Stuck in the middle?
When we share stories of our dogs, we often tell a linear tale. The origin, “We brought her home and she spent the first day trembling under the table”, and the triumphant ending, “Now she loves everyone and cuddles on the couch every night!”. We don’t often spend a lot of time talking about the messy middle.
But the middle part of the story is where it all happens. Rather than a Rocky-esque training montage, it usually consists of months of repetition and doubt. It’s the loose lead work that feels like it’s going nowhere, the recall that works brilliantly until a kangaroo hops across your path, or the adolescent dog who has suddenly forgotten you exist. It’s frustrating, it’s slow, and sometimes it fills you with self-doubt. But it’s also essential to living well with dogs.
Sitting in discomfort
Sticking with change is hard. Humans are wired to notice immediate rewards and miss the slow-burn kind. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the “plateau of latent potential” - that dull stretch where it feels like nothing’s working, even though beneath the surface, change is happening.
When you’re working and living with dogs, this plays out daily. You practise calm greetings at the door, and then a delivery driver shows up before you can get your treats ready. You slowly build tolerance for nail trims, and then your dog tears a dew claw and ends up at the vet for an emergency fix (true story, sigh). Your brain screams, “This isn’t working!” But in reality, learning rarely unfolds in a neat upward line. It’s more of a mishmash of gains and losses, with a general trend upward if you zoom out far enough.
This is why the middle can feel so crushing: progress is happening, but not in a way our human brains are good at recognising.
What dogs have taught me
I’m not always the most patient person (if a podcast drags, I’m straight to 1.5 speed). I like results and knowing that if I put in the work, I’ll see the outcome.
But when you aim to put welfare front and centre of training and behaviour modification, you don’t get to decide how quickly a dog should learn or how fast things should shift. Wellbeing takes priority over deadlines.
There have been times when I’ve been trying to work on a behaviour concern, frustrated and stuck, thinking, “Why isn’t this working yet?” I know my clients have felt the same. The middle can feel like a swamp.
Dogs have been my greatest teachers here (equal to my toddler, who also likes to eat strange things from the floor). I used to think patience meant waiting quietly for an outcome. But working with dogs has taught me it’s a practice - of acceptance, of letting go of control, of valuing the process even when the results aren’t immediate. It’s about showing up consistently and recognising that the relationship itself is the goal.
Dogs have inspired me to slow down and see progress in subtler ways. They’ve taught me that a moment of calm where there used to be panic is worth celebrating, even if the bigger goal still feels far away.
Coaching > training
This is also why the role of a dog trainer shouldn’t be to just drop in, deliver a set of instructions, and disappear. If that’s all it took, you could Google your way through every training challenge and be done in a weekend.
The real work of a good trainer is in the messy middle. It’s being there when things stall. It’s breaking down a task so it feels achievable. It’s reminding you of the progress you’ve made when frustration blinds you to it. Sometimes it’s simply being a cheerleader, because change is easier when someone else believes in you.
This is why I prefer longer-term work with clients. Meaningful change takes time. The clients I’ve seen make the biggest transformations are the ones who commit to a process, not a quick fix.
When you sign on for that kind of work, it becomes less about a transaction and more about a partnership. You commit to showing up for your dog, and I commit to showing up for you - supporting, troubleshooting, not giving up when things get hard. That two-way relationship is where the magic tends to happen.
How to survive the middle
So how do you get through without losing hope? A few things that help me and my clients:
Track it. Our memories are unreliable when frustration runs high. Write it down or take short videos. Looking back can make progress visible in ways you miss in the moment.
Celebrate small shifts. The barking lasted ten seconds instead of sixty? Woohoo! A calm moment in a place that used to set your dog off in an instant? Also worth celebrating.
Adjust your lens. Instead of asking, “Is it fixed?” ask, “Is it a little better than last time?” That’s where momentum builds.
Lean on support. In my opinion, training is a lot harder when done in isolation. Whether it’s a trainer, a class, or a community, sharing the journey makes the middle less heavy.
If you can learn to sit with the messy middle, to notice the quiet wins, to value the process as much as the outcome, then the middle stops feeling like a swamp and starts feeling like the heart of the story.
Because that’s where the dog is teaching you, just as much as you are teaching them.
