Pack Leader Help: Dog Rehabilitation & Training

07/31/2024

🐶 Ever wondered why your friendly dog suddenly turns leash aggressive? Let’s dive into the stages of how excitement can turn into aggression over time.

1️⃣ **Curiosity:** Most adolescent dogs are naturally curious. This curiosity is often met with excitement, but it’s important to manage this excitement properly.

2️⃣ **Excitement:** Many dogs are very excitable, especially on the leash. If excitement is mixed with restriction, it can lead to frustration. Learn to manage and control this excitement to prevent future issues.

3️⃣ **Frustration:** Over time, repeated excitement with restriction can lead to frustration. If your dog is allowed to pull towards everything on walks, they may not understand why they can’t pull towards other dogs.

4️⃣ **Aggression:** After months or years of frustration, dogs may seek an outlet for their feelings, sometimes resulting in aggression. Biting or aggressive behavior often stems from this long-term over-arousal.

Don’t wait until your dog is in the frustration phase.

Talk to a professional dog trainer if your dog is pulling you on walks towards other dogs or animals. Better yet, shoot me a DM for personalized advice! 🐾✨

06/12/2024

🐶Making dogs wait calmly at thresholds (this doesn’t mean forcing them into a sit while they maintain high levels of excitement) is one of the most underrated tools you easily have at your disposal.

This is a behavior your dog is practicing multiple times a day- impulsively moving through life. It would serve both you and your dog to ask them to wait before they get to move towards what they want. This includes any threshold: car, back door front door, crate, gate etc.

I won’t allow my dogs to go through the doors until I’ve released them to do so.

Do you make your dog wait at thresholds?

05/31/2024

This week I was reminded that sometimes we feel like we need to exit relationships to heal but we often forget that so much growth and healing comes from within healthy relationships.

I opened up my home to my good friend and phenomenal dog trainer which can sometimes be tough for me! But Alana’s presence is always so calm, welcoming and goofy. You can trust that she’s not judging you and you can be yourself around her. You don’t have to put on a show or be “on”. You can just settle into being yourself which was so amazing for me!

It’s exactly how I want my dogs and other people to feel around me; welcome.

We spent all hours of the day talking chatting, doing dog stuff, eating yummy food and realizing how lucky we are to have found such amazing friends in the dog world.

Thank you for the best week ever, !

If you don’t feel that way with your relationships, I promise you should💙

05/23/2024

🚨 Reactivity = Symptom

The more you try to fix reactivity on the walk, the more frustrated you and your dog can become.

🤔Consider this: Where does your dog spend most of its life? Practice most of its behavior? Inside the home.

You might say, but Brianna my dog is perfect inside the home and I’d make a well educated guess that is never the case whether we realize that or not.

We usually either have 1) A fearful dog is is fairly shutdown and tends to be “easy” doesn’t do anything inside but struggles with insecurity or 2) An excited dog who is very quick to move towards things it wants and has demanding behaviors

The more the dog does whatever it wants whenever it wants… the more it will do that out on the walk. Your dog needs support via management communication fulfillment and guidance.

All of that will start in the home. You can’t fix reactivity outside.

What are you working with your dog on?

04/24/2024

It’s safer to err on the side of “problem” and talk with a profession because Luna and Loki skipping breakfast everyday isn’t because they are a “picky eater” and Teddy biting your friends coming over isn’t either.

03/21/2024

I’ve had SO many amazing puppy clients recently and of course the biggest issue is teething.

🐶Puppy owners, your puppy will be chewing biting nipping and teething every minute of the day for months. It’s natural, it’s normal and it’s not our job to “correct” it!

Have chews available, engage with them and then let them rest😴

Not sure what to do? Shoot me Dm📨

03/04/2024

🚨Most people are in two categories:

1) They don’t exercise their dogs enough (mentally or physically) or 2) They rely solely on over aroused excitable physical exercise (dog parks, day cares, fetch, runs) as the main way to drain their dog.

This meant a judgment this is just to say, both will garner poor results for our dogs behavior. We need MINDFUL exercise for both physical and mental health.

This means utilizing permission based training throughout the day in your home and during play with your dog- not just outside on walks.

Unsure what your dog needs? Ask below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

02/21/2024

I need your help PLH community! It’s the time of year to spread the word and vote for your favorite trainer in the DMV I’d so so so appreciate it if you voted for Pack Leader Help under training & behavior 💙💙💙

Help us find the best pet care services in Northern Virginia by nominating your favorite pet-friendly groomers, walkers, and businesses.

02/13/2024

If you’ve ever wanted to get into virtual training or wondered how trainers get the results they do virtually- this is the perfect opportunity to learn.

I’m so excited to showcase this- share this with dog enthusiasts so they can be a part of the webinar❤️

See you guys soon!
- Brianna

01/31/2024

😅Many trainers hear this daily “the second I stop doing xyz my dog reverted”.

Yes it’s true, behavior will revert when the pattern wasn’t set long enough or went too long in between reinforcing desired behavior.

🦮 Your dog is stuck in your old patterns since that’s what you’ve likely done for the longest period of time. When you start a new pattern, don’t assume the dog will immediately revert to the new pattern- it takes a lot of time and reputation.

Have you dealt with this with your dog?

01/10/2024

This is why I order my behavioral program as: 1) Communication 2)Fulfillment 3) Management and 4) Training is last in that order.

You doing that leash drill, or thresholds, or place, or counter conditioning will not fix, help or address the lack of fulfillment your dog has.

Your 30 minute once a day walk isn’t cutting it!

You need to get out at least an hour a day for most dogs play, walk, run, learn, engage with them.

Your dog will drown in symptoms when daily mental and physical fulfillment isn’t there. Things like pulling, jumping, whining, barking, chewing, pacing can all be signs of lack of proper fulfillment.

Get outside and work your dog they don’t give a s**t that it’s raining snowy or cold :)

12/29/2023

Happy 2nd birthday to Raiso boy. He is the exactly the same as when I brought him home almost 2 years ago; dumb, happy and wants to steal my socks.

His favorite things this year are: Getting beat up by Iris, making out with and Georgia, being exceptionally annoying and getting attention from literally any living thing.

Let’s all raise and ball or a sock to raisin’s birthday!

12/27/2023

😴 Ya know how sleep is literally the most important piece of our health for humans? Well it’s similar for dogs!

🥱 Our dogs need more QUALITY rest! They can only get that if they’re fulfilled and if we give them the opportunity to in a safe environment free of distractions.

🐶Puppy parents especially need to head this advice but every dog parent should be taking notes on how often their dog is resting and what they believe the quality of that sleep is.

🔅Have you noticed your dog’s behavior change if their sleep schedule changes?

12/04/2023

I’ve experienced this and I know many of my clients have too. It’s so jarring.

For many owners it may have felt like it came out of no where. Most likely, it didn’t.

These steps are incredibly important to help repair what was a very difficult moment. Give your dog an opportunity to see the other dog without full blown attack. I know this isn’t always possible especially if it’s an unknown dog.

It’s okay to have a spectrum of emotions after a fight. The important part is that you don’t take it out on either dog. You take space and then talk to a behavior specialist who can help you through.

11/22/2023

🤔Everyone has an opinion on this so curious to know your thoughts.

My views on this have drastically changed. Medication the same and as management. It’s the same as crating or ecollars or food or whatever you want to call it but it does a much better job and helping a dog stay under threshold. Do I believe most dogs need it? Absolutely not but if you’re taking on severe behavior cases as the majority of your clients, this will start to come up more and more.

until we address our rescue and backyard breeder issue and until we address our lifestyle issue medication is the new norm.

11/16/2023

ITS OFFICIALLY OUT!!! (Again) and updated!

My first ever E-Book. I probably wrote too much but I really wanted you all to be 100% prepared to train your dogs for having people over. Who knew $20 could change your life? Maybe you want to gift it to a friend passively aggressively.. you can do that too!

I put 11+ videos on here and this book is FOOL PROOF. Follow the steps and you’ll here “omg your dog is so well behaved!” all season long.

Comment “holiday” to get the link!

11/09/2023

Whoever captions this old picture of me the best gets a free gift from PLH 🦃🦃🦃🦃

10/30/2023

In additions to number one, you can surprise them with anything your dog enjoys. It could be their favorite person, their favorite toy, a fun trick they know or just kibble.

I know for many dogs this can be tough but this is just one of many ways to help create a more optimistic dog.

Have you tried this before?

10/25/2023

This has been a decade in the making. I’ve always known that a major goal of mine is to help other entrepreneurs like myself create a business that can financially sustain them and emotionally fulfill them.

My online program covers everything under the sun. It’s intentionally priced 50% less than most other programs. This is about giving access to the masses and making sure everyone has it even playing field of resources in order to grow their business.

Even if you don’t purchase this, it would mean so much that you pass it along to other trainers, who are either looking to start or grow their current business.

Thank you so much for all your support ,
Brianna

10/21/2023

I talk to my clients every day about this because we live in a society, and in a world where our attention spans are getting shorter every single year and our ability to tolerate wait times, growing significantly less. To put simply, we lack patience. I don’t think that’s our fault. It’s due to the technology that’s being forced upon us, but it’s important to understand that dogs are not on our timeline. Their behavior is not on our timeline and they will improve when it’s time to improve.

Most of the dogs I’m working with have spent years doing a specific behavior or have had serious feelings about other people or dogs for months and years, but we have this expectation that suddenly when we start working with them and communicating and training them that all of the problems will go away . They won’t in progress is not linear. You will have good days and bad days. The important part is that you continue in the process and continue to help your dog.

sometimes you don’t need to change your pivot your training plan sometimes you just need to give it enough time and repetition and allow your dog to get into a new pattern. This doesn’t mean that you should stick with something for six months to a year with no results , but it does mean that sometimes time is all you need in order to see lasting change because your game plan is good. Your dog just needs more repetition.

10/10/2023

4 years in a row winning!

This isn’t luck. This is because I have the best clients in the world! This is because my business attracts the best people. And we’ve won an award locally almost every single year we’ve been open and I can’t thank you all enough.

I am never unaware of how fortunate I am to do being this as my full time career. And I hope to do this forever.

If you’ve enjoyed this account or you’ve been account of ours, thank you so much for your support 💪🏽

10/09/2023

I believe sensitive and fearful dogs need all 4. Have you tried any of these things with your dog?

10/04/2023

If the freedom to choose whatever a dog wanted helped them I’d have no job. Why? Because all my clients start out this way. The dog has zero rules, information or boundaries in the home. They are asked for no engagement before doing anything.

I believe most owners think this is a good option. Why would they want to restrict their dogs agency? I understand this sentiment, albeit misguided.

The very moment we start to show our and tell our insecure and fearful dogs what to do, they flourish. They are begging us to provide them feedback and guidance and the more we let them do whatever they want, what’s really happening is they are BURDENED with decision making. It’s like throwing someone into being the CEO of a company with no leadership experience, they’re going to fail and flounder like most of my clients dogs.

You can advocate for your fearful dog by telling them what they can and should do instead. This will help them be relieved of their assumed duty of alerting you, protecting the house or themselves.

How has structure/information helped your dog?

09/25/2023

Before you know it, grays start to subtly make its way onto their snout. A reminder of all the memories we’ve created, all the walks we’ve taken, all the snacks we’ve shared, all the dogs we’ve helped.

Before you know it, you don’t have as much time left and each day becomes increasingly important. The walk or play session you skipped will feel heavier.

Before you know it, your best friend slows down so train your dog today, love them by being consistent today, by fulfilling them today, by doing something they want to do today.

We could never deserve dogs

Ps Iris is alive and well!! Just starting to gray 💔

09/21/2023

Impulsive is what impulsive does. If we allow these thoughtless behaviors at home, in our yards, at the dog park, at our families houses, why is the dog suddenly going to understand that’s not allowed when they’re on a leash? They won’t.

Your homework this week, just observe your dog and what they move towards. Do they rush the door (naturally) when people come in? Do they rush towards the window or door if they hear or see something? Do they excitedly run out of a threshold even if you just told them sit? Do they run over to food immediately as it drops on the ground?

NONE of these are inherently bad or wrong, but it’s important that you have the off switch to these behaviors. The alternative which is, can I get my dogs attention during a moment where they want to do do something?

09/14/2023

I personally believe families should be working with well rounded and great breeders to provide the safest choice for their children. It reduces risk of a dog who isn’t child friendly or working with a rescue dog who has a proven track record of being great with kids.

Give me your recs for dog breeds for families!