Yesterday morning I decided to make homemade coffee creamer, something that I do on a fairly regular basis. I got my ingredients together, creamer, milk, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice (IYKYK!). I mixed it all together in my mason jar, then proudly poured it into my coffee expecting it to be the delightful taste I have become accustom to. Well, surprise! I just about spit it out! It was TERRIBLE! Back to my drawing board...more vanilla, more spice mix, more cinnamon roll emulsion...still, completely terrible. It completely ruined my cup of coffee! I poured the coffee out and moved along my day, uncaffinated.
Fast forward to this morning. I get up, take care of all the pups, then decide that I am going to tackle this coffee creamer problem once more. First thing I did was pour out the old coffee creamer, then washed out the container, and started again. Creamer, milk, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon roll emulsion....mix....YUCK! I couldn't belive it! I was sure I had messed something up the day prior, but then repeated the same steps this morning and to no suprise...NOTHING CHANGED.
So, I continued to think on it....I had forgotten a crucial ingredient--sweetened condensed milk! I opened my cupboard and grabbed a can of the sweet sticky goodness! I went back to the counter and poured half of my creamer base into another mason jar and then filled each jar with half of the can of sweetened condensed milk. I remixed my creamer and it was PERFECT! Just the way I had remembered it!
Now, you may be asking yourself why I am telling you about my silly coffee creamer mistake and why I am posting it to a dog training page. The answer is, the more I thought about it, the more I could relate it to training!
You see, I had forgotten a crucial ingredient in my recipe, which can be easy to do in training. I also repeated the same mistake and got the same result. Nothing changed so NOTHING CHANGED. However, by slowing down, thinking through my problem and reaching into my pantry (literally and figuratively), I was able to find the solution.
In training, the "recipe" doesn't work for every dog and you may need to assess the problem more deeply and think about the "ingredients" available to you and how they may be used to change your overall outcome. Also, don't be afraid to change something! As stated above, if nothing changes....NOTHING CHANGES!
Be creative and have fun with your training! Make mistakes and learn from them! I often times get owners that are super nervous that they will wreck the training their dog has recieved with me. I always tell them, "You are going to make mistakes and that's OKAY! You just have to pay attention to when, why and how they happen and learn from them!"
Enjoy your dog and figure out how to make awesome coffee creamer with them today! 👊🏻
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