

After reading that post from Susan Garrett I decided to try something different in class this week. I decided to reward Abby like everything she did was outstanding! And, in some ways, the fact that she did anything at all WAS outstanding! The funny this was that the more I rewarded her for, the better she did. And the better she did, the more I wanted to reward her. It became FUN again for both of us. Abby did better in this class than she has in weeks - despite thefact that it was windy and rainy in class - and Abby truly hates weather of any kind!

I really like working with this new dog and on my way home it dawned on me that this was the first time in a long time that I put 100% of myself into working with her. I pretended that it hasn't been a long week, and that I didn't get up at 6am, and that I didn't just spend 90 minutes in traffic trying to get to class on time. I put everything else aside and just focused on her and what she needed from me to make this relationship work. And while Abby wants to do well and get lots of cookies she still needs me to motivate her. She needs me to put in the energy and the effort that she gives back. In the end, you can't blame her for that - after all, it is a fair trade