Training - Expectations and Moon Cycles

Do you ever have days where you just want to roll over and go back to sleep? I don't mean the days where it's hard to get up, but rather the days that you can't shake that feeling all day long. Today is just such a day for me. I will have to keep my head low at work ... usually days like this are days where I really shouldn't talk to people. I run out of tact and shoot from the hip. I completely believe that we all have days like this and I'm not alone (perhaps I'm just hoping I'm not the only cranky one out there!), so what does this have to do with dogs and my blog?

When you are interacting with your dog and you are training him/her, you need to be aware of the different sorts of days you will have. Believe it or not, it will affect your dog and the training you are working on. Admit it, we don't all have Good Days every day. Here's something of what I mean:

I woke up this morning not wanting to get out of bed. I am in a rotten mood and don't want to talk to anyone. Knowing this, I will not plan to do any training with my dogs where I need a lot of patience. That means I won't work on something with them that they have been struggling to figure out (like Stop). I will work on things that they know but need solidified. For example, my new dog ... I will work on Sit and LieDown at home but I won't take her to PetSmart and work on the same thing. I will save that for a day when I have more patience.

Now, something that I should also mention in this post ... Dogs have off days too. I won't say "Bad" because I don't know if they are bad days. They are days where the dogs can't focus, have all sorts of extra-crazy energy, forget all the rules or like to sleep in. I have noticed that during Full Moons the older dogs can't focus and have extra-crazy energy. During New Moons the older dogs like to sleep in and don't want to do too much. (I haven't been able to completely track the new dog's range of behaviours because her behaviour training progresses so much on a weekly basis.)

Tonight is a Full Moon. Couple that with my mood and it is NOT a day when I will work with my dogs on training. I know it will simply set them up for failure and that's not the name of the game. We will go for a nice long walk and have fun together. Maybe play some Hide and Seek. Probably a bit of Fetch.

Have you noticed anything different about your dogs throughout the Moon cycles?