The Cognitive Canine, a business centered around helping people understand their dogs better so that they can achieve their wildest dog-dreams, realized its own dreams this year.  Here are some of the highlights:

• In December 2011, I quit my day job to pursue this dream full time.  I was presented with the opportunity to do so, and I seized it.  Something I learned from my friend and mentor Sasha is that you can ask for what you want till you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t actually take it when it’s handed to you your breath will have been wasted.

• In January 2012 I learned that when a pendulum swings it has got to swing all the way to the other side before it can center itself again.  That’s a crazy metaphor that means I was pretty low, and I took a lot of long walks with Kelso and Idgie.  Kelso’s bottomless love for me reminded me of why I had to push forward.  Idgie’s infinite wisdom of all things reminded me of how exciting it is to wake up each day and know, for sure, that there would be things to learn

• In the Spring of 2012 a lot of agility-centric things happened, which if you know me, you know that’s how I like things.  The agility side of The Cognitive Canine really took off and I decided, though I didn’t know how I was going to pull it off, that I should host an agility seminar.  More on that later.

Thank you, Ken Gee, for this photo of me running my friend Lori’s dog Ricky Bobby.

• Sometime in the summer I met Dr. Patti Mahoney.  She started taking some of my classes, and she happens to be a successful veterinarian.  She owns Full Circle Veterinary Care and we decided to come together to add behavioral health to the mind-body-spirit kind of healing she likes to provide at her clinic.  The behavior side of The Cognitive Canine will primarily be taking place at her clinic in 2013, allowing me to help more dogs than I could in 2012.
•  Almost every weekend I went to church; either the church of dog agility or the church of the mountains. Either way I’m a dirt-worshipper, and spiritually I have never felt more “in it.” As a person in a helping profession, this is mandatory, and I feel like I’m finally there.

• I’m having someone build me a professional website, a brand-new logo, and I’ll be bedazzling my Subaru with CogDogness.  All of this is lending to The Cognitive Canine becoming its own brand that lives and breathes in the households of dog people across the state of Colorado.
• I hosted my first seminar, and it was a huge success.  Tori Self was all the mountain folk had hoped she would be, and then some.  We loved her so much I’m having her back here in May, and I’m already worried about the wait list that’s forming.  Don’t know Tori? Check out her 2012 year in review blog, here.
• Last, but potentially of most importance, I am adding “run my own successful dog training business” to my list of stuff I did against the odds.  It’s right under “get a degree from CSU” (my high school counselor told me I didn’t belong there) and “put upper level performance titles on Kelso” (people told me to isolate him and get a golden retriever), among other things.

I hope you had a great year like I did.  Whatever your dog-dreams (or any other dreams, for that matter) are for 2013, I truly hope you see them realized.  If I can help, drop me a line. Cheers!

Looking forward….

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