Back to Dogblr after a decade, I suppose?
It’s just that all other socials are toxic af, but I really truly miss seeing what other people are doing with their dogs, and I miss feeling “like a dog person.” So here we are.
Daithi’s 10 now, and I’m 30, which means he’s been my foundation for a third of my life. After a ton of instability, we’re kind of back to the beginning - spending more time together than apart, training in classes where we’re guided less by knowing what we’re doing and more by just wanting to do it together. I feel really lucky for our bond - tried and tested over a decade of life shifting underneath us.
Recently the old boy had a night where something was wrong, but no matter how hard we tried: we just couldn’t understand what it was. So I did the most millennial BS possible and finally ordered the fluentpet buttons. I’ve been reading and researching them for about a year, and that night just pushed me over the edge. With our background in cognition and psychology - I’m hoping the buttons will be somewhat intuitive, as they follow along the same concepts we’ve worked on the past. But should they not be Daithi’s thing - I feel pretty confidently that will be on me as the trainer and not a full dismissal of the idea of AAC for all dogs. SO we will be working on that.
When I was 14 and just starting to get into the research on dog cognition and training - the approach in my head that made sense was to use my mom’s dog (Silas, 9 at the time) to just *learn.* He would be my guinea pig, and I would be better for the *next* dog. In some ways this makes sense - as we shift into senior years Daithi is constantly giving me even more than I can give him. He’s building a legacy. His inheritance to me will be a wealth of experience and knowledge fostered by his support, patience, and love. But as with Silas, Daithi’s senior years and the training and work we have continued to do together have thus far been a sweet and gentle development of an even deeper bond. And so we are here, building our legacy, and also wanting the journey to never ever end.




















