Fear & Reactivity

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.

Dogs can react to a whole host of triggers, in many environments or in very specific contexts. Our job is to help the dog become more comfortable and confident in those specific situations and around their triggers. There are different techniques and approaches to accomplish that depending on your dog’s current level of rear/reacticity, your own lifestyle and your goals.

If your dog is worried about other dogs and/or people out on walks, we can develop a training plan that includes working on basic behaviors and focus outside with distractions and then moves into counter conditioning and desensitization to dogs/people, beginning at a distance and gradually moving closer while continuing to build the new desired response in the dog. This process may take many months of daily patience and consistentcy. Once you have had a Behavior Consult, you may be eligible for our Focused Fido & Reactive Rover classes.

If your dogs is worried about guests coming into the home, we typically take a different approach. While we can avoid people out on the street long-term, that is not usually feasible for people entering in our house. Here is where will will employee the Treat/ReTreat technique to buld your dog’s confidence and social skils around people starting with a simple approach and gradually working up to all the crazy human things we do!

We start with Treat/ReTreat classes at our training center to begin the process of building the dog’s confidence around unfamiliar people. Then we can take this game back home to continue the process.

If your dog has general fear of new people, dogs and environments, Nose Work may be a good option for them to build thier over all confidence while giving the a fun outlet for sniffing and mental exercise.

You have likely found this page because you have a fearful, reactive or aggressive dog. We can help! Please fill our our form on this page to have someone call you to discuss things with you.