There’s No Crying In Baseball

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This may be a surprise but I'm no athlete. My wife on the other hand, is. She played baseball for years and had several scholarships lined up before having too many injuries to continue. But she did walk away with some life lessons, including "there's no crying in baseball". Which really is just a line for coaches to justify mental abuse. Now I use this line in dogs but perhaps a little differently then you would imagine. One of the cardinal sins that new people do, is giving dogs trouble for to long. I mean we've all done the "stock dog time out" where you lie your dog down and give it dirty looks to let them know how angry you are. Perhaps your version is a little different but the fundamental idea is largely the same. I do things ever so slightly different. I'll give a dog trouble but as soon as they understand what the trouble is for and how serious I thought it was then I'll release and force them back to work immediately. See, dogs can get sulky. They can get to a point where you've held the pressure to long, to many times and they are just as likely to quit when they make a mistake. That's why I never give them a chance to pout. To me, pouting is exactly when I need to have them working. I mean mistakes happen and feeling some level of regret is important but life doesn't stop. One of my favourite ways to deal with mistakes is to force them to fix it. Like if I send a dog to gather a group of stock and they leave some, I'll force them to go back and get the rest. If they're clever, it won't take long for them to want to do it right the first time. That's not to say they don't get some trouble when they make the mistake but I just want to get my point across and then give them the opportunity to try again. Does this mean that things can take longer, yes. But you can't just leave your dog in the kennel because they're likely to screw up. The wrecks are where they can learn. But they won't stick to it if you just lose your temper and get them pouting. There's no crying in baseball and stock handling has no patience for you or your dogs emotional constipation.