09/03/2026
Stop "borrowing" the word you need tomorrow.
"It's just one time, it won't hurt"
One word. That's all.
But that word has a history attached to it.
And sometimes that history gets a little messy.
Small things we do without thinking causes those little words that used to work so well to just stop working.
We used them as a shortcut here.
Said them in a frustrated moment there.
Even tricked them because we "just wanted them to listen".
And then?
We want them to go back to how they used to respond.
Except we just changed the rules.
And changing it back can be very tricky indeed.
Maybe you normally have food in your closed hand when you call them to you
Your dog knows that hand.
They trust that hand.
But this time you really, really need them to come over, so you hold out the same closed fist.
They race over.
You open it.
Nothing but air.
And that's the problem with “just this once”.
It worked.
For us.
So we do it again.
And trickery can very quickly become the shortcut we reach for whenever we “need it to work”.
Until eventually?
That shortcut stops working too.
Because every time we borrow a trusted cue to get what we want right now, we risk changing what that cue means next time.
Then our frustration builds.
So we reach for another cue.
Another word they trust.
Another one we know “works”.
And before long, we're not dealing with one tainted cue.
We're creating a trail of them.
A poisoned cue usually starts with something that worked brilliantly.
Once.
