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The Questions and Characters in My Life

Writer's picture: addi0691addi0691

What do I want to talk about today?

GIF of puppy with question marks

Maybe I should write an articleI can send in to the IACP by January 27th?

And who makes the middle of the week their deadline anyways?

Should I go back to school?

What if I struggle with the work load or what if I chose the wrong program? 

How is that going to change my clientele or my life or my life with my dogs?

Will it change at all?





 

I realize that we all probably walk around with a thousand-and-one questions in our minds trying to figure out where we belong and what we need to do at any given point.

I can see that some people look at their dogs and do not understand why they are

not listening to them, why things are so hard, why their dog has to be aggressive. 

I do not have the answers for you, nor will I pretend that I know what it is like to have a super reactive or aggressive dog in my household.


Emma (left) and Bella (right) at WES in January 2025
Emma (left) and Bella (right) at WES in January 2025
 

What I will say instead is that maybe you got the type of dog that you needed. The dog who will make you grow and understand yourself better. 

What if you got that kind of dog? What if you learn to focus on your environment, engage more with your dog, learn to center yourself before a session? What if the reason you have your dog is to learn something about yourself?


 

I spent a lot of time trying to understand the different characters in my house.

Rylee and Emma on the couch at home.
Rylee and Emma on the couch at home.

I have a terrier who is entirely spoiled, and yet not willing to not be part of the pack or the adventure. Though once we are at our destination, she is more than likely than not to pout and stay in the car.


I have two border collies, who could not be more opposite of each other. 

Bella is headstrong and sensitive at the same time. She will choose to leave me over staying and dealing with a worrisome situation, no matter if she is directly involved or just sitting on the side lines.

 

Emma on the other hand, in her current puppy state, I should say, is exuberant and happy. She has no worries, and would probably walk through fire to get to the sheep. She does not appear to be the hard-head that Bella is, as she is mindful about the corrections directed at her. She also has an amazing off-switch and a personality that I very much enjoy.


 

While Bella’s social reservations have caused me to seek out the path less traveled and traveling alone most often, Emma’s enthusiastic engagement with all types of dogs has encouraged us to seek out friends with dogs and be social.

Who would have thought?

I think even Bella is slowly coming around to the idea that other dogs, while probably utterly annoying to her, are not that bad.


From right to left: Emma, Bella and Rylee running in the snow at the farm
From right to left: Emma, Bella and Rylee running in the snow at the farm

I caught her (on camera!!) having fun running around with Emma and Delta. A scene that I could have not imagined in my wildest dreams a few months ago, leave alone last year. Bella playing has been happening more frequently, especially with Emma’s insistence on annoying Bella to no end. It is all cute though, and Bella does still correct Emma when she is being too much, annoys her, breathes and such things.

So what are my dogs teaching me about myself and my environment?


 

Rylee taught me that I need to engage my whole heart and soul into training. That there is no halfway in and halfway out. She had a pretty tough rule, that when I was not fully committed to the exercise or project or training that we were doing, she would just leave or sit there or worse participate with zero enthusiasm. The videos I have of her making me look like I am dragging her with an invisible leash around a field are ridiculous, and way too embarrassing to post on any social media platform. 


Rylee sitting on top of a round hay bale in a field in fall 2024
Rylee sitting on top of a round hay bale in a field in fall 2024

Rylee is also my very first dog, she is my soul.. She is the cutest little terrier and I just adore her. She had to do the heavy lifting of dealing with me and my moods for five years before I added Mowgly (b:05/15/2019 d:03/07/2020) and later Bella when she was six years old.


Bella taught me that you can love something with all of your heart and that you can go all in and still fail. She taught me that it is okay to fail, to get back up again and to probably fail again. Bella taught me that if I changed the way I thought about training and started listening to her, that we made more sense together. She knew when I needed something done, or when I left the fence open. 

She has been my right hand through my entire farming journey, and has opened doors upon doors for me. She is the reason why I was able to get Emma, why I have sheep, why my car that I got about three years ago at 25k is now approaching 100k (surpassed at the time of posting). 

I would do it all over again. I would try harder, work harder, stop being stubborn when Jim tried to teach me things at the beginning. I want to do it all over again so I can be smarter and better and accept that it is okay to be bad. To fail. To have questions.

 

Questions are the only we are able to make connections, to figure out who can be in our corner or who is better left behind.

Top to bottom: Rylee, Emma, Bella all looking at something in the field at the farm 2025.
Top to bottom: Rylee, Emma, Bella all looking at something in the field at the farm 2025.

Questions helped me find my first lambing internship (cannot say “job” because while I was royally taken care of, I was not compensated), helped me get my mentorship, helped me find a puppy who I am in love with. Questions are the reason why I am sitting here today, trying to figure out how to run a business, trying to figure out how to run a sheep farm, how to have three dogs, how to do it right..


So ask yourself all the questions.

Put them down on paper, in your notebook, in your calendar, I do not know, anywhere. Voicing our questions are not failures, they are beginnings.






How else would you know where to start?

How else would you know where to begin?



Happy Training and Stay Curious.

Addi and her dogs

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