Reframing Maddie: the teacher (Part 3)

What Maddie taught me about joy, purpose, calm and fear.

For Maddie, joy is working hard. Joy is routine. Predictability. Joy is catching the ball, the bumper, or whatever I throw for her.

Fetch isn’t just play — it’s her life’s purpose. She was born with a genetic blueprint to search and retrieve. Running at full tilt. Nose-to-ground, tracking wildlife. Splashing through water to bring something back.

For Maddie, joy and purpose are the same thing: motion.

But motion without direction? That’s where she needs help.

Inside, Maddie knows calm. She melts into a puddle of affection, happy to be close, to sleep at our feet, to share space.

But outside?

She unravels without structure. She doesn’t know how — or when — to pause.

We had to learn that skill together.

It took her eight days to trust me. Eight days before she could pause, not out of shutdown or fear, but because she believed that waiting was safe — and that something good would still come. Premack was good to us. We started indoors, where calm came easier. Then we brought the calm outside.

Now, during our fetch sessions on the grassy field, we build in a reset:

Halfway through, we stop to play a round of Find It — a sniffing game that slows her arousal. Afterward, we resume fetch, and the second half is always calmer — less frantic, more focused. She's learning to start strong but not spiral. To work hard but not lose herself.

In the pool, we’ve taken a different approach: the two-bumper system.

She swims to retrieve one bumper. When she brings it back and drops it, I throw the second. Sometimes, her drive kicks in hard — she grips the first bumper and won’t let go, eyes wide, willing me to just throw the next one already.

But I wait. And she thinks.

I can almost see the moment her forebrain catches up with her “lizard brain.” Her jaw softens. She lets go. And the game continues. That’s not just training. That’s learning together.

Maddie has the ability to go and go and go — so in addition to a pause button, she needs a stop button.

We found one.

The tennis ball, once her highest-value prize, has been reframed.

We don’t use it for outdoor fetch anymore. Now, we play catch with it inside, where it’s calm and casual. She still loves it, but the intensity is gone. Now, outside, when I pull out the tennis ball, she knows: “Fetch is over.

”That’s structure, understanding, trust and communication.”

And as she learns to transition between “jobs, our sessions have begun to flow.

Fetch merges into walks. She still sniffs, but not in a frantic search for wildlife.

More recently, she checks in. She takes treats outside now — something she couldn’t do at all until Day 7.

Joy and calm can coexist. She is happy and we love those moments.

can I fetch your shoes?

This is how we’re learning — Maddie and me.

She has Fear too

But after ten days with her, I know better.

The barking and growling - that is fear. It’s just wearing a different costume.

On our very first walk together, a man approached us. Maddie barked with a high pitch, backed away, growled — and then retreated into a bush and laid down. She stayed there quietly while the man and I spoke, her body low and unsure, her tail tucked under her.

Now, I see it inside the house too with anyone other than me. Male with a hat, male carrying an object, male carrying a racket. That same pattern — startled, withdrawn, then slowly settling. Is it just male? My work isn’t done.

In fact, it’s just beginning.

Maddie is still teaching me — about the many shades of fear, about trust, and about how much we miss if we assume.