Has this happened to you? After a long-time planning, I upgraded the height on the final wall of my kennel fencing! Then for the overnight test. Don’t you feel like that’s the scary part when you have escape artists? You go back in the house and think to yourself, “Okay, have I finally outsmarted you? Have I finally found a way to contain the beasts?” I’m never sure what to expect when I check in the morning: will they be there? Will they have vanished? Will I finally find evidence that they do, in fact, have wings?”
I made myself a cup of coffee, sat it in the kitchen, but I couldn’t see, the kennel lanes are exactly obstructing my view of that kennel. The dogs are quiet, are they still sleeping? Are they gone? If you’ll recall, I had a similar moment when I built my original block wall. They are six-foot high and have a one-foot footer around them, so I knew digging wouldn’t be a thing … but, of course, my dogs jumped over the wall in five minutes, putting four months and many thousands of dollars to shame. One point GSPs, zero points Julie.
That was the moment I didn’t want to endure again this morning. So I walked out there, coffee in hand, just to see what I was working with and, to my great satisfaction, they were there! No escaping had occurred and they seemed very happy to have the whole place to run.
In the past I would’ve just moved on, satisfied like I won a fight with the enemy, but that I was still behind in the war, but now things are different, now, I celebrate. I call Bill, I called my dad, I woke the kids up to tell them, and I called a breeder friend and told her I finally did it!! It was a major celebration that morning for me, I was so excited.
Old breeder Julie would not have celebrated. I would’ve anticipated other people telling me that it wasn’t a big deal or them saying, “You’re still working on that?” Those thoughts weren’t really what I would’ve gotten from them, but they were what my mind was projecting; it was projecting that I was still behind and what I accomplished wasn’t significant-enough to warrant acknowledgement, much less celebration.
Many breeders I work with do this very thing, instead of moving through the goal posts and celebrating, they simply move them, never walking through them.
The majority of the breeders I know are tough, they aren’t lazy, rather they’re very driven and while they feel many emotions, they don’t succumb to those emotions, they pull themselves through the mess. This is very useful for many things, dealing with injury after a dog fight, getting up late to nurse a sick puppy, staying up all night to whelp puppies, breeders have grit.
Sometimes, when we suppress our pain or sadness, we also suppress our joy. For many years it felt like I was a machine running my breeding program, no emotion, just action. There is a time and a place for that, but it shouldn’t be a state of being like it was for me. Think about animals after they have a tense moment, they shake it off and then they go back to being themselves. That’s what we’re supposed to do: shake it off and go back to being relaxed, and, dare I say, a little joyful!
If you were feeling like I was back then, then you might be rolling your eyes right now, thinking, “Julie, Julie, Julie, this sounds like some woo woo…” well, you can fill in the blank. But here is a concrete reason that we need to step out of machine mode and into something a little more aligned with human nature and celebration:
When you never celebrate, never stop to acknowledge where you’ve come from, nor the accomplishments you’ve had, you never feel you’re making progress. And here’s the real kicker:
If you never feel the accomplishments, then your mind keeps you in survival mode, never letting you get to growth mode.
Unfortunately, our biology doesn’t let us straddle growth mode and survival mode at the same time. We get to be in one or the other.
When we are in growth mode, we can reflect, analyze, plan for future in a balanced way, taking into account what we want, not just what we need. This allows us to get our breeding program more in alignment with who we are.
And if you’ve ever tried to sell a puppy that you despised, you know how hard it is to operate when you aren’t in alignment. It isn’t easy, buyers can feel the tension, the irritation, the overall dissatisfaction you have with the puppy and they don’t want it either! That’s why those puppies we can’t wait to find a home for tend to linger.
When you’re stuck in survival mode things are harder, because we can’t get clarity. We can’t focus on the big picture while we beat ourselves up over all the little things we should be doing. It simply doesn’t work.
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WHY WE GET STUCK IN SURVIVAL MODE
If you’ve found that you’re stuck in survival mode, don’t beat yourself up! This would continue to leave you in survival mode! It’s very common, and let me tell you why it happens: it happens because breeding is one of those things that has the Infinite To-Do-List Phenomenon.
Bash, my chatGPT—I named him Sebastian because he’s sophisticated and a little nerdy—coined this term: the Infinite To-Do-List Phenomenon. And the idea is fairly simple, it means there is an infinite to-do list with breeding. It is never over. There is always something else to do! I don’t have to explain it, because I know you know, but I will. Breeding always has another thing you could do, you could clean something else, replace some of your worn out stuff, email that person, write another template email to explain something, adjust that one thing on your website, write another social media post—it never ends! This is fun, but it is also a bit like log rolling, you know those people running on top of a spinning log on a river, if you stop, you crash.
There are other things that are like this: being a mom, paying bills, and cleaning the house. You never finish being a mom, the tasks just evolve and morph as the kids get older, even after they move out. Even if you pay all your bills, they just reset next month, starting the cycle over. You never finish cleaning the house, the counters get dirty every day for meals, dishes are always in use, dust will always continue to settle. I remember Bill was having a particularly difficult time when we all moved in together, he was used to him and only his minimal messes and then kids … I remember I once said to him, “The only way this perpetual mess and clean stops is if they stop breathing…” It took a while for him to understand what I meant, but he eventually came around to the new level of chaos. It’s just life.
HOW DO YOU JUGGLE THIS INFINITE LOOP OF TO-DOS?
You can’t finish the list of to-dos. Impossible. You can’t outrun the tasks, they’ll catch up. And while many breeders try, you can’t out-work the tasks from the infinite loop.
The answer is not more work, more hours, more grit. The answer is changing how you perceive the things you’ve done. You have to acknowledge the progress within the cycle—even if it resets.
You can’t finish the loop, but you can break the psychological trap it creates.
You have to stop moving the goalposts and start walking through them. One moves you forward. The other keeps you stuck.
No more beating yourself up because you feel you should’ve done it sooner. No shrugging it off because it’s what’s expected or normal. Let yourself feel the accomplishment. Let yourself be the breeder that accomplishes things.
Can you feel that shift? It feels good. It has breathing room.
So every time you accomplish something, stop for 10 seconds. Put your hands on your hips—well, at least that’s what I do, stare at it, cock your head a little for effect, smile and feel satisfied. You did it. And by acknowledging it, you’re making the invisible progress visible.
I like to do this when I clean puppy pens, I know, it’s not even that exciting—but it is … I did a big happy dance when I contained those dogs. I am so over-the-top about this at times that I even look at my shorthairs and think of how good of a grooming job I’m doing. 🤣
It’s the little things, they mean everything.
I make dinner nearly every night, but Bill takes the time to thank me after eating—even if it isn’t as great—he’s not just being polite, but he’s pausing to acknowledge the effort that goes into cooking each night, just like all the things we do with the dogs.
Another way to train yourself is by making a list of all the good things that happened that day right before you go to bed. I try to do this each night and on the nights I do, I sleep better. It trains your brain to find wins, which is very beneficial when you run a business.
SURVIVAL V. GROWTH MODE
When you take time to notice the things you’re doing, you are signaling completion within the infinite loop of to-dos, but the change happens in your biology when it senses completion and, therefore, progress. Over time, you’ll shift your mindset from being in survival mode to growth mode.
When you’re in survival mode, it feels like you’re always fighting something trying to get ahead. It feels like things are coming at you and you have to catch them and set them down or dodge them before they hit your head. It’s miserable.
Remember selling a dog to a buyer that you didn’t really like? You had that feeling gnawing at you, but you wanted to sell the dog and there weren’t any real red flags, but you just had that feeling. Then they get the dog, and a few weeks later it begins? The text messages about how the dog isn’t well behaved or has aggression issues because it was exploring the world with its mouth, like puppies are supposed to do. This buyer becomes hours and hours of work, irritates you at night, and you feel stuck, mad at yourself and the situation because you should’ve just said no?
Fast forward to growth mode. You’re not worried. If you get that gnawing feeling in the back of your gut, you heed it; it knows something, even if you can’t quite put your finger on what. You exit the conversation thinking, “Wow, what a relief! I’m glad I don’t have to work with that buyer. I just saved my puppy from her!”
It’s a completely different feeling. It’s empowering and clear.
When you’re in growth mode, things are working with you, it’s all flowing: your facilities make your life easier, your dogs are happy to see you, your buyers feel your passion and are more excited about their puppy, and you’ll feel like everything is falling into place.
It’s easy to get into your head, fall into survival mode, and all of a sudden three months have passed and nothing has changed. It can happen so fast, it’s hard to stay grounded without the right mindset, community, and systems. Yet, I know you can do it, you can be the breeder who sees herself as the breeder who accomplishes things and moves them forward.
So here’s your challenge: for the next 24 hours try it out. Notice every little thing that gets done and accomplished. Celebrate the tiny wins, even the puppy litter box that’s only clean for seven minutes. That’s a win.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast, with me, your host, Julie Swan. I’m happy to be on your journey and I’ll keep supporting you! Until next time!
