Lessons in Confidence from Dogs + Free Tools to Kickstart Your Health

I started a new gig as a Dog Trainer . Ever since our sweet pup Riley passed, I have wanted to adopt a new dog, but Simon & I are planning to retire and travel the world in about 3 years. Since Star Trek style teleporting is not available yet… we can’t get a new dog with so much international travel on the horizon.

Trying to figure out what to do with 2 cats is puzzling enough . I ask Miss Bessie all the time if she wants to live in an RV. As long as treats are involved, she seems pretty agreeable to any future plan.

So, to get my fix of loving on dogs, I was considering volunteering for local rescues, shelters, or humane societies. Then I was randomly looking at local part-time jobs and searched ‘dog’. I saw lots of fun ideas like working at doggy day cares, dog bars, grooming, etc.

Then I saw the posting to become a Dog Trainer with this great company. Leadership dog training! Cesar Millan style! Doggy psychology. Energy. All of my training in Healing Touch for Animals totally aligns with their philosophy. I have pretty much watched every episode of Cesar’s shows and love and know his teachings well. Perfect fit.

I applied and did a bunch of training with an expert trainer from Chicago who has trained with Cesar himself. I am now a Level 1 dog trainer working with pups all over Charlotte.

All fun & games until realizing people hire us to deal with dogs who are displaying difficult behaviors. Not well-mannered dogs to love & cuddle when I arrive. The hardest part of this job is staying calm & confident and meeting dogs with No talk. No touch. No eye contact. Running up and petting and showering them with “hello sweet boy!” is no bueno in my new dog training world.

One of my first clients is a 105 lb Dog Argentino. A little quote from the AKC breed description:

The Dogo Argentino is a pack-hunting dog, bred for the pursuit of
big-game such as wild boar and puma, and possesses the strength,
intelligence and quick responsiveness of a serious athlete.

This boy is not aggressive, but needs to learn more personal space. He ‘gives hugs’ as the owner says. Meaning jumps up full-body style on people and is big enough to give an eye-to-eye hug like a human. He also has a bad habit of using his mouth on people to grab shoes, arms, whatever is available to get attention.

We got him to do a very nice loose leash walk on the first lesson, but he hugged me once or twice when I was not ready for it. I bruise easily and had a bruise on my arm from a Dogo paw and 2 bruises on my hand from his teeth.

NOT. GOOD. It made me re-think this whole dog training gig. Luckily, I composed myself and looked at what I could have done better. I consulted my trainer and a whole group of trainers from our company and put together a lesson plan for Mr. Dogo Argentino’s second lesson. I came in with calm confidence and a strong plan to teach this boy personal space.

Here he is sitting like a champ:

This whole experience taught me a lot in the area of Mindset.

This Week’s Shot of MINDSET

I did it! I was able to come back from being bruised and a little traumatized after the first lesson. Part of me wanted to quit, but I didn’t give up. As Cesar Millan always says, “You don’t get the dog you want. You get the dog you need.”

I took that to heart and asked myself what this dog was trying to teach me. I knew this was about me becoming more confident and having stronger boundaries. Exactly what I need at this point in my life and in my freelance entrepreneurial work. Mr. Dogo was showing me energetically that I needed to be even stronger and ask for exactly what I need.

We had to go back to basics with this overly-enthusiastic dog. Rules, Boundaries & Limitations. I came in with a plan to have him on the leash and respecting others’ space at all times. I worked with the owner to use the leash as a strong tool to tell him where we want him to be and correct when needed.

He was using his mouth & teeth still, so we did a little loop with the leash as a faux muzzle. He tried to paw it away, but we just started walking. Kept the brain moving forward and focused on a task. And… within about 30 seconds, he wasn’t fighting anything, just focused on walking like a champ. We moved on to Sit and Stay commands and he was so mentally tired at the end of an hour lesson that he looked like this :

Sweet boy! That is exactly how we like dogs at the end of a lesson. This 105 pound overzealous boy taught me all about confidence and boundaries in one week. I think I am going to love this job and all of the gifts that it has for me.

The lesson to share with y’all is to think about your own pets and people in your lives. Are they too pushy, not listening, all up in your grill? You are being given a gift if you are able to feel the energy of it, see the lesson presented, and decide how you want to react.

You can do a little research, find the tools you need, and then come back at those boundary-crushers with a newfound confidence like I did with Mr. Dogo. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Progress Not Perfection with all things in life. Taking the steps to find more confidence and ask for what you need in all sorts of situations is HUGE.

Here are a few more tips on confidence from Cesar himself in this quick 2 minute video on Nurturing Confidence.

This Week’s Shot of HEALTH

This week’s health inspiration is a great tool to get you started or keep you going with health goals for 2025. It comes from Dr. Neal Barnard who heads the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The work they do lines right up with the way I coach clients to use diet & lifestyle to prevent & reverse disease and avoid, reduce, or eliminate medications. Their mission includes:

Our efforts are dramatically changing the way doctors treat chronic
diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and cancer. By
putting prevention over pills, doctors are empowering their patients to
take control of their own health.

One of the great FREE resources they offer is an app for your phone called the Vegan Kickstart. You can read all about it and download it HERE. It has 3 full weeks of meal plans, recipes, and ready-made grocery lists. It also has lots of free videos with all of the science and info on using diet to make improvement in all of these areas:

Breast Cancer
Gut Health
Reducing Inflammation
Colorectal Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Reducing Blood Pressure
Heart Health
Weight Loss
Brain Health
Diabetes
Cancer Prevention

I love sharing all of the helpful tools that I use for myself and my clients to achieve health goals and live a long, happy, healthy life. This one tool offers so much for learning and implementing a healthy new lifestyle in 2025. Give it a try and let me know what you think. I will be making those beet brownies soon! Maybe for Simon for Valentine’s Day.

If you are interested in using the power of the mind to uplevel your life, I share mindset expertise every week, along with fun & insightful stories from my own life path from 80s hair band superfan to chemical engineer to health & mindset coach (what a journey!).

You will also see plenty of health promoting tips and recipes because I am blown away by the power of intermittent fasting + a healthy diet to prevent & reverse just about any health concern Mindset plays a big part in health and healing too, the power of the Mind Body connection is pretty mind blowing.