I accidentally wrote a PACT Lunch

By Melissa McCue-McGrath

I'll be honest - I had no idea what to expect at PACT's DOGX '23. I had never traveled internationally for a conference before, or spoken at an international conference - but I was beyond excited to be invited by the PACT team to speak on the challenges of working behaviour cases in urban settings. I learned a lot while putting my slides together, like how open carry means one thing in the UK, and something entirely different in the US.

I prefer the UK version

I legit thought we were going to be arrested walking down that street with beer. That is the smile of a woman who would be arrested doing this in 99% of the US, but could carry a weapon without anyone blinking an eye (I don't, but could.)

Other terms that landed me in a heap of trouble - see those yellow trousers? Yes, in the States, those are pants. So when I blurted out to Steve of PACT, stating, "I'm easy to see, I'm by the statue in my bright yellow pants," it took him quite a bit of time to catch his breath, as you can imagine, then translate what I had said in UK English. 

So, to stay out of trouble, I'll just stick to saying, "long sleeves for legs." 

Image: Mellisa and the PACT team enjoying “take out” beer whilst walking to the next pub.

Pulling the presentation together put me in a contemplative mood. I knew these words - braces, suspenders, pants, entire bitch, all mean different things depending on which brand of English we were raised with. And, our dogs have to do this all the time. We approach them from the front, hug them, walk them in straight lines down sidewalks - which is perfectly polite for people but dogs like to say hi doing the nose-to-butt sniffy thing. Our environments are built for people, using human body language, human verbal language, human everything. Our dogs are invited to come and stay with us in cities, but cities are not built for dogs. Some learn to cope and do remarkably well in these environments, and others completely fall apart. That's the world of behavior that I lived and worked in for 20 years in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

I'm going to pull the curtain back a little bit - the lead up to the conference was the hardest three months my family had ever been through. My pre-teen kiddo was struggling and unable to access school and her teachers, I had taken time off work to help her, my husband had taken time to help her - we were a walking behavior case, too. I was worried about going to the UK and leaving my kiddo home two months into a crisis, but the opportunity to see my friends Steve, Nat, Corrin and Jay was the shake-up I desperately needed to get through all of the stuff back home. Plus, focusing on that presentation, the slides, whittling down my talk to 20 minutes was exactly what I needed when I needed to shift focus from emergency mode back home to literally anything else. 

They trusted me to give a presentation alongside heavy hitters like Grisha Stewart and Tom Candy, at the prestigious Winchester University. The trust the PACT folks put in me to close the conference was something I took seriously - and I wanted to do a good job for them. All the energy, frustration, joy, hurt, giddiness, all the giant feelings of the year was channeled into ending DOGX. This might feel like hyperbole, but I'm being completely honest. The presentation for DogX would have been part of my written behavior plan for myself, had I done one. The presentation was my lick mat, snuffle mat, and Kong Wobbler. It was the puzzle I could move my focus to instead of the overwhelming things in my universe at the time. 

I remember looking at the microphone, jittering with anticipation - I finally got to give this presentation that got me through everything in the previous months. I looked up from the bowl of the auditorium, and realized if I used that microphone, I would likely smash out everyone's ear drums. I couldn't contain anything or make my voice quiet enough to work with the microphone. I was like a dog who was a bit sharkey with their mouth taking treats - brimming with adrenaline but focused on the task at hand. 

What PACT did for me that day was more than I can ever thank them for -  I've given talks before, online and in the States, but always feel a little shaky at the beginning, but this was different. For the first time, my voice didn't shake.  Here I was, standing in front of my friends who believed in me, new friends I met that day, sharing the floor with presenters I've listened to since I was a baby trainer figuring out my own path, and I finally felt I was using my voice to speak for these animals, these people, these clients that trusted me over the years. I had this opportunity to use the voices of the animals and people before this day to help dogs and people in another country. Those clients trusted me and believed in me when I was 24, 28, 32, 40, and beyond. No one knew their names, their stories, and I had a huge responsibility here. To share what they have taught me in order to help others. 

I asked if everyone could hear me without the microphone, Tom Candy said yes from the back. I looked at Corrin, Nat and Steve, inhaled, and I just went for it. 

For the first time in my life, my voice didn't shake. 

That is a testament to the power of support. The support we give our dogs, our clients, our friends in tough times. That support allows us to find ourselves again, even in great distress. When we feel lost, we need others to believe in us so we can find our way. 

I genuinely felt that Steve, Nat, Corrin and Jay believed in me. They could have picked anyone to speak - I've seen their speaker line ups, and couldn't believe they wanted me to speak. And with that faith, and their trust, I was able for the first time to find an unshakable confidence that I never had felt before. 

That has carried me through the rest of a very difficult year, but the thing that never wavered was the confidence that I kept with me, bottled from that day in the bowl.