Behavioral Consulting
First of all, what is Behavioral Consulting? How does it differ from simple dog training? If your dog suffers from issues such as fear, reactivity, aggression or anxiety including separation anxiety, then you need someone skilled in dealing with those issues. While individuals skilled in dog training are great, they may not have the full body of knowledge and expertise to deal with these issues. This is where you need a Behavior Consultant vs just a trainer. Lucky for you, we have those on our team as well!
During your Behavioral Consultation, you and your Behavior Consultant will discuss your dog’s current behavior and specific challenges you are having in order to formulate a full plan. That plan will have several facets including:
- Management – these are changes and/or strategies you can implement right away to start acheiving some desired results. These are typically temporary in nature, but critical to acheiving your goals!
- Training – we will likely need some additional skills on board to deal with the current behavior challenges long term. During this process, we will teach those foundation skills and discuss how to proof them with duration, distance & distractions as necessary.
- Behavior Modification – this is the final piece to the puzzle. Here is where we take those newly developed training skills, together with our management strategies, to really start changing your dog’s behaviors. This process can take weeks, to months, to years, in some cases. The more you learn and understand the skills and techniques and the more consistent you are with your follow-through the quicker the process will go!
Why Does My Dog Have These Issues?
There can be many reasons as to “why”? Genetics, previous experiences and learned behaviors “habits” are just a few of those reasons as to why. The great thing is we don’t have to know exactly why our dog has the issues to change them. Many times behavior issues are rooted in fear. The dog is worried about something and thus they put up a big display to avoid approaching and/or interacting with it. There are also other reasons such as frustration, excitement, etc. Behavioral issues are almost always rooted in some emotion for our dog.
As such, fear, reactivity and aggression go hand-in-hand. If your dog is afraid of something, they typiclly react either by showing what we think of as fear (ie: cowering, shaking, moving away from the scary thing) or they will react to it by putting up a scary display of their own in attempt to make the scary thing move away from them. This is what we think of when we discuss reactivity.
What Can I Do About It?
Dogs can react to a whole host of triggers in many environments or they may only react to a very specific trigger in very specific context. Our job is to help the dog become more comfortable and confident in any of those situations. There are different techniques and approaches to accomplish this which is why you need someone skilled in dealing with such issues.
For example, if your dog is worried about other dogs when out on walks, we can develop a training plan that includes building your dog’s foundation skills. Then moving on to the Behavior Modification process where we begin working around your dog’s specific triggers. This is a very systematic process of working at a distance and gradually moving closer while continuing to build the new desired response. This process may take many months of daily practice, patience and consistentcy.
If your dog has general fear of new people, dogs and environments, we may take a vastly different approach. For example, Nose Work may be a great option for those your dog to build their overall confidence while giving them a fun outlet for sniffing and mental exercise.
How Do I Get Started?
You have likely found this page because you yourself are struggling with a dog who has such behavior challenges. You can feel overwhelmed and alone. Please know that you are not alone. We are here to help!
If you are ready to get started please fill our our request form or contact us today!
We also have a Facebook Group support group for you!