The 5 Things I'm Doing as a Dog Trainer to Have a Whimsical Summer

Let's just be honest about something: summer in Los Angeles is not the dreamy, golden, frolicking-through-a-field situation the movies promised us. It is hot. It is aggressively, personally, vengefully hot. The kind of hot where you walk outside at 8 AM and immediately feel like you made a bad life decision. The kind of hot where the dogs look at you like, "Are you sure about this?" and honestly, you're not.

And yet…here we are. Out here every day with our packs, doing the damn thing, because the dogs need us and also because we love them more than we love being comfortable. That's the job.

But somewhere between the 97-degree afternoons, the never-ending to-do list, and the general state of the world (which, as we all know, is a lot right now), I decided I needed to be more intentional about adding some actual joy into my days. Not in a hustle-culture "optimize your morning routine" way. More in a "I am a person, not a productivity machine, and I deserve to experience delight" way.

So I've been chasing whimsy. Which, for me, means doing small things that bring me joy or shake up the routine. Things that make me look up from my to-do list and remember that life is actually happening right now, in real time, whether I'm present for it or not.

Here are the four things that have been saving my summer. They're simple, they're very me, and at least one of them involves iced coffee; so you already know this is going to be a good list.

1. Making Iced Coffee at Home Like the Basic Bitch I Proudly Am

I will not apologize for this one. I am nothing if not self-aware, and I am self-aware enough to know that I am deeply, fundamentally, spiritually basic when it comes to iced coffee. It brings me joy. It is one of my love languages. And with the cost of literally everything going up… including my beloved coffee shop orders (which have somehow become a small car payment). I started making my own cold brew at home, and I am never going back.

Cold brew is embarrassingly easy, by the way. Coarse ground coffee. Cold water. Leave it overnight. Wake up feeling like a person who has their life together. Done. The money I've saved has not gone toward anything responsible, and I have zero regrets.

There's something genuinely grounding about making your own coffee though; like a tiny, delicious act of taking care of yourself before you go out and take care of everyone else's dogs for eight hours. It's a ritual. It's a moment. And on a hot LA morning, holding a cold glass of something you made yourself and watching the sun come up before a long walk day? That, my friends, is whimsy. That's the whole vibe.

Shoutout to the iced coffee. You have never let me down.

2. Going Back to Basics with "Yes" Work. Because the Foundation is Everything

Okay, we're shifting from coffee to dog training, but stay with me because this one is actually kind of beautiful.

"Yes" work is the foundation of everything I do with the dogs in my pack. It's the core of how we communicate, how we build trust, and how we establish a shared language on walks and in training. It sounds simple, because in a lot of ways it is, but that simplicity is exactly the point. When you strip everything back to the basics, you remember why you started doing this in the first place.

This summer I've been making sure I actually use it every single day, with intention, rather than letting it become background noise in the business of a busy pack walk schedule. And the difference it's making, in the dogs and honestly in me, has been real.

When I'm doing "Yes" work consistently, my walks have a purpose. I'm not just moving bodies from point A to point B. I'm in conversation with every dog in that pack. I'm watching, responding, connecting. It makes the whole walk feel alive in a different way. Like I'm actually there, not just physically present while my brain is three tasks ahead on my to-do list.

There's something almost meditative about returning to a foundation. The basics aren't basic; they're the whole thing. And being reminded of that in the middle of a chaotic summer has been its own kind of whimsy. A quiet, grounded, deeply satisfying kind.

If you’d like to see how I use “Yes” work, Click Here!

3. Taking Actual Shade Breaks, For the Dogs and (Let's Be Honest) For Me

Hot take (pun absolutely intended): rest is not laziness. Rest is strategy. And in LA summers, rest is also just basic survival.

I've been building regular shade breaks into our walks. Stopping, finding a tree, sitting down, letting the dogs drink water and catch their breath. This is especially important for high-energy dogs, who will absolutely run themselves into the ground if you let them because they have zero concept of pacing. The break gives them a chance to come down from the activation of the walk, to settle, to just exist without needing to do anything for a minute. It works beautifully.

But here's the part I didn't fully anticipate: I sit on the ground with them. Like, actually on the ground. And it has become one of my favorite parts of the day.

There is something about sitting on the ground with a dog (or four dogs) or however many are flopped around you. It resets something in your nervous system. You're lower. You're slower. A dog will put their head in your lap or press against your leg, and suddenly the to-do list is very far away and the only thing that exists is this moment, this shade, this dog breath in your face that you somehow don't even mind.

It's grounding. Literally. I'm on the ground. And it turns out I needed that more than I knew.

4. Adding Side Quests, Because Routine is Great Until It Isn't

This one is my personal favorite and I will be accepting zero criticism about it.

Side quests. That's what I'm calling them, and I'm standing by it. A side quest is any small detour or addition to a walk that makes it more interesting, for the dogs and for me! Sometimes it's taking a different route through a neighborhood we haven't explored. Sometimes it's ducking into a pet store to let the dogs sniff around, encounter new smells, and generally act like they've just arrived in a foreign country and everything is fascinating.

From a training perspective, novelty is genuinely valuable. New smells, new environments, new stimuli- these things engage a dog's brain in a totally different way than familiar routes do. Enrichment doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate. Sometimes it's just a different block, a different sidewalk, a fire hydrant they've never investigated before. For dogs, that's basically a full spa day.

But honestly? The side quests are as much for me as they are for the dogs. Routine is a gift until it becomes a rut, and somewhere around week six of the same walk at the same time on the same route, I started feeling like a very tired little robot. Choosing to turn left instead of right, or saying "you know what, let's see where this street goes"- that tiny bit of spontaneity is enough to make the whole morning feel different. More alive. More like an adventure and less like a task.

5. Taking My Favorite Pup, Owen, to the Beach

Sometimes you just need to take your favorite pup to the beach.

For me, that's Owen.

There is something about taking a dog to the beach that feels like the very definition of a whimsical summer day. The car ride with the windows cracked, the anticipation when they realize we're going somewhere different, the first moment their paws hit the sand and they realize, oh shit, we're at the BEACH.

And Owen absolutely gets it.

Watching a dog experience the beach is one of those things that makes you slow down and actually pay attention. The sand. The waves. The smells. The birds. All of it is new information, and Owen takes his job as Chief Beach Investigator very seriously.

But here's the thing: I don't take him to the beach because I need to tire him out. I don't take him because I have some elaborate training goal in mind. I take him because it's fun.

That's it.

Sometimes as dog people, we can turn everything into enrichment, training, socialization, decompression, impulse control, or some other Very Important Dog Thing. And yes, those things matter. I literally built my career around them.

But sometimes your dog doesn't need a lesson.

Sometimes he just needs to run around in the sand, sniff approximately 105 things, splash in the water, and look ridiculously happy.

And sometimes I need that too.

There is something wonderfully grounding about standing at the edge of the ocean with your favorite dog beside you. The sound of the waves drowns out the mental noise for a little while. The breeze makes you forget that Los Angeles was trying to cook you alive five minutes ago. And watching Owen be completely absorbed in the moment makes it pretty damn difficult for me to think about emails, scheduling, laundry, or whatever imaginary emergency I had created in my head that morning.

The beach reminds me that dogs are really good at being where they are.

They aren't thinking about what they should have done yesterday or what they're supposed to accomplish tomorrow. They're sniffing the sand they're standing on.

And maybe that's part of the whimsy I've been looking for this summer.

Not doing more.

Just being there for the good stuff when it happens.

Even if the good stuff involves sand absolutely everywhere afterward.

Especially then.

Whimsy isn't always big. Sometimes it's just a different street and a dog who is absolutely losing their mind over a particularly interesting bush. That counts. That absolutely counts.

The Point, If There Is One

None of these things are revolutionary. I'm not out here doing something wildly impressive. I'm making coffee, doing good training work, sitting in the shade, and occasionally going into a pet store and the beach. But that's kind of the whole point.

Whimsy and joy aren't about grand gestures. It's about paying attention to the small things that make a day feel like yours. It's about deciding, in the middle of a long hot summer with a full plate and a noisy world, that joy is not something you wait for; it's something you build in, deliberately, one cold brew and one shade break at a time.

The dogs already know this, by the way. They are living proof that a good sniff, a cool patch of grass, and someone you love sitting next to you is genuinely enough. We could all stand to take notes.

So tell me… what are you adding to your days this summer that brings you a little joy? What's your version of whimsy? Drop it in the comments. I want to know everything. Especially if it involves iced coffee.

Written with love, iced coffee, and approximately 89 dog kisses.