Ep. 126: Getting Off the Hamster Wheel

Do you feel as though you are running at top speed on a hamster wheel and unable to get off? There are many of us in the sniffing community that may feel this way!

Handlers who are doing all of the things all of the time, running themselves, and their dogs, ragged. Trial hosts, who after spending months working tirelessly to prep for an event, find themselves receiving requests to host even more events before the current one is wrapped up. Trial officials crisscrossing the country, officiating every single weekend on top of speaking at workshops and seminars, spending one or two days at home if they are lucky. Instructors who feel the need to constantly find new ways to add more and more teaching opportunities to their schedule, all in a feeble attempt to meet the neverending need, while simultaneously being unable to spend a single moment with their own personal dogs.

In this episode, we discuss how easy it is to find yourself trapped on the hamster wheel, but that it is incredibly beneficial for both you and your dog to jump off and inject some much needed balance into your life. Sleep, latent learning and undertaking other hobbies should not be viewed as bad things. They should be normalized! Scent Work is not going anywhere, so jump off that hamster wheel before it is too late.

Speaker:

Dianna L. Santos

TRANSCRIPT

Dianna L. Santos (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to the All About Scent Work Podcast. In this podcast, we talk about all things Scent Work, that include training tips, a behind scenes look of what your instructor or trial official is going through and much more. In this episode, I want to talk about getting off the hamster wheel. So before we start diving into the episode itself, let me do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor of Scent Work University. This is an online dog training platform where you provide online courses, seminars, webinars, and eBooks that are all centered around Scent Work. So regardless of where you are in your stepping journey, maybe you're just getting started, you're looking to develop some more advanced skills, you're interested in trialing or you're already competing at the upper levels, we likely have a training solution for you just need to know a little bit more about me. Let's dive into the episode itself.

(00:52):
So in this episode, I want to talk about how it is that we are all running ourselves ragged, that we are on the hamster wheel, running a million miles a minute, and that probably is not such a great idea. So particularly because we are doing this podcast, we're releasing it on Fridays. I think it's a good reminder before we head into the weekend that it may be a good idea for us to reassess what we're doing. So I want to break this down into a couple of different categories. There are those of us who are handlers and we are training and potentially competing with our dogs. Then there are those of us who are trial hosts who are putting on events, whether or not they're formal trials, sniff and GOs, workshop, seminars, whatever the case may be. Then there are instructors who are teaching their clients, and then there are trial officials who are officiating those events, whether or not they're mock or real. So I want to talk about these big buckets and try not to talk for too long.

(01:51):
The big theme that I've noticed over the last couple of years is that it seems as though everyone, myself included, are trying to jam everything in to all of the seconds all of the time. And if I had to guess, again, it's not like I have the answers to everything, is that this is almost a reaction to what happened with the pandemic that many of us are still coping with the fact that the world turned off for a certain period of time and it manifested itself as though people are desperately trying to make sure that they don't mess out on anything ever again. So they're trying to maximize on absolutely everything, but there is a limit to that, right? There is something like living in the moment that is true, and to not let anything slip by that is also a valid point. But what we are noticing as instructors, as trial officials, as event hosts and so on and so forth, is that everyone is doing too much all of the time and is causing problems.

(03:00):
So let's start with the first bucket. Let's start with people who are handlers and they are working with their dogs and they're doing classes potentially. They're going to events, they're going to trials. They are also doing their own learning. They're taking webinars, they're listening to podcasts, they're reading blogs. They're doing everything that they possibly can, which again, in and of itself is good. The fact that people want to improve their own understanding that they want to do things with their dogs, that they're choosing to do stuff with their dogs is fantastic. I mean, truly that's wonderful and we want to encourage people to do things with their dogs. But the problem is, is that many of our clients we are seeing as instructors particularly are stretched way too thin. They're doing way too many things and they're burning themselves out. But instead of, it's weird, there's a part that you get to burnout where you start noticing people have shorter tempers or you can't complete sentences, you can't complete any task really.

(04:12):
Well, everything's just kind of a mess. You may be more emotional or you may be just kind of just off. Everything's just kind of, but it's kind of like when you're hungry, we're not talking about anyone who is actually having hunger problems, but if someone was working too hard, this is another thing that we've seen at events is you can have someone who's trying to work behind the scenes and they haven't stopped to eat anything. They haven't had a snack, they haven't had lunch, they haven't had anything, and there's a part in that day where your body is screaming at you, I need calories. You get a headache, you get all this stuff, but then you get on the other side of that and it's as if your body just gives up and it's like, okay, well I guess we're just not going to eat today.

(05:00):
I don't know why, but we're not going to. And I think that's what people are experiencing with their burnout is they came out the other side of it, all of the symptoms, all the alarm bells were going off, and still the insanity ensued. So now what you notice is that the performances are still not great. They still have a short fuse, but there's almost an apathy. There's almost like a layer of just blah that's over everything that I'm running from thing to thing to thing, and I am frazzled and at the end of my rope because I think that's what I have to do. And they're just kind of resigned to that fact and that's very sad. Well, let me not speak for anyone else. I as an instructor, do not want to see anyone doing that to themselves. Again, this is supposed to be a fun activity that we are choosing to do with our dogs.

(06:01):
This is absolutely optional. This is something that if we have to take something off of our plate, we can take this off. We want it to be something that everyone looks forward to and that you are deepening the relationship with your dog, that everything is getting better because you were doing the sniffy things with your dog. You're going to class, you're training and practicing, you're going to trials, you're going to seminars, you're practicing with your friends, et cetera, et cetera. There's all kinds of fun things, but we don't have to do all of the things all of the time to where it turns into just kind of yuck. And that's kind of what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of our clients are falling into this trap where they're doing way too much and on top of it because there's so many different ways of training dogs, and there always will be.

(06:54):
There's no one surefire, you must do this. That's just not the way that learning works. But sometimes what happens is that people will then kind of be scatterbrained all over the place because they start doing one thing and they turn around, do a 180 and do something else, and it is just kind of a mishmash of stuff, and that's not helpful either. So with this first bucket of people, maybe one of the most important buckets of people is if you happen to find yourself as a handler that if you were to take a real close look at your calendar and how it is that your days are set up from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep from Monday to Sunday, all four weeks out of a month and 12 months out of a year. If you're able to really evaluate that and not just through the lens of what you're doing with your dog or within Scent Work, but really take into account your whole day, your whole life, what is it that you have to do?

(07:55):
What are you responsible for that you're adding all this other Scent Work stuff and dog stuff on top of, because it's asking a lot for people who already have a full-time job on top of trying to take care of themselves and family and whatever life throws at them in this wonderful world that we live in that is just so much fun right now. She says, with sarcasm, there's a lot to then also say, okay, you're supposed to spend a good amount of attention and energy and stress on all of that stuff. And then you're supposed to rush home, grab your dog, run back out into traffic, go to class, be present in class, do well in class, run back home, maybe get something to eat and then listen to a webinar or read a book or listen to an audiobook or whatever the case may be.

(08:44):
Grab a couple hours of sleep, wake up, do it all over again for a couple more days while you're also training and practicing and all this other stuff. And then you're supposed to on the weekend rest who needs rest. Wake up at the crack of dawn, grab the dog and go to trial. And are people being successful doing that? Yeah, yeah. There are absolutely people that by metrics, they're earning titles, they're earning cues or making memories. Is that sustainable in the long term? I'm going to tell you no, because even if someone really wanted to try to convince themselves that they were okay with that crazy schedule your dogs, and we can see that. We can see that the dogs are utterly exhausted because the other part of this is that very few dogs are just doing Scent Work or very few dogs are just doing Scent Work with one competition organization.

(09:39):
Many of them are competing with lots of competition organizations and also in lots of different dog sports, sometimes in the same weekend, and they may be doing the training and the practicing ahead of time, which again, we as instructors will promote. You should be doing training and practicing, but there also needs to be sleep. We need sleep and latent learning. All this stuff is really important. So this first piece is really just kind of a plea that for anyone who is a handler who has a dog and is doing stuff with their dogs, really take a real good look at your calendar. What kind of craziness are you signing yourself and your dog up for? This is supposed to be fun. You're supposed to be able to just say, I'm going to go do whatever it is, and you look forward to it and you can enjoy it and you can really embrace it and it's great.

(10:30):
That's the goal. But if it starts turning into I have to do this, and you think of, oh, I got to go to class. If that's what you're saying to yourself, there's something wrong. If you are getting ready to go to a trial the next day and you you're dreading like putting all this stuff together to pack, that's a problem. These are the kinds of things we want to think about. So now we want to look at another bucket of people, and those are our event hosts. Event hosts. Again, we want to absolutely tip our hat to all of these people who put together all varieties of different events, particularly for those who are doing mock trials, Sniff N' Gos and Scent Work trials. There is a lot of work that goes into these events. It is a ton months and months and months of work and preparation.

(11:18):
And on top of it, the majority of people who are doing this, this is not their only thing that they do. They are also having another full-time job. Sometimes that has nothing to do with dogs whatsoever. It's the thing that helps them keep the lights on and to feed their families. So on top of that and their own personal lives, and maybe they would like to do something with their dogs as well, they're also doing essentially another full-time job of trying to put together this event. And set trials are extraordinarily squirrely. Events are the same. If something can go wrong with an event that has anything to do with Scent Work, my opinion is that it absolutely will. I have not yet been involved with an event that something didn't just go completely sideways. And I am always standing in awe of people who put on these events where the participants have no idea.

(12:13):
It could be an absolute dumpster fire in the back part, but no one has any idea who are actually participating. They're having the time of their lives, which is the whole point. But here's the problem, here's the issue. This is where we start getting into a little bit of a conflict point, is that we as a community really do love what we do. We are very, very passionate about network. We want to do all the searching all the time. And we've been very, very fortunate here in the United States over the last couple of years that there are more and more competitional organizations. So that means there's more opportunities for us to play great, right? You would think that would be wonderful. Well, the issue is that that means we have to have more trials, but putting on trials is again, an enormous amount of work.

(13:04):
It's also not cheap by any stretch, and it takes a special kind of person, a special kind of really crew of people to be able to put these events on. And the other problem is just the nature of it. The majority of the communication that hosts receive is less than great. At the very least, it's going to be lots of questions, which most people who are putting on events understand and they expect, but they try to put out all the information that's necessary so that they can kind of reduce the number of questions they receive. Because again, they're not just doing this and they don't have my schedule where I'm tethered to my computer 24 hours a day. They are doing other things. So the problem kind of comes in where you have this dynamic where handlers are contacting event hosts with questions or whatnot, and maybe the event host doesn't get back to them in an hour or even in a couple of hours.

(14:11):
Maybe it's not till the end of the day, maybe it's not till the next day. And that handler is less than pleased, which again, I can understand, right? It's not cheap to compete at trials. There's a reason for that, but still it's true. So right out of the gate you have, it's like this adversarial relationship that shouldn't be there. Why does any of this matter when we're talking about the hamster wheel? Well, when you're hosting these events, the encouragement is to host more, right? Basically you finish one trial, you barely even finished it. Just basically the last dog ran, and you already have people asking you, when's the next one? It's like, I haven't even finished this one yet. Hang on. And the people who are hosting that are good at it, man, people love going to their events and they will sign up immediately and they're asking for more.

(15:03):
And the problem is, is that these hosts are being run ragged. They can never host enough. They can never meet the demand, but on top of it, a lot of the correspondence that they're receiving is not great. They're not being inundated with people saying, oh my God, that was the best trial ever. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for existing. It's more so why didn't I get my question answered? Oh, where is the wait list? And all these kinds of things, right? And it's less than great. So these people who are hosting and probably are hosting a fair amount, when you really put together all the amount of work they have to put in, they start developing a list in their head. If they don't already have it written down of Why am I doing this? Because I will tell you, this is not some kind of get rich quick scheme at all.

(16:01):
Most people who host that trials are lucky if they break, even if they make anything at all. Which also brings this to again, that pro con thing of why am I putting in all of this time and all of this effort, which also means that I can't do most things with my own dogs because I'm spending all of this effort and time to do this for the community. And why am I doing that? Again, if all I'm getting back is a whole bunch of unhappy people, I never seem to be here from anyone having a good time, why am I doing this? And it just seems as though it's never enough. I'm hosting as much as I possibly can, but all I keep hearing is we need more trials, I can't do it. And then when I say that I can't do anymore, people are upset.

(16:50):
So this is what I mean is that there's a conflict point here that we do need more individuals and groups to host trials. That is absolutely true. We can't just keep expecting the hosts that we have to just keep posting. They need to have a break, they need to be able to do other things. They need to maybe spend time with their own dogs, or maybe they just need to take a vacation. But on the flip side of that, we also need to recognize that there is a finite number of locations that can be used for trials that are going to be good quality trials. There are a finite number of trials that we can't host because there are other situations that we've seen over and over and over again where we do have multiple good people are trying to host trials, and suddenly none of the trials fill because now you have competitor pools that are being pulled in three or four different directions, and then everyone's upset because maybe trials are canceled.

(17:48):
So it's like a catch 22. You can't win for losing, but it's just something that we have to think about as a community is maybe a little bit more understanding would be really, really helpful. Tip number two, please, please, please use social media to thank, if you go to a trial and you had a really good time, please use social media to let those people know it'll make a huge difference. It'll make their day, trust me. And if you do want there to be more trialing opportunities, absolutely contact someone that you really enjoyed trialing with. They were a really great host. Contact them and say, I'm interested in trialing. What are some of your suggestions? And see if whether or not you would be able to host or maybe you can work with some other people in your area who can host. But at the end of the day, what we all have to recognize is that there is going to be kind of a bell curve to all of this.

(18:41):
We don't want there to be such a saturation of events that none of them fill because everyone's kind of going in 15 different directions. We also don't want there to just be a bunch of events that aren't good, that people aren't putting in the requisite amount of time, but they may simply not be able to. There's only so many hours in the day. So just something else to think about. Then we have to talk about our trial officials. Oh, these poor people. So trial officials, whether or not they're the ones who are setting the highs at our events, or the ones who are officiating, they're saying yes or no. As you and your dog are running trial officials who are good, who are professional, they have wonderful interpersonal skills, they're thoughtful, they're meticulous, they're detail oriented, they're timely, they're able to be self-starters and team players.

(19:32):
They are like little magical beings. They are little golden nuggets. So whether you're a competitor or you're a trial host, when you come across a good trial official, ooh, you want to hold onto them so tight. You want to make sure that you can experience this person's awesomeness. Again, you want to trial under them, you want to host them, bring them into your event so they can do officiating more, which is wonderful. However, once again, this old hamster wheel, these people are indeed very, very talented. They're talented, they're knowledgeable, they're passionate about Scent Work. They love watching teams work. But when you stop to think about just how often some of these people are indeed officiating, you got to stop and think when are they doing anything with their own dogs? Because there are some officials that are quite literally officiating four weekends every single month.

(20:30):
It's like, okay, well, what are they doing the rest of the time? Maybe they are a professional dog trainer. They do this for their living, they train dogs, okay? But usually to do that, you're training other people's dogs, whether that be teaching classes or whatnot. When are they actually working on them? When are they working on themselves? When are they practicing with their own dogs or are they practicing with their own dogs? And here's a little hint, they're not. A lot of these people are not. They're not spending anywhere near the amount of time with their dogs that they should be. And then it turns into this regret because they have a feeling of obligation to the community. They may really enjoy officiating. They may really love watching teams, particularly watching teams as they're going through their journeys. They officiated one trial and then six months down the road they're officiating another and they see the same type of teams, the same teams go, and now they're further along and they can see the improvements and changes all.

(21:33):
That's really, really encouraging. It's something that can make people who officiate love what they do, but it can almost feed into this feeling of an obligation that they're not able to say no. That if a host were to contact them and say, Hey, I would love for you to officiate for a trial. And this person who has been zigzagging across the United States for months on end, officiating teaching workshops, speaking, they're home one or two days a week if that. They're never seeing their dogs or their dogs are coming with them in tow, but they're basically just hanging out in a crate. They're not doing a whole lot. And this person had had an opportunity to just kind of catch their breath. When they get that request, in the back of their mind is probably screaming at them. Say, no, we need a break. Oh my God, please say no.

(22:31):
But then their guilt bubbles up and says, but if I say no, first of all, I'm going to miss out on that opportunity. Maybe they won't ask me again. Would it mean that I'm not being a good supporter of the industry, of the whole entire community and I feel like I'm obligated to say yes? So they say yes. And over time, this can manifest into someone who, because these are just human beings, they are very talented, they're very wonderful. They've got a lot of good going for 'em, but they're still just people. They only have so much gas in their tank. So you may have someone who is not as present, who doesn't seem as enthusiastic, who doesn't have all of that empathy and that patience and understanding or just may seem a little bit more reserved, they're a little bit more guarded or whatnot.

(23:26):
To me, this is such a sad thing because these are my colleagues, and I understand the hesitation to say no, but we all, myself included, we have to practice saying, no, it has to be done. And at the same point, we have to make certain, there's plenty of us in the community who are indeed well learned. They understand about odor theory as an example. They do have good interpersonal skills. They can be self-starters, they can be good teammates and all the rest of it. We absolutely need to build up more of that. But this is where the hamster wheel thing really kind of causes lots of problems because in this scenario, the trial official felt an obligation to say yes, even though they're beyond exhausted. They have a laundry list of things like laundry that they need to do. They need to work with their own dogs.

(24:28):
They may be behind in working with their clients, not to mention their personal life, what life is throwing at them, everything else. They just cannot seem to catch their breath. And now they've added on this other thing on top of it, and it's like making that giant, come on San, you can do it. It's like putting a bunch of rubber bands around. A watermelon is that you may need a whole lot of rubber bands to make that watermelon explode, but it some point it's going to, and this breaks my heart because I can see it. I can see it happening. And it's like, don't do that. Just say no. So this is something we have to think about is as a community, when we are asking more and more and more, it's like, but who's giving all the more? Right? We want everyone to be around for as long as possible to share how amazing they are.

(25:24):
And that means that sometimes they have to go away. That means that sometimes they have to just take a break and they can't be at all the things all the time. The fact that they may not bring in a new puppy as an example, or they may not get a new dog, or they may not foster a dog, or they may not be working with the dog that they have. That is awful. We should not make that normal while at least they're doing the trial thing. For me personally, if I was competing right now, which I'm not, I'd feel very guilty. I am not trying to make you trial official. Have a miserable life, please go home. So it's something for us to consider. And then finally, I can speak more to this as a knowledgeable participant. I do this instructors, for anyone who isn't a professional dog trainer who teaches for a living, let me let you all in on a secret. This is a grind. This is absolutely something that you have to work at in order to make a living. It is not easy by any stretch at all. And the moment that you start getting some momentum where you're like, okay, maybe I can keep the lights on, maybe I could actually sustain myself by doing this thing that I love. The inclination is to do more. And that you do.

(26:46):
The more effort you put in, the more concentrated you are. Everything else if it's going well, because you could do all that and be a bad instructor, and everyone is like, I don't want to work with you. But let's say that it was all going well. Your clients love what you're doing, and the inclination is for everyone to just again, more, more and more. And here I will let everyone know that there's no end to it. I struggle with this because I'm on both sides of this fence. I am a host, for all intents and purposes was not university, but I'm also an instructor. So when I'm working with instructors who partner with us and trying to put on webinars or courses or whatever the case may be, I try to make it clear to them, we have some topic requests. I think that these would be perfect for you. However, you can say no. And I mean this sincerely. I know you're probably not going to, but it would be a really good thing that if you are spread too thin, I really hope that you tell me no. Or we can do it six months from now or a year from now. It's not going anywhere.

(28:00):
It's not that I don't want my clients to benefit from these people. Now I do, but I also want them to benefit from them six months from now and a year from now. I don't want them to just disappear like, well, what do you mean by disappear? I mean this. We can make people sick. We can make it so that people, or if you don't want to get too dark, they could just make it so that people don't want to do it, that they just retreat and just kind of go like, okay, I'm just not going to participate in anything. I'm just going to kind of regress into whatever. That's not good either. So for my fellow colleagues, I understand truly, trust me, considering that this is the second time that I've recorded this podcast, and the first one was at three o'clock in the morning, is that trying to find some balance and having a reasonable life I get is very, very, very hard.

(28:56):
That the allure is to think I must do all the things all the time, otherwise I'm going to lose all my clients and I'm going to basically not make any money and I'm going to be destitute. I get it. I truly, truly do. But there does have to be this balancing being on the hamster wheel just for being on the hamster wheel's sake doesn't work. And you'll be a far better instructor if you can maintain your passion for Scent Work. And the only way of doing that is to give yourself the leeway and the permission to play. And if that means that you may not be able to offer that new intro class that everyone is clamoring for, that's okay. You are given permission to say, I'm very sorry. There are only so many days and hours in the week. I need to spend some time with my dog.

(29:46):
Are people going to be disappointed? Yes. Are there other things that you can do to help them along? Maybe there's other creative ways that you can provide information to them that they can still pay you for. Yes, yes, there are. Would it be as good as a formal class? Probably not, but it can still be something. It's about finding that balance. And if you notice that you are as an instructor, you're running out of ideas, that's a really good sign that things aren't going well. Or if you're like, God, I really wish I could just cancel today's class. Very big red flag. If you are feeling guilty, if you do happen to do something with your dog, another giant red flag, you are allowed to have a life. So all of this is trying to say that I'm noticing this again in every facet of our community, that everybody is just running on their hamster wheels very, very fast and they desperately want to get off.

(30:49):
I think everyone's at the point where they would like to take a little bit of a break, even if it was just for a day, but they don't know how, or they don't know if they're allowed to, or they're afraid to. They think something bad is going to happen. If they do, and I'm here to tell you, it won't. It's not going to be the end of the world. You're allowed to take a break. It's probably a good thing for you to take a break. Your dogs will probably be thrilled with a break, and all this stuff is still going to be there. And I'm speaking as someone who I know what to do. I know what I'm doing right now is very bad. I know it's very unhealthy and it's not helping. I'm almost trying to put myself at the canary in the mine and say like, okay, see how that canary is deader than a doornail?

(31:32):
Don't do that. Do anything but what that canary is doing. So I thought it was important for me to do, because again, this is the second time recording this. The first one was even longer. But as we're going into the weekend, think about how it is that you can maximize on all the things that you love about Scent Work, whatever it is, no matter what hat you're wearing. But at the same point, how can you enjoy other parts of your life? Or how can you recognize what the rest of your life is throwing at you and how can you incorporate a little bit more rest? Rest is good. Even if rest is a 10 minute nap, whatever it may be. Start small. But I'll end with this.

(32:25):
Part of the reason why I wanted to do this episode is just completely randomly, I happened to see a post that had nothing to do with Scent Work and was people were so upset that there was some technological thing that was wrong with some site, with some dog sport thing, and they were very, very mad about it, and they were making it very well known just how upset they were that the site was not working. And I just read through the comments and thought, I don't think that you could appreciate just how much work probably went into that and how hard those people are trying, and that this kind of feedback is exactly why they probably don't want to keep trying. But why is everyone, so this has to happen right now. It's fine. We'll be okay. Okay. So that was kind of the inspiration for this, is that we're seeing this kind of reaction to, oh my God, we have to do all the things all the time.

(33:27):
It's like, but you don't. It'll be okay. There's lots of time to do all the things, but we have to be a little bit more discerning about what we're choosing. But as always, what do I know? This is just one little dog trainer, lady pontificating. We'd love to hear what you think. Do you think that your little hamster wheel is going a little crazy? Or do you think you have a little bit of balance with what you're doing with Scent Work? We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to write any comments or questions that you have. We'll be posting this episode up on our social media as well as the Scent Work University site. You can look forward to outside speakers. It won't just be the Santos lady talking and talking and talking like, yes, thank you, please. And as always, we want to continue on with our Spotlight series. So if you know of an individual or a business that's giving back to set work, please let me know. We want to share some positivity. Positivity, especially right now is very good. But as always, I want to thank you all for giving this podcast an episode of Listen and for hanging in there for such a long one. Please give a cookie to your puppies for us. Happy training. We look forward to seeing you all soon.