lifecoaching Archives • kajsavanoverbeek.com

Mindset Episode 021 | Considering where the other person’s coming from, when you feel triggered

Does your partner brush off your dog’s reaction like it was nothing? Don’t they understand the concept op threshold and the importance of limiting reactions?
It’s enough to make you fume!
What could be going on on their end though?

Is your partner shouting at the dog? Do you so want to get in their face and tell them that’s not acceptable?
What could they be going through?

Are people telling you to stay calm, because it’s your anxiety that is making the vet visits problematic for your dog?
What could be behind them saying this?

No you can never know what another person’s thinking, and yet there are instances when it can come in useful to at least guess at it.

Doing so can help you regulate your own emotions, come up with an appropriate response both in the moment and at a later time, and it can drastically reduce arguments and fights.

That’s what I talk about in this episode.

Want to be less reactive yourself?

Jump on a call with me to figure out how you can work on your own triggers!

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Mindset Episode 020 | How to believe in overall success so you can work through setbacks

If only you knew you would get there in the end, then the setbacks wouldn’t be so hard to bear.

If you just had someone who could guarantee you that, yes, your dog’s going to go after a couple more cyclists and there will be 4 more periods of regression, but for sure 100% guaranteed they’re going to get there, then that would probably make it easier to deal with the hard times, wouldn’t it?

Knowing that spring is coming makes it easier to get through the winter (well, the winters in my neck of the wood at least, which aren’t “great” in my opinion).

So how can we bottle a bit of that thinking and use it to our benefit?
That’s what this episode is about.

Could your brain be doing a better job of getting you through the hard times?

If your fed up with every setback causing you to go spiraling into a vortex of negativity, eating, drinking and procrastination and want to learn tools to become more resilient, then get in touch with me about coaching!

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029 | Ali & Indie, on becoming and being a dog trainer and not burning out

Ali was from London but now lives in Maryland

We talk about how she got into the business of dog training, which has a little something to do with her German Shepherd cross Indie.

We talk about the widespread misunderstanding that all dogs should love all dogs and I may or may not tell an anecdote of me hugging a stranger to try and show them that they wouldn’t appreciate being crowded either. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.

Ali also explains something that I think is amazing:

She tells new clients to first take a break from everything (like training) for a week or so, so they can reconnect with all the reasons why they love their dog in the first place.

Another tough nut to crack for most of us is that of questioning authority. Ali had fewer difficulties there as asking “Why?” comes naturally to her. My hope is that by listening to Ali talk, more people will feel free to do the same.

Ali’s training philosophy is that she wants to provide people with the skills that allow them to be able to tackle possible future setbacks, since it serves us well to take into account that your anxious dog will probably keep showing some anxiety from time to time, despite all the training effort you put in.

Speaking of training and being a trainer, working 80 hours a week is no exception in the dog world and at first it wasn’t for Ali either.

We talk about all things dog professional:

The emotional burden of being a dog trainer, the taking on the setback and emotions of your clients, not earning enough to make a living, and giving away a part of you every time so that there’s less and less of you to go around.

So, how did she manage to find that elusive work-life balance?

Upon moving to the USA she completely restructured her business and she explains what that looks like.

Her advice to aspiring dog trainers: Don’t try to be everything to all people.

And finally, there’s Ali’s summary of her thoughts on expectation, frustration and celebration. It’s so on point, that I would be remiss if I didn’t write it down here:

Manage expectation, minimize frustration, maximize celebration

Links:

Ali’s website: https://rebarkable.com/

Find Ali on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/re.barkable/

Ali’s podcast “Ask Ali” on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/ask-ali-a-professional-dog-trainer-answers-your-dog/id1586671078

and on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/49evBFpTbFUdOakjRA6FTV?si=21ad9666aa1d4e27

Dealing with stress or feel like you're on the path to burnout?

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Mindset Episode 019 | The best way to relax is not what you think

Do you ever have a hard time relaxing after something stressful happens?

You want to be in control of your emotions so your bad mood doesn’t rub off on your dog or others around you.

If you’re angry at something, you want to calm down so you don’t accidentally start a fight by lashing out at another person or so that you don’t end up being unnecessarily harsh with your dog.

My guess is that one of your strategies is to focus on regaining calmness as quickly as possible, by doing some version of a relaxation exercise.

That’s skipping an important step though, one that might allow you to forsake the relaxation exercises altogether.

It’s one of the things that have had the biggest impact on my quality of life and I am sharing it with you in this episode.

Want to decrease stress in your life and shorten your emotional recovery time?

Get in touch with me to see if my coaching program is what you need.

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028 | Jumy on no longer wanting to be the only R+ horse trainer in the U.A.E.

We can learn so much by getting curious about neighbouring fields.

Jumy is a positive reinforcement horse trainer from Umm Al Quwain in the U.A.E. about 30 minutes out from Dubai and I wanted to pick her brain about the similarities and differences between the horse and the dog world.

Jumy opened her own livery yard, malath paddock paradise, 3 years ago, but she’s been in the industry for 13 years already.

I ask lots of no doubt cringe worthy questions, as I know nothing about horses, and we touch upon tons of different things.

Jumy explains how bitless and tackless work with horses doesn’t always mean positive work.

She illustrates how you can move away from training a behavior like getting the horse to move using negative reinforcement in the form of leg pressure (the horse moves forward in order to get away from the uncomfortable feeling of leg pressure) by teaching the behavior first using positive reinforcement and simply letting a leg touch become a cue for the horse to perform that behavior.

We touch on hackamores, which to me come across as something similar to a head halter as is used on dogs, and competition rules, which do not always allow horses to compete bitless.

Of course I want to know how Jumy ended up in the force free training world.

Unlike the road many dog guardians take, it wasn’t because she had exhausted punitive methods or because her horse had behavioral problems.

Rather it was trick training that sparked the idea of using positive reinforcement training to train all kinds of behavior. If you can use it to teach a horse tricks, why couldn’t you use it to teach other behaviors after all?

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Being a trailblazer had both upsides and downsides.

The biggest positive was that she never fell into any kind of trap of wanting to be able to do it all and know it all at once. She simply had to follow a try-as-you-go path of discovery.

When her clients find her though, it usually is because they are experiencing problems with their horses. This leads us to discuss how Jumy’s approach to dealing with horse guardians who may be using tools on their horses that she doesn’t necessarily agree with.

Her assumption is that the guardian loves their horse. She never wants to shame them or make the feel guilty about their choice of tool. Rather she lets them draw their own conclusions.

In her words:

If I teach the horse to walk, trot, reverse, counter, stop using only voice commands, do you think the owner would not use those voice commands riding? And then what do they need the bit for? It will then be their idea to go bitless.

She does draw the line at the use of spurs, but it’s her reasoning as to why that’s the most interesting to me.

In another similarity to the dog world, there is a lot of emphasis on ruling out pain (through for example a bad-fitting saddle) as a contributing factor to behavioral issues.

So what about the differences? With the horse being a prey animal and the dog being a predator, Jumy explains how that affects the required rate of reinforcement.

Then there is natural horsemanship. Jumy explains her views on that and how horses who are trained with that method can mentally shut down.

Naturally I ask about her dogs who live at the stables and are allowed to free roam. Funnily enough they chill most of the time, unless they are breaking up horse fights or they decide to come along on a hack with the horses, that is.

Finally Jumy explains her criteria for canceling a session with a horse when she isn’t in the right mindset herself, and what the alternatives are, such as adapting the type of the session to her energy levels.