Slaying the Dragons Inside

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270 – May, 2022

By Sandy Weaver

Do you show your own dog? Yay, you!

How do you feel when you step into the ring?

There’s no right or wrong answer–and there are some common replies that don’t help you win.

Want to slay your inner dragons?

You can, with some simple–but not easy!–mental tweaks.

When people are asked what makes them nervous about showing their dog, these three replies rise to the top:

1. I feel like I’m on display – everyone is watching me.

Perhaps you’ve heard that the number one fear in humans isn’t the fear of dying, it’s the fear of public speaking. This fear is a corollary to that–even though you’re not speaking, you’re “on display” so that primal fear of standing out and having things go horribly wrong kicks in.

2. I worry about how my dog will behave.

When you are stressed and your dog picks up your stress, your dog will not behave in the same way as when you’re training at home or in a handling class. You’re less stressed then so your dog will be, too. When you get nervous at the show, your dog will likely be confused. They’re playing the same game with you, but it feels very different to them because you’re suddenly very different. They may ignore you and focus on other people or things, or they may get hyper-focused on you, pawing at you, jumping on you and seemingly forgetting everything they know about how to be a show dog. The dog isn’t giving you a hard time, the dog is having a hard time–you’ve changed and they don’t understand why.

3. I don’t want to lose and have people see that I’m a loser.

Click here to read the complete article
270 – May, 2022

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