April 2026 News
I am a little bit delayed for the newsletter this month. The first few days of April were filled with a lot of client meetings, continuing education deadlines, and lots of family time as well. I trust you had a lovely and restful beginning to the month.
Things have been picking up here at KJ’s K9 Junction as spring as sprung and the training scurry is off to the races! Everyone and everything is waking up after a long winter’s rest and many are realizing that their training may have lapsed during the winter. Some surprising new behaviors or the recurrence of previous issues may be there for you. Wherever this spring finds you and your dog’s behavior, I hope you know I am here to support you without judgment. Feel free to use the link below to schedule a time to chat with me if you are interested in discussing available training or nutrition plans to meet your goals for your pup this April.
As I was reflecting about this weekend, I realized that one of my experiences made a very interesting blog post idea and paralleled training very well.
As many of my Cleveland local friends may know, the cherry blossoms at the Cleveland Metroparks’ Brookside Reservation were in full bloom over the weekend (if you did not know before, now you do). Every year my family and I attempt to make it down there to see them because it is truly a sight to behold.
The cherry blossoms were a bit of a backup plan for us as we had intended to go to the botanical garden to see the orchid rodeo, but due to some issues with that plan, we were unable. We stopped at a coffee shop and planned to reconvene at the cherry blossom road. Now, I have lived in this area most of my life. I know exactly where the cherry blossom trees are and I knew where I was at the coffee shop. No problem right? Wrong. It took us over half an hour to get both the vehicles we had to take to accommodate my whole family in the same place at the same time.
The frustrating part about this was, at no point was I truly lost. I knew where I was (or at least how to get back to familiar roads the entire time). I just could not for the life of me think how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be. After driving in circles for quite some time, I eventually checked my pride and used the GPS. We quite literally had been circling the park entrance, just barely missing it, for half an hour.
Looking back on it now, that is exactly where a lot of dog guardians find themselves. They know exactly where they are with their dog and they know exactly where they want to be. In theory, they should be able to get where they want to be, but for some reason, they just keep missing it, driving around in circles and getting more frustrated. If that is you this April, can I kindly encourage you to “use the GPS” (aka, reach out to a qualified professional) for help? It may be that you are circling success, getting more frustrated, and with just a little bit of guidance, you’ll make it.
