The Swiss Cheese Model

Sometimes it all goes to plan. And sometimes, it doesn’t.
​
Sometimes, you have a rough night’s sleep. And then, you get to your puppy graduation class in the morning and when all your diligent students turn up, you find that a very public venue has been booked out, with no dogs allowed for the whole day. 

Okay… Instead of rescheduling, let's just change location. Everyone is already here, so popping down the road won’t be too difficult, surely?

Well, because there’s a running event on, there’s no parking, and some of your students are late, so you have to, on the fly, let them know that there is a last minute change of location for the class and hope everyone can find their way.

AND THEN - of course - whilst you are on the motorway, your work vehicle decides to sputter and gurgle and decide to not go over 30km/h, leaving you to drive with your hazard lights on while trying to lead the way to the new location… An occurrence that has never happened before, and you don’t actually know if your van will get you the last two kilometres to the shopping centre.

Not to mention, the idea of the graduation is more of a challenge, where you take photos in different places. It's definite that the maps you have are not set up for an orienteering task for a space you haven’t used before!

Who would’ve thought that dog training required so much thinking on your feet?!

If you haven’t guessed, this very specific story time was actually something that happened THIS MORNING, for our puppy class, and getting to the other side of it meant there was a fair amount of frazzle and hoping nothing else went wrong. 

The Swiss Cheese Model determines that multiple small things have to go wrong for things to turn into a catastrophe. But it doesn’t have to end in catastrophe. The important thing to remember is to just keep making the best decisions with the knowledge you have at that moment.

Today’s graduating class absolutely smashed it. On the fly, in a completely new setting, they found all the locations and did amazing sit-stays and had superb focus. All of this could only happen because we kept calm and collected, taking a moment to orient ourselves, and letting enough time pass to adjust to the changes of plan.

Working as a team was also the key to success. Helping each other, with directions and with giving each pup the space they needed to work, and just offering a kind smile and a few words of encouragement made the whole endeavour rather exciting and new!

When things go wrong it doesn’t have to be the be all, end all. It’s a chance to build resilience, and have a bit of an adventure. 

Congratulations to our School Pups and their graduating today. It was a little bit chaotic, but you and your dogs really took it in your stride and proved how far you’ve come over the course of your program. I am a very proud teacher, and after a coffee and a sit down, one can take a step back and really appreciate the skills you guys showed today.

Let’s just hope that everything keeps running smoothly from now on!

Authored by Sarah Endres
​Dog Trainer and Behaviour Advisor