Time Taken to Reflect & Regroup

My beloved old girl, Sarika, and I have a cuddle.

Life is such a journey, a soaring and then crashing and then soaring again bumpy ride. I wouldn't want to miss a moment of it, and I know that learning from these experiences is part of my responsibility as an intentional human. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a pretty big crash for me to stop, pick my head up, and take stock.

I tend to have these great big goals, believing that if I push myself hard enough and want it badly enough, I can do almost anything, particularly when it comes to LGDs and my ranch life. I learned some tough lessons when I formally became a rescue, running straight into my own limitations. I struggle with PTSD that has been part of who I am since early childhood. This means that when trauma happens in my life, such as with the loss of a dog or exposure to some of the horrific abuses LGDs suffer, I become emotionally unraveled in ways that I don't think would be true were it not for my past. This really gets in the way of me living my best life; this is some of what happens:

I find it difficult to create new content. My creative process shuts down, and the words don't come. This really matters to me! If my experiences with hundreds of LGDs and my expensive formal behavioral science education all just stay inside my head, what possible good is it!? Yes, all of it makes my life richer, but I feel frustrated when I can't recount those stories to others in some way. I also feel disappointed in myself for not being strong enough to handle it all. Well, guess what, I can't; lesson learned.

I find it difficult to teach. My book editor has shared with me that I write as if what I do is easy and that anyone can learn to do it. When my heart is in a good place, I really do believe this, but when I am coping with trauma, I don't trust people. I am a positive reinforcement trainer, a positive reinforcement person, but when I get hurt, the world is half empty, rather than half full.

I become physically unwell. For about three years, I kept a "wellness" log to help my doctors figure out how much of the time I was actually sick and what the contributing factors might be. For most of that time, I was sick in some way more days than I wasn't. And then, in December 2025, the house of cards came crashing down, and I had major abdominal surgery. I got lucky and made a full recovery, but it took me five months. And really, that was part of the lucky part because I had to completely restructure my life, particularly in the months following the surgery.

And now to the good part!

I was forced to step back from the dogs. My daughter-in-law took wonderful care of them while I convalesced, and I spent hour upon hour just watching them from the house, often with a cup of tea in my hands. I began to remember more of the gentle times as the pace of my life slowed down. I started paying attention to the aspects of my life that brought me the most joy. I noticed where I found most of my angst and tears. I made a plan. I ended my rescue, instead choosing to become a sanctuary for the rescue dogs that were here and committed to not taking on more dogs. That part was tough, and most of my family didn't believe me, but as the months went by, it felt more and more right.

Once I began to heal, physically and emotionally, my words came back, and crafting stories about my dogs became possible again. The joy I feel at sitting in front of my computer telling white dogs stories, as I think of it, is second only to actually being with my dogs. As an instructor in my Novice to Experts online LGD training course, I began to enjoy working with students again, to trust them, and to trust myself.

And now?

I believe it is my purpose to advocate for LGDs, and the people who love them, through education. When I do this, my life works! I feel good about myself, and I am reminded of all the wonderful things about people that are true. I lost track of that a little. As part of my online course, I host weekly live Zoom sessions with students and graduates. All LGD topics are on the table. We talk about training, of course, but we are all students of our dogs and of each other in these sessions. I know that my students and graduates appreciate this learning opportunity, as was my dream when I created the course, but I underestimated how joyful and rich this weekly experience is for me. We have met 110 times! Every session is recorded and added to the library in the course. So, even when times were challenging for me personally, I had this weekly connection. Yep, anybody can learn this stuff.

As a gift to myself, I have been working on an ambitious project over the last ten months that has taken most of my time and available grey matter. My work on this project is almost finished, and I feel really good about it. I will share more about this in a couple of months, but for now, I am back. My brain is working, and my heart is happy. I look forward to writing blog posts again and sharing videos on my YouTube channel. I published one today and noticed that it has been almost a year since I have done so! Geez.

Thank you for being here and waiting for me!

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