A Gentle, Hairy, Non-English-speaking Co-pilot

Have I ever told you about our dog Swayze? Well, she's crazy. She's part Boxer and part Lab and part Wookiee and super excitable, especially around other dogs. And squirrels. And fast moving children. When we lived in Chicago, our back deck was surrounded by a high fence and whenever she would hear people or dogs she would go crazy whining and clawing at the fence to get out. So, when we moved to Madison we bought a house with a big yard and no fence. Solved that problem didn't it?

Under the influence of our realtors and the fact that we could not imagine the ridiculousness of putting Swayze on a leash to walk her in our front yard, we had an invisible fence installed. The way this works is that she wears a special collar when she goes outside that delivers 'an uncomfortable sensation' when she gets too close to the perimeter of our yard. The discomfort level is really variable dog to dog and since our dog has bloodied her own paws while playing we honestly had pretty low expectations that this would work for Swayze.

It took a couple of weeks for her to 'get it' and make a definite association between straying to the edge of the yard and getting 'shocked' but alas....it happened. Now when children ride by on their bikes and couples walk their dogs by our yard and a squirrel darts across the road, sometimes all at the same time, Swayze automatically sits and wags her tail and stares. Sometimes she trembles with the effort, but she makes herself stay far from the edge of the yard. She knows that the 'uncomfortable sensation' is a powerful motivator for avoiding that situation.

A coworker was in an unfortunate situation last week where she felt she had not managed a patient in a manner in which she felt proud. The patient was ultimately transferred to the ICU and there were rumblings about her 'sitting on the patient' for too long. She was in my office beating herself up about this and she asked me "How do I get over this? How do I move on?" And I responded that the only way I have gotten over this same awful feeling is to remember it and the situation that gave birth to it. Not trusting your gut and deferring to someone else just because they have a few years on you = this same awful feeling. So, next time I encounter that situation, I remember and I make a different choice. A choice that will hopefully allow me to avoid the 'uncomfortable sensation' of feeling like I failed a patient.

Learn from your mistakes and move on. Take comfort in that. If Swayze can do it, so can you. Trust me on this one.