The Little Bear Dog Blog

Little Bear

I watched Usain Bolt run the 200 meters last night. I’m not a huge sports fan but for some reason I like watching his races, a contradiction I found myself pondering in the wee small hours.

I think his appeal is his confidence. Not the arrogance and  stiltedness we often see from top sportspeople, but a more genuine, very human level of self-belief that makes people feel like they could still have a beer with him in the pub.

The Little Bear Olympics 

While the race was happening we were having our own track event in the living room with Little Bear. It was more like the four meter scramble than the 200 meter sprint, but he was enjoying his nightly round of chase the tennis ball. Until that is, a mis-placed throw (I did say I’m not much of a sportswoman) landed it behind his toy box.

He knew exactly where it was, but couldn’t reach it. After about 20 seconds of pacing around he tried emptying the toys, but that was swiftly abandoned in favour of short sharp frustrated barks. The equivalent I’m guessing of ‘Help! Somebody get my ball for me!’

I told OH that I wanted him to figure it out for himself and so we encouraged him, praised every paw in the right direction, fell silent as he woofed his frustration and waited for him to figure it out. After about three minutes, which must feel like a lifetime to a frustrated dog, he had tried a number of different techniques: standing in the basket so that he could reach the ball behind it; emptying more toys onto the floor; tipping the basket up with his paw and then finally, approaching from the side and moving the basket with his nose which (Hoorah!) revealed the tennis ball!

Bear goes for gold

Well he couldn’t have looked more pleased with himself if he had just won gold in the 200 meters. The crowd, i.e. me, OH and Annie went wild. To cheers, claps and whoops of ‘clever boy’ Little Bear swaggered and pranced about the place grumbling his happy growl and wagging for all he was worth. He did three laps of honour around the living room before sitting down in front of me on the sofa still all of a wag for a post event interview (“You worked hard out there Little Bear, was there ever a point that you felt the goal was out of reach?”) and of course, a ear rub.

Encourage failure

Little Bear ‘failed’ to get it right a number of times last night and at any point, had we stepped in to help, we would have deprived him of that glorious flush of victory that he so obviously enjoyed when he succeeded. It was a reminder that failure is a very necessary part of success and something we should celebrate and encourage.

It wasn’t getting the ball that helped boost his confidence, it was the fact that he figured it out all by himself, trying and failing a few times but getting there in the end by using his head and his heart and persevering.

Just like pro-athletes, dogs need self-belief. They need to know that we’re there to support them, in their failures as well as their successes and that we’ll be there to cheer them on no matter what.  Who said sport had nothing to do with dog behaviour? 😉