Thoughts on Perfection

I am getting back to teaching after a little bit of a vacation/break (escape from fireworks), and I had someone say, during an event I hosted, “My dog never makes a mistake.”

Just a day or so before, I had irritably brushed off a person’s well meaning observation about my dog at an agility event, by saying, “It doesn’t matter, he knows how to take the obstacle in front of him.”

These are so similar with all the unstated potential underlying messy subtexts that we don’t like to admit:

• I’m upset/frustrated, etc. that we did not do as well as I expected to with this ______.

• You (host, coach, trainer, judge, CO) have done something to cause this error.

• I’ve put time and money into doing this ________ activity with my dog, and by not doing as well as I had hoped, has it been worth it???

• Other people did better than me.

• Other dogs did better than mine.

  And that most dangerous one:

• My dog should always get everything right. (AKA I only feel OK if my dog gets it all right.)

So, who wants to announce that no, we did not qualify, title, get 100%, get enough points? Probably not most of us.

But – and I know all of us know it --- our dogs are not machines, they are sensitive, living breathing creatures – sometimes whom we barely understand, although we mistakenly think we do.

What we do with these experiences is what matters.

We could hunker down and relentlessly drill our dog on the skill, sometimes a tempting option, but not one that builds happiness in the handler, the dog or between the two.

We could give up/back out until we think we will get it perfect – a sort of grim saving of face, half back out.

Or, or, or –

We can look at this as a chance to get a new perspective, not to make an excuse, but to consider how do we strengthen our dog’s confidence, comfort with or drive for a task, and how do we change ourselves, our view, our skill, our approach to ensure that we have gone over and above to give our dog the tools, support to accomplish the task as well as he/she can.

How have we made learning this task together more fun?

And very few of us learn from the perfect runs, searches, etc. We, as humans, learn from the errors, the imperfect ones.

And most importantly, have I used this hiccup in time to ensure that I’ve seen my dog as a creature, variable, flawed, capable, steady, and mercurial, and can I fully accept, rather embrace, all those characteristics – knowing that in the moment, he/she did indeed do the best he/she could?