Blog — Reactive Dogs

"Confidence Building" is one of those trendy phrases in dog training right now. But what types of activities actually build confidence and expand your dog's emotional capacity? I believe our dogs need physical challenges that come with real risks and rewards, as opposed to contrived challenges in controlled settings. What better way to give your dog a therapy session than to do some actual confidence building out in nature? Then you get the added bonus of some much needed forest bathing outside of the city, while providing small but real obstacles for them to conquer! Every time we go to...

Is my dog in a state of drive, or a state of fear?   Lately I've been wanting to help people understand that there is a difference between a dog who has behavioral issues and a dog who is simply acting out his genetics. Behavioral issues, in my mind, are interruptions in a dog's natural way of being which cause distress to the dog, his owner, and other dogs or animals. These issues are labeled as: reactivity, aggression, hyperactivity, self-harm, obsessive-compulsive patterns, depression, anxiety, etc. The dog is not feeling well, and his behavior is a problem for those around...

  All I want for Christmas this year is for everyone (including myself!) to stop romanticizing dogs. Yes, that's right, dogs are not Disney characters. I think we've been weirdly conditioned by movies like "Lady and the Tramp" and "101 Dalmations" to feel that dogs are just like us: They want to live indoors and eat spaghetti, raise their babies among humans, walk through city parks, and enjoy watching TV by the fire as much as we do. Dogs are actually still so closely related to wolves that they can interbreed with them. This, by some opinions, makes them the...

In Peter Levine's "Trauma and Memory" he explains that successful renegotiation of traumatic memories is accomplished by navigating the stressful experiences that trigger those memories. This leads to a feeling of triumph and mastery, and thus resolution of the past. In this way, we can move forward in life with vibrant energy, no longer stuck in the old patterns that our autonomic nervous system keeps replaying (fight/flight/freeze & appease).So with a dog who is reactive, we have to create the same possibility of successful renegotiation. This is different from counter-conditioning. This takes the original triggering experience, allows the dog to...

  Sniffing, licking, and chewing are all soothing to a dog. Scatter feeding, snuffle mats, and chews are all essential in our repertoire of enrichment activities. But you know what else is extremely satisfying and regulating to dogs? Biting, tugging, kill-shaking, and dissecting. If we want to look at the predatory sequence, we must honor the dog as an actual predator. Predators spend a lot of energy hunting, seeking, searching, and eye-stalking their prey. They then chase, catch, and kill. THEN they dissect and ingest. If you are missing any of these activities, then it's possible that your dog is...