21/03/2025
If you don't feel safe, you don't learn. The same goes for your dog.
WHY TRAINING MAY BE A WASTE OF TIME (if they don’t feel safe)
I have such a strong memory of a couple of years ago when I went to a cafe with one of my dogs. There was another dog in there and they clearly had a really committed family- they had yellow dog stuff on and the people were using loads of treats to try and ‘train’ the dog around other dogs in the cafe. The dog was barely under threshold most of the time I was there and was well over many times- barking and lunging at dogs in the cafe and sounding very stressed. I totally get why people think this sort of environment might be a good thing to take a reactive dog too- all dogs are onlead and you can practise your training while you sit with your lovely breakfast. But, it’s probably doing your dog much more harm than good if they aren’t coping well in that environment: if your dog doesn’t feel SAFE then what are they learning?
It’s really important to remember that when you are working with anxious and reactive dogs it’s not about training them, it’s about changing their emotions. We aren’t trying to teach them not to bark we are trying to change how they feel from anxious around other dogs to comfortable. We want them to change from being pessimistic and expecting that other dogs are bad news to feeling optimistic and that other dogs are a good thing to be around.
If you are training your dog to look at other dogs, to do a ‘watch me’, to lay down etc in a environment they find too difficult and too stressful then they aren’t learning anything good. Training them to do these things isn’t going to fix them. If they don’t feel safe inside and don’t feel relaxed then their learning is likely to be really slow or you risk them even making worse associations and becoming MORE worried around other dogs.
To change emotions your dog needs to feel safe and comfortable and you want to be seeing signs that they are properly relaxed- are they eating treats gently, are they choosing to settle and lie down, are they breathing in a relaxed way? If they are panting, stressy snatching treats and hyper vigilant (looking around everywhere for threats) then you are likely doing more harm than good.
Key to helping anxious and reactive dogs is gradually building up their exposure to the things they find scary but at a rate they can cope with. Of course, even with the best will in the world things will go wrong and dogs will come too close on a walk etc and we manage that situation and move on but we don’t want to ever set them up to fail. Making them ‘face their fears’ just results in flooding and a dog who is worse after the experience rather than better.
I have 3 dogs and only 2 would cope in a cafe, the one that wouldn’t- I just don’t take her, she wouldn’t enjoy it and she’d find it stressful and I wouldn’t be happy knowing that she wasn’t coping well. I regularly take a puppachino home for my dog that doesn’t like cafes so she doesn’t miss out ❤️ (top tip- don’t forget you have a puppachino in your coat pocket and sit down)
It’s crucial when we are living with and helping anxious dogs that we try and think about the things we do with them- is this helping build their confidence and resilience or is it making them more stressed?
If you do need to visit a cafe (as you are on holiday and can’t leave dogs etc) with an anxious dog then sitting outside rather than inside is normally less stressful, give yourself as much space as possible, don’t sit by the entrance so everyone has to walk past you etc and keep it brief so that it’s a successful exercise for your dog rather than a stressful one and most importantly listen to your dog and what they are trying to tell you. I’d rather get take out than expose a dog to something they can’t cope with right now.
Laura McAuliffe, 2025 Dog Communication.
