Let's Try Something New!

OK, so I'm not going to go over yet another "oh, woe, how I have let the blog slide" complainathon. It's obvious, we all know it, let's move on. But something I realized today, that I must have forgotten or refused to remember even: this blog is supposed to help us by being a record of Monster's development over time (which doesn't work if I don't write anything, duh), as well as a place to look at each day's efforts and results. Long term and short term, this blog was meant to keep us on the right track. And I think not dealing with the blog has allowed our training to slip, quite a lot! Or perhaps I've been so reluctant to blog because I knew there was a problem and I didn't want to face it...? I don't know. But either way, I think there is a problem and it has to be dealt with.

What, now? How about tomorrow...?

Yes, now. Or I'll just go back to hiding from it again. The problem is this: I don't want to, I can't be bothered, in a minute, we'll do it later, it's better tomorrow, I'm tired, I don't feel well, and we'll just wing for now and I'll do it properly next time... Put simply, I'm neglecting Monster. We're doing far too little, and what we do tends to be halfhearted and improvised - after a long windup of "five more minutes, I'm coming..." I'm not sure how long this has been going on, even! And I'm trying to snap out of it, but it's really hard. I don't want to do things, everything seems like such an effort - just going for a walk is miserable most of the time, and not just the getting started but most of the way through I just want to turn around and go home. Let's not even talk about training specific behaviors, sometimes I improvise something halfassed but it's all one offs and leads nowhere. Poor Monster!

Yup.

So, time to try something new on the blog: public shaming! An excellent old tradition, time to put it to use. For now I'm going to skip the good/bad posts, and instead just post a summary of our day each evening (I intend to, at least) listing what we've actually done. Writing that out in black and white and letting everyone see just how bad a dog owner I am might succeed where I've so far failed: curing the lazies. And I have a bad case, so let the shaming commence!

Today I have managed the following:

• Walks: 1h 55min! Wow... That is some kind of pathetic... Admittedly we still have our evening walk left since I'm writing a little early tonight, so that could be another 45min... 30min... 20min... Oh, come on, not even twenty minutes!? Maybe not... Let's say 15-20 minutes more tonight then, just to keep me from starting to cry.
• Exercise: 35min dragweight. OK, that maybe doesn't sound so bad, but actually I never meant to go for that long since we're still very new to this exercise, but I just lost track of time (since I hadn't planned anything properly). We also got started more than an hour later than I intended, and that hour was spent entirely on "five more minutes"-ing with me huddled under five blankets on the couch...
• Training: 0! Absolutely nothing... Not a single behavior trained today... Yeah, there's a reason I say there's a problem... Theoretically I could say the day's not quite over yet, but the honest truth is I won't do anything tonight. I may think about doing something, but I won't actually do it. Nothing.

So far the public shaming doesn't seem to have kicked in yet... Let's hope it starts its magic soon though, before Monster moves in with our neighbors - they may be cat people (and watch Cesar Millan for entertainment) but they're no doubt more fun than me!

Well... It's possible! I'll give you one more chance though.