IS YOUR DOG REACTIVE?
Here are a few tip to help your reactive dog 🐾
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Even though Dixie is a very nervous little sole she’s taking small steps forward in her training. We are now exposing her to unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells to help her become accustomed to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
When working with a dog like Dixie it’s super important to read the dog and only push her to what’s she capable of. If she was forced into something she would only hold a negative association with that environment and we would push her training backwards. This part of her training is all about encouraging her to make the next step and when she does it with ease we praise her for this making these places a positive place to be. Lots of counter conditioning in small increments will bring the results over time. Well done Dixie 🦮🐶
A few tips on how you can help your dog this coming firework season 🎇🎆
Do you need help with your dog?
To start with everything is on Dixie’s terms. We want her to have as many positive interactions outdoors as possible at a distance she feels comfortable with. Every time she makes good choices or shows us any engagement she will be rewarded with good things. Building a solid relationship is key and from that she will look up to us for guidance and direction which will give her more confidence in us moving forward. She is now taking fuss from us which wasn’t the case in the first few days. Well done Dixie 🩵
What better way to spend your birthday than with us on residential training 🐾Happy birthday Fizz!!!
When Will arrived with his he pulled on the lead, was very nervous and reactive around certain things. After lots of control work, counter conditioning and visiting multiple high distraction environments he is now walking really nicely in all places. We continue to work lots more environments moving forward but he is making great progress 🩵🐾
Bloo and Gracie are from the same household and came to us to work on their nervous behaviour, reactivity and lead walking.
To start with it’s super important to build a relationship based on leadership. This will give the dog more confidence in the handler and a solid relationship starts to form. We then start to work on engagement….. without engagement you won’t get what you need from your dog out in settlings they are uncomfortable in. We then start to counter condition the dogs behaviour by introducing the dogs to their triggers at a distance they feel comfortable and rewarding disengagement. Over time we start to close the distance making sure we set the dog up for success by not moving to quickly. As soon as we start having consistent success we can start to change environments. As you can see these guys are making fantastic progress 🐾
Hector on a training session today working on the place command around distractions. When we are teaching any new behaviour we have to make sure it’s proofed. We do this by using the 3 D’s of dog training.
1. Duration. We start from just a couple of seconds and work our way up to minutes.
2. Distance. Once we have duration we can then start to increase the distance we are away from our dog. Don’t go to far to soon or you will set your dog up to fail. We want success always.
3. Distractions. We have to start with low level distractions and then work our way up to high level distractions. Making sure that your dog doesn’t leave the place/bed until you give them the release command. If they do always take them straight back and reset them.
Once your dog can master all 3 of these it’s then time to do these all over again in as many different environments as possible. The park, town centre, supermarket car parks, cafes ect….. when you dog has completed all of these the behaviour is then proofed and should be rock solid at all times. This is an excellent way to encourage your dog to rest, builds impulse control, helps with separation anxiety and help your dog control its arousal levels in busy environments.
Benji continuing his bed work with Chris. 🐾🩵
A regular afternoon at Next Level dog Training. All the staff out on the field with a residential dog. Building engagement in the presence of other dogs is key. Making yourself more fun than what surrounds you is a big part of getting the behaviour you want in public 🐾
Most afternoons we get all the staff and the dogs out on the training field working on engagement around other dogs in a controlled manner. Most of these dogs came in super reactive and has you can see they are now working nicely around multiple dogs at quite a close distance. Consistently and progression is key 🩵
