Reactive Program
Fear & Frustration Combo
Your dog barks, lunges and acts just a bit crazy on leash. What is this all about?
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If you are here, the basis of your dog's reactivity is both fear and frustration. Fear and frustration can look very similar but are treated with different techniques.
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For frustration related behavior - this is usually because you have a friendly dog who very much wants to say "hi" to people and dogs, but the leash prevents the greetings and frustrates your dog. This ends in pulling, barking, lunging and sometimes aggressive looking behavior.
If the reactivity is fear based, your dog's aggressive looking behavior is your dog's attempt to create distance between him/herself and the thing that's scary (people, dogs, cars, etc.). When we remove the option of fleeing in the face of something scary (by leashing the dog), many dogs feel as though they have no choice but to try to scare off the threat. In these cases, we will help your dog change her mind about the "scary thing." Instead of fear, we will help her feel happy when the scary thing appears.
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There is one technique that applies to both fear and frustration, so hang tight and we will build to that technique over the next few weeks.
How does a reactive case flow?
Below is an exmple chart of how a reactive case flows. After your initial consult, there will be a visit where we will teach you and your dog some basics that include some alternative behavior options like touch and sit. We will want these behaviors to be very strong, so that when we need to use them in a highly distracting situation we can. We will review loose leash walking techniques too.
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While you are working on touch and sit, review body language information and review triggers and trigger stacking.
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Depending on who/what/where your dog reacts, we will begin traveling down the flow chart at your dog's pace, working sub threshold (before your dog reacts) to gradually help him/her feel better.
Behavior Change & Training Resources
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Fear & Aggression: What to Expect
Triggers & Trigger Stacking
Triggers include things that 'scare' your dog in the environment. Triggers can be positive too! We will learn about triggers and how they work with your dogs behavior.
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Reactive Foundations
Teach the following foundation behaviors for reactive dogs:​
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Turn and Go (We will go over this together, but we need hand touch on board to do it)
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We will do the Engage Disengage Game and the 123 Game when we first start.
Read this page and check out the video on it about: Using verbal markers
Loose Leash Walking
The leash is a very important tool that we use to communicate with our dogs. Your dog can sense tension through the leash. We want to work with this in a few ways. Click here to learn more.