01/02/2026
Let's talk HUMAN error... 😵
See this cute picture of Kyri?? I posted it last night. Or at least... I TRIED to. Had a nice silly caption, the works. Okay, the bare minimum, but still. It's the holidays kinda sorta till I'm back with clients tomorrow so I have vacation brain... Anyway, moving on.
I hit POST and carried on with my evening. At bed time, I checked fb. Hm. How did the cutest ever Kyri to ever Kyri not get ANY love?? No heart reacts, no comments! What the heck! I checked my page, thinking maybe notifications were off. Nope. There was NO Kyri post! 🤦
I have no idea what went wrong. Did I NOT hit post when I thought I did? Did the Al go Rhythm eat it? I was so frustrated and I wished I knew the answer! But it got me thinking. How often do our dogs SWEAR they got it right! 100% convinced they Did The Good Dog Thing and should be good to get all the snacks and praise or real life rewards. And then they learn it was wrong after all, no reward comes and we ask them to try again!
In my dealings with people, I always prefer to assume (innocent) ignorance/incompetence over intentional malice. Most of us are doing the best we know how and not intentionally messing up or dropping the ball, and I extend that grace and patience to dogs as well. They do the best they know how. If they make a mistake, it's information for me to know where to spend some more time practicing and helping them understand. Compassion and cooperation over control and compulsion.
It wasn't my fault my post didn't work last night. Or maybe it was. But it doesn't really matter. I learned to copy my caption before hitting post just in case I need to try again 😅, and it led me to some extra thoughts to post about. And if learning from (laughing at and sometimes swearing at 🤣) our mistakes, developing contingency plans, and making baby steps of progress isn't at the heart of dog training I don't know what is!
Brittni Hyzer CPDT-KA, FFCP, FDM
