So if you have a reactive dog, hopefully by now you have listened to the lecture series in the Reactive Dog Modules. If not, go do that! You really need to understand what is happening inside your dog’s body and mind during reactivity.

Do you know that feeling you get when someone cuts you off in traffic, or someone says something super rude to you, or when your boss calls you into the office and looks super pissed off, or maybe you a coworker tells you something someone else is saying about you behind your back. You might feel shaky, or like maybe it’s suddenly hard to concentrate and that is all you can think about, maybe you feel your heart start to race, or you shout, or wish you could, maybe you can feel that icky feeling in your gut, maybe you feel tears welling up even though you really really don’t want to cry. These are all examples of strong emotions firing up our bodies. Sometimes we can be in a good headspace and we can quickly calm ourselves in these moments, other times it sends us into a spiral and ruins our whole day.

This is the space of emotions, and emotions can strongly take control of our bodies. They are meant to be able to propel us to safety in dangerous situations or propel us to action when it needs taken. But that same operating system can also make it so that even when we are not in true danger right now, our anxieties can take over and convince our bodies we are in danger right now. And that is the place our dogs enter into when they are triggered. That space where their anxieties and the strong emotions can take control of their bodies and minds.

That good headspace, that doesn’t just happen. That is a result of our emotions starting in a positive place. That is the days events keeping us positive and upbeat. That is us doing the work to keep a positive perspective. That is our brain chemistry cooperating with us and functioning as it should. The same goes for our dogs. For our dogs to be in a good headspace to handle what comes their way we need to create an environment that allows them to start in a positive place. That takes us recognizing little tiny triggers stacking up starting to erode that positive energy they started with. That takes us working to help them stay upbeat and positive (or calm and under threshold in regards to arousal issues).

So how do we do that? We help them release stress. For dogs most of the time moving is involved. A nice quiet walk during off hours so they can sniff and explore. In rural settings it might be walking on old abandoned roads or along slow unpopulated country roads. In urban areas it might be cemeteries, industrial parks, churches, school campuses or shopping complexes after hours. Out west here, old logging roads and along irrigation ditches are my jam. What if where you live you have no access to these places and don’t have a car to drive to them? Then we bring sniffing and exploration to indoors. We create puzzles for them: saving our recycling we can put their food inside of things they need to root through to find it. We can play hide and seek with their toys. We can play with them. We can play fetch in hallways. We can take their food and hide it for them to hunt and find their meal.

We can learn things like canine massage, reiki, TTouch, Jin Shin Jyutsu or any other type of body work modality that helps calm and relax dogs. We can play soothing music. We can give them lots of things to chew on.

Some dog training schools or facilities in your area might have open ring time where you can rent the area for your own use, which could be playing with your dog in a new space. Some places offer special training classes for reactive dogs like nosework, agility, etc. Some urban areas also now have things like dog swimming pools and private dog parks or fields you can rent. It can take some searching and asking around but often times there are more resources than you are aware of nearby to help you find safe low trigger spaces to take your dogs.

Remember if your dog has a big trigger stacking event it can take them days to recover from the biochemical reactions inside of their bodies. This is a time to work on things at home, to work on engagement, play and behavior cues at home not a time for getting out there working on reactivity triggers.

Here is a video with some DIY games and puzzles you can work on at home with your dogs as a part of decompressing.