I did not really know what to call this newest online course and so there you go: Berners with The Edge. This class will now occupy the Sunday blog space.
A few weeks ago — in the announcement for this course — I shared that The Edge in canine performance events develops from working towards clearly articulated goals in the context of a confident, collaborative, effective – and ethical -- relationship with our dog.
I shared that I thought the key ingredients are:
Clarity: We can only arrive at a destination when we choose one.
Communication: Mind reading is not actually a thing.
Collaboration: Who wants to exist under a dictator? #team
Confidence: When you got this, you got this.
Integrity: Always and in everything.
I think all that can be summarized in a word — The Edge is the human.
But not just any human.
The Edge for a performance dog is a reflective, thoughtful, optimistic, hopeful, confident, ethical, and respectful human.
A human who can be vulnerable and therefore — open. It is that ability to be both vulnerable and open that allows us to grow and change and get better.
The willingness to be vulnerable requires a certain kind of confidence. If we are insecure, defensive, and stuck, the only edge we have are the sharp ones we use to protect our fragile, messy, imperfect selves from others.
That is both exhausting and unnecessary — those “others” are also fragile, messy, imperfect selves. Don’t make the mistake of judging your Inside Self against the Outside Self of others - that is unfair. All humans are fragile, messy, and imperfect; if they weren’t, they would be dogs and not humans.
And so my invitation for this class is to those who want to be better human partners for their dogs, and who are willing to be a supportive member of an online learning community.
My goal for this class is simply that we move you, the human, towards being a stronger advantage (or Edge) for your dog, no matter where you find yourself right now or what personal goals you have.
We will do this through an online community built around activities, reflection, information, training ideas — and fun.
This is a closed, time-limited group—no auditing is allowed, membership has to be initiated in Week One, and we will finish in the first week of May.
The specific tasks for this week:
Please consider what it means to be vulnerable by watching this TED Talk.
Please spend some time researching effective goal setting; jot down notes from your research for your own use and also to share with others.
Be prepared to share/discuss one long-term (12 - 14 weeks) performance goal you have for your team (i.e., you and your dog).
If you have the time, emotional space, and desire to join this learning community, please search for the Facebook group Berners with the Edge and request to join.
Questions? You may email me at sontag.bowman@gmail.com