All animals react differently to things in their environment. We may jump when we hear a loud bang off in the distance. We may get excited when our phone rings. Our dogs are no different. They, too, react to things in their everyday environments. While that can cause some challenges, such as jumping up when they are excited, many of those are relatively simple things that can be addressed with a good training program.

Reactivity is different. Reactivity is an abnormal or escalated response to something normal in the dog’s environment. If your dog sees another dog and begins pulling on the leash, barking, jumping on their back feet, growling, etc. You have a reactive dog!

I am here writing this because I too had a reactive dog. He completely changed my life. He taught me so much during our short journey together that I actually switched careers to become a dog trainer and Behavior Consultant.

I mention this, because life with a reactive dog is not easy. Doing the simple things  in life is not easy. Life for your reactive dog is not easy. Through this course, I will give you the information you need to begin making these things easier for both you and your dog, but be prepared, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Just remember, when your dog is reacting, they are having a hard time dealing with something in their current environment. They are not being disobedient or stubborn. They are not trying to give you a hard time. I bet if we could ask them, they would answer that they don’t want to behave that way any more than we want them to behave that way. The outward display is simply a manifestation of the way your dog feels internally at that moment. The goal of this course is for you to learn the background of reactivity. In the next course we will cover what we can do to begin changing that behavior and how to do it.