10/30/2025
Some good advice from TGD.
If you’d like to see what a nervous system reset could do for your dog, here’s a brief (non-exhaustive) outline to try with your dog. It reflects many of the things we do with dogs who come through our board and train program. And the results we see repeatedly from this reset are nothing short of shocking.
I know many will recoil in the face of a list that has so many restrictions and requires so much downtime. That’s cool. This list isn’t for them—it’s for those looking for deeper answers besides just obedience training, and for those interested to see if there’s some lifestyle adjustments which might not just improve your dog’s behavior, but also improve your dog’s overall wellbeing.
And lastly, it’s a 2 week trial run. If it doesn’t create any noticeable benefits, ditch it. But if it does, you might just have found some profoundly helpful answers.
-Crate your dog an extra 4 hours a day (during regular daytime life)
-Have your dog in duration place or down for 4 hours total daily
-Have your dog sleep in the crate at night
-No unnecessary talking, touch, petting
-Walk your dog 25% slower than your usual pace
-Keep your human interactions/daily life lowkey and relaxed so your dog can model/be influenced by your presentation—no yelling at family members or folks on the phone (or computer!), no manic physical presentations, no chaos
-Of course no yelling at the dog and no frustration-based interactions
-Keep play to one session per day, ensure it’s structured with starts/stops (don’t let your dog get swept up in a frenzy cycle with any toy/activity), stop well before your dog is exhausted
-Refrain from having your dog perform tricks or flashy/quick obedience—aim for relaxed, slow, calm interactions
-Refrain from sharing frequent releases like “Free!”, “Break!”, “Okay!”—only release for pottie breaks and complete releases from being in command… and keep them lowkey and infrequent
-Don’t allow whining/barking/demanding of attention
-Keep free roaming to an absolute minimum
-Refrain from using treats/food for any training
I’m sure I missed some others, but this is more than enough to start with.
Once again, this is stuff we do in our own program, and this stuff is the secret sauce that so many training programs and owners doing DIY training… miss.
PS, this isn’t a forever thing. That’s why it’s called a reset, and not a set. :)
