REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 5

This module our focus is going to be about supporting you and your dog away from reactivity training. You need ways to decompress from the stress of reactivity, you BOTH need ways.

NOSEWORK AND INDOOR DECOMPRESSION GAMES

It's also SO important that we have ways to help our dogs cope with their stress and have ways to off load their nervous energy. Here is a little video I put together with various food seeking enrichment games you can play with your dogs. Our dog's olfactory system is a gateway between helping access that deeper primal brain and give it some focus and calming energy.

Every reactive dog should have regular access to playing food seeking games and using their noses to hunt. This is just a starter of options, you can get very creative with how you offer your dog food seeking enrichment games. Let me see a video of your dogs playing food seeking games!

Remember our discussion in the last modules about oxytocin and cortisol, self care and meditation are the tools to help YOU work on your own stress responses! Your own stress levels are crucial when working with reactivity and these are some ways you can do that.

APPROACHING TRIGGERS

If your dog is able to be near soft triggers and stay focused we are going to work on approaching. See the video examples. This exercise is basically loose leash walking towards a trigger, rewarding as the dog stays non-reactive, and turning around and walking back away from trigger, rewarding the dog for turning with you. Your timing of the turn away should be nice and early to keep the dog sub-threshold. As you work just edge yourself closer to the triggers, so long as your dog does not build.

To work on this exercise it really helps to have a location with predictable dogs and traffic flow, so a place where dogs are arriving on leash and going to a place- like dog parks (if the parking area is busy enough most dogs are on leash) pet stores, grooming shops, pet stores, etc.

PRACTICAL TIPS FOR HANDLING REACTIVE DOGS

Here’s a quick little video on some tips and tricks to keep in mind to make your reactivity training moving along successfully.

ADVANCING YOUR STAY AND PLACE WORK

The majority of the reactive dog training I personally do is actually obedience training. The more tools you give your dog of things they can be doing instead of reacting, the less they will react. You need a way to communicate with them and give them guidance when they need it, and obedience is the best way to get that! So if you find training fun, and you make it motivating for your dog you can really make your reactivity training so much more successful if you spend that time between seeing triggers working on what they can be doing instead of looking for triggers.