Have you heard of trigger stacking?
Trigger stacking is the premise that if one thing goes wrong during your day, you can usually brush it off and move on. But if multiple things (triggers) go wrong, it can turn into a terribly rotten no good day where you want to curl up in a ball and hibernate once you arrive home.
Once you get there, a family member makes a small request of you and, kaboom, you explode (and unload) on them because you can’t hold it in any longer! This is the result of trigger stacking. It’s also the lack of patience for that one last “could you please” or “I need help with,” regardless of how easy the task may be.
On a much bigger scale, I realized that once September hits, I feel trigger stacking way too frequently and if I don’t watch out, my stress level quickly rises.
For me, September represents kids going back to school, settling into a new daily routine, and a calmness that washes over me as the craziness of summer winds down. But then I walk into a store such as Home Goods (one of my favorites), and find they are already creating an isle of Christmas decorations to sell! The visual overload causes my calmness to turn into a whole laundry list of “to do’s” to prepare for the onset of the holidays. Ugh, my mood is quickly tempered and I feel the need to leave the store.
So how does all of this relate to dog training, especially since it’s November?
Well, if you have a new puppy, new rescue, or a leash reactive dog, and head Out n’ About to focus on leash walking skills, life just got more challenging for all involved. You guessed it, I’m the proud owner of a new rescue puppy who is leash reactive, a triple threat! Now that Halloween decorations are out, the minute I walk down my driveway, my new dog is hyper alert, focusing on the potential of all the pumpkins, spiders and skeletons to suddenly move toward him in a mysterious way. Calmness is quickly shot to all hell.
Now I am forced to rethink my walks once again. I was dreaming of the day when I could stroll out my house and go on my 45 minute power walks with all my dogs. I miss those days. It’s a time that has passed. For now…..
For the last couple of weeks and to meet the needs of all 3 of our dogs, our walks look a little different. Our new dog isn’t ready to walk with 2 other dogs. Although I could walk all of them in a pinch, my attention is pulled in too many directions and I can’t work with our pup as much as I’d like and as much as he needs. I have to consider how much time I have, and divide my time into two productive and calm walks. The key word here is CALM.
As I previously mentioned, by the time I get to the end of our driveway, our new pup is already thinking about all the strange lawn ornaments that could possibly take over the world. He may start to pace back and forth, he may growl, whine or bark, or he may be just fine and ready to walk further. The point is I JUST DON’T KNOW until I get outside and start my walk, because each day is a new day. The difference is that I can, and need to, anticipate what could happen on our walks because I already know there are large scary spiders right across the street from me!
After further thought, I realized the Halloween decorations provide an easy opportunity to spend LESS time walking with my new dog and MORE time building his confidence, curiosity and calmness right from my own driveway.
For me, this concept is such a time saver and a pretty cool prospect! Again, it’s not the distance of his walks that are my priority, but the quality of them instead. While we are working on his reactivity, the majority of his physical exercise has been in our back yard. My main focus is growing his ability to remain calm and quiet wherever possible.
The holidays offer me an opportunity to walk out my front door and have quick, fun, and frequent training sessions with my new pup and my older dog in tow. Then I return indoors, swap out dogs, and head out for my power walks with my other dog that is always ready to go.
It’s not just dogs that scare our young pup, but it’s unpredictable and unexpected things in the environment. Depending on how many new objects, sights and sounds we see (triggers) in a given walk, this determines how he responds to greeting new dogs in the future. In reality, I don’t need to see ANY dogs on our walks to work on his reactivity to them later on.
On a final note, and as I just learned from a podcast, “productivity is not what you think it is, resting is a generative state where you generate ideas.”
As the holidays approach and we start to get overwhelmed by what they represent, slow down, do less, walk less, and take moments to rest. You may experience a gentle shift in your outlook as you navigate the daily trigger stacking that can affect us all.
