This post is going to be about human behavior, not horse behavior! But, I still hope you read it.
I was out of town for about ten days after Christmas and over New Year’s.
This trip was the second time I have left Chewie and Liberty “home alone” at the new barn. I took a much shorter trip in November, when I traveled to Virginia for the APDT conference. (See Chewie’s Diary Week 39: ADPT 2025.)
Chewie and Liberty now have a different feeding routine. As well, since I was out of town longer, there were a few more tasks for my pet sitter.
Leaving always makes me a little anxious. I want to make sure that everything gets done correctly and that Chewie and Liberty are happy and healthy while I am away.
Before my trip, I typed up a new version of the instructions for my pet sitter and created several diagrams so my pet sitter could easily find where items were located.
Then, I put my instructions to the test.
For several days, I carried my instructions with me and followed them as I was feeding Chewie and Liberty their breakfast, putting out hay, checking the water trough, and doing other daily chores.
Can you guess what happened?
As I followed my instructions, I found a few places where my instructions were poorly written.
I identified a couple of important notes that I had forgotten to write down.
And, I had some ideas for how to rearrange things in the barn so that certain items would be more accessible and easier to find.
After this first round of testing, I typed up a new version of my instructions and tried them again.
When people don’t follow instructions, our gut instinct is often to blame the person. We say the person needed to read better and pay more attention.
However, what is often the case is that the person was not given good instructions or did not know how to follow the instructions. The instructor needed to create better instructions!
Happily, my revised instructions worked well, and Chewie and Liberty did just fine with the pet sitter while I was traveling.
Now that I’m back home, we are looking forward to lots of fun training adventures in 2026!
No comments yet.