06/29/2024
Did you know that I actively tell pet owners our dog dayschool isn't right for them?
Why?
Dog dayschool isn't a place to "learn social skills", unless there aren't any negative experiences to begin with (ie, puppies).
You're probably not going to highly educated and professional dog trainers because your adult dog isn't having a problem. If you could have, you probably already would have figured it out on your own and fixed the problem. Sometimes, you need a little help-- and so does your dog.
Generally, socialization refers to the forming of new experiences right around 6 weeks to 12/14 weeks, depending on the breed.
If your dog is already showing intolerance to:
1. They are too excited with play (--> They cannot control their arousal levels or have high anxiety/overwhelm, or a dysregulated, amped up nervous system sensing threats)
2. "Overcorrecting other dogs" (--> They have negative experiences, chronic pain, or an inability to control arousal around other dogs)
3. They're dog reactive (--> Breed Drive, lack of socialization early in their life, better stated: lack of positive experiences with other dogs AND negative experiences with other dogs, chronic pain, or they're chronically in fight or flight)
Generally, these signs don't mean that your dog "needs additional socialization", but SPECIFIC to THEM, they need a proper counterconditioning and desensitization protocol towards the actual stimuli provoking these feelings.
And it needs to be generalized appropriately in different contexts, environments, etc.
It's NOT flooding. Flooding was a common practice where a being (human or dog) would be overexposed to a stimuli until the trauma response they are having shuts them down, a freeze response, to stimuli that are overwhelming them. What happens overtime (and very often with well-meaning veterinarians) is that the dog gets stuck in freeze and eventually can't handle the stressor to stay shut down and starts reacting MORE.
We recommend these plans because we want you to succeed. We want your dog to succeed.
We want everyone in your family to be happy and comfortable with our services (including your pup!).
We won't just take your money for care services that aren't helping anyone.
There are plenty of places that offer basic drop in daycare, but that's not our crowd. While the pups have fun who have been coming here for a long time, we truly feel it's because of the precautions that have been put into place, like structured groups, recommending training more often than overwhelming care services, and working to get to the root of you and your dog's problems (-- and hopes/dreams for the future!)
