Everything of value in life is a lesson.

One of life’s greatest lessons for me, in my dog training and my life and politics, is this: “you don’t get everything you want.”

People who can accept that will know success and peace of mind when they fail—people who don’t are condemned to live T.S. Eliot’s hollow life.

They will know anger and resentment.

Just look at our national divisions. So much of our troubles come from people who can’t accept taking their turn at losing, or that they will ever lose at all.

Democracy, like dog training, is built on the notion of fallibility, vulnerability, and acceptance. We learn by failing and listening and by honoring our own frailty.

Training dogs is a good metaphor for handling life. Because you learn as much from failing as from succeeding.

Yesterday, I wrote about the difficulties and failures I have encountered working with Fate, an amazing dog who won’t herd our sheep. I knew what was coming:

“Julie: Unfortunately, you ruined Fate for sheep. What she is doing when she runs circles around the sheep instead of stopping on balance is called “orbiting,” and it’s always the result of poor training and confusion. The problem isn’t anything that Fate lacks herself—from what I’ve seen; she could have been a good working dog. The problem is that you tried to train her using pet sheep that do not react properly to dogs, and the inevitable result was that she lost confidence in her ability to work.”

 

“Jon Katz: Julie, I’ve worked closely with two accomplished border collie trainers who saw Fate when she was very young and counseled me and agreed that Fate doesn’t have the right instincts for herding.

“She’s got lots of instinct,” said Jim, one Border Collie breeder, and herding trainer, but she’s not a herding dog. It happens.”

I’m sure I could have done better – and I certainly did fail –  but I’m happy with how it all turned out. Fate is a very happy and engaged, and loved dog. I never take seriously experts from far away online who don’t know the dog or me and have never seen me train or Fate work.

I have worked with three border collies on Bedlam Farm with our sheep – Rose, Izzy, and Red (who I didn’t train but worked very well with). None of them lost confidence in their ability to work. And the sheep behaved as expected and reacted perfectly.

You could be right, but from your message, Julie, but I don’t think you have a clue about what happened to Fate here…This is the curse of social media, people sitting at their computers telling other people what they should have done. “From what you’ve seen?” You haven’t seen anything unless you’ve been sneaking around the farm.”  

Training dogs is a sacred thing for me. Training dogs to herd sheep is challenging and unnatural for me.

As I wrote to Julie, I’ve trained two border collies successfully to herd our sheep and worked beautifully with Red, a dog I didn’t train but worked with for years. He had a lot of things to adjust to on our farm, and he learned well.

Things don’t always work out, even when we try our best. Every herding trainer I’ve ever met told me that. It doesn’t always work. You write as if you have never failed in your training, Julie, if so that makes you a special and very rare trainer.

When I wrote about Fate, I knew that Julie and others would pop up to declare – without every meeting or seeing Fate work – that it was all my fault.

It is a tempting thing to sit on one’s butt in front of a computer and tell other people what is wrong with them – I make it a point to try not to do it. Too much gall, too little heart.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Julie were correct in everything she wrote, I was too close to know. But I never take seriously people from afar who diagnose complex situations without ever seeing the people or animals they are analyzing.

Freud was asked once to diagnose a patient by mail, and he declined, saying any professional or responsible diagnostician insists on seeing the men and women they diagnose. You can’t do it long distance, he said, if you are ethical.

We never let Fate “orbit” until after we gave up on training her to herd sheep. It was complex. Red was our main herding dog, and I didn’t separate them enough; he often confused Fate, who always paid attention to Red.

I discovered when we got Fate that I was getting older and my knees were getting sore. I couldn’t get out in front of her as I did with Rose and Izzy; I couldn’t move fast enough. That wasn’t a problem when I trained Rose and Izzy.

From the first, I brought her into a confined space on a long lede and led her to the sheep. She would approach them and stop. She wouldn’t advance or hold her ground or stop or balance.

When I invited an Irish dog herding trainer – a friend I met in Pennsylvania – to come by the farm when he vacationed in Vermont, and watch us train. He brought his amazing border collie, Sky.

He watched me train Fate and he advised me to let her be the pet Maria wanted and not pressure her into being something she wasn’t. She did have plenty of instinct, he said,  but not the will to dominate or control.

He’d seen it before, it was not rare for that to happen to border collies.

He noticed she was the same way with other dogs and some people. “There’s something off,” he said, “I can’t put my finger on it; I’d let it go.”

Perhaps it was me that was off, my herding friend was pretty blunt, but perhaps it wasn’t something he wanted to say.

He noticed that my knees were getting in the way. I wasn’t moving fast enough. It was clear he didn’t think I was quick enough to train her and he also concluded that he didn’t herding was the right choice for her, as fast and instinctive as she was.

Give his 25 years of judging trials, breeding, and herding sheep on his farm in County Clare, I accepted his advice, and Maria and I decided it was wrong to push Fate in a direction she didn’t seem to want to pursue, and that I couldn’t follow through on.

In at least one sense, it was one of my better decisions. I didn’t try to break Fake’s very strong spirit.

Did I ruin Fate for sheep? Maybe, I don’t honestly know.

She certainly isn’t ruined.

She loves “orbiting” the sheep and also being Maria’s constant companion and pal. Mine too. She gets great exercise and uses that instinct. She loves walking in the woods, snoozing in Maria’s studio, riding around town, greeting every human she meets with joy.

I’m never as certain about these moments as people like Julie are, and I was there. I wouldn’t like to be as certain as she is, the word is gray to me, not black and white.

Here’s the message for me, and the reason I’m writing about this. People like Julie should be humble and empathic, not pious and snarky.

I know many people who are afraid to show vulnerability online or admit mistakes or failure because there are legions of officious and self-righteous people eager to pounce.

If you believe Facebook – and I don’t – every family in America is deliriously happy with no problems at all.  More and more people are using social media to make themselves look better than they are.

I don’t use my blog to make me look good. I use it to make me honest.

We can’t learn from our mistakes if we don’t admit them and share them. I know by now that when I write honestly about something, a Julie or many Julies will pop up to rub it in and try to make me feel bad.

Fate is a wonderful dog, and she deserves every success and opportunity to thrive.

I worked very hard with her in all kinds of weather for more than two years. I did my very best.  Perhaps I got cocky with my previous successes.

Dog training has taught me to acknowledge what isn’t working and move on or regroup. The worst thing I could do to a dog is break their spirit, and Fate is fiercely independent and individualist. That’s why she gets along so well with Maria.

I have no doubt I would have broken her if I kept on pushing her.

And perhaps my trainer friend Jim was right. It just wasn’t going to work. I let Fate be Fate, and if I had to do it again, I would.

Dog training reflects life. I’ve trained a lot of dogs and done well. I’ve messed up more than one – Orson was a much bigger failure than Fate-  and I will mess up more before I’m gone.

I don’t have much respect for anyone – especially a dog trainer – that claims never to have failed in their training. I just try to do as little harm as possible

My wish for myself – and the people reading this – is never to be afraid of being vulnerable or wrong. That is what lets the light in.  That’s how we grow.

Social media was supposed to a place that let information be free. It is that, but increasingly, it a place where people hide their true selves or lose themselves in information that is false.

Dog training is a very imperfect and confusing science.  Every dog, like every child, is different and has different needs. I swell up at my successes and wince at my failures.

What our dogs need from us is to care and to try.

And when and if we fail, to care and to try again. In life, we don’t get everything we want; we can’t always win.

But we can always try.