Pawsitive Reactions: Positive Dog Training and More

07/05/2024

This is exactly as I would have expected. This means that your dogs feel safe with you if you are this kind of dog parent.

Did you know the way you train, or 'parent' your dog affects their attachment style?? 😮

It has been long recognised that a secure attachment style is the most optimum attachment style for human children, as it allows the child to feel more comfortable exploring and interacting with the world, and in the long term being able to grow into a well adjusted adult. The same parallel has also been found in dogs, and that secure attachment provides the optimum starting place for a well adjusted canine companion!

There is now even research showing that the pet parenting or training styles you use with your dog similarly mirror the parenting styles used for human children, and how they impact whether or not a secure attachment will form. With human children the styles of parenting are separated into several distinct styles including:

🔹Authoritative (responsive to needs, solves problems together, with clear expectations and rules)

🔹Authoritarian (demands obedience rather than working together, punishment based and little care of the child/learners needs or feelings)

🔹Permissive (no real boundaries or structure, indulgent of wants and needs of the child/learner)

And..

🔹 Neglectful/uninvolved (inconsistent boundaries, generally uninvolved and unresponsive to feelings or needs).

It has also been found that the authoritative style of pet parenting (shown through positive training, supportive and nurturing but not permissive) has the best outcome for producing securely attached dogs, and that the dogs were 'highly social, sensitive to social context and were more persistent and successful on the problem solving tasks'. Whereas authoritarian pet parenting (shown through balanced/alpha based training, strong boundaries and punishment based) had a significantly lower chance of producing a dog with a secure attachment. Permissive pet parenting styles (training with little to no boundaries or structure) also were less likely to have a secure attachment style (this research did not cover neglectful parenting styles).

This is further evidence, backed by scientific study, that punishment based training does not produce the most well adjusted canine companions, and that structure and boundaries taught with kindness rather than fear is the way to go! 👍

You can check out the study mentioned in the graphic for yourself here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36175745/

And learn more about attachment in our previous graphic here: https://www.facebook.com/DogNerdSussex/posts/pfbid02vKQKArqRNLn44TnsCQi7v4ck565piEE8idrT7rA5jEFN1SZvMGKo6aVnn9cz4yTjl

07/05/2024

They really are great at this. Listen to them. ❤️

Dogs are so great at reminding us to focus on the present, to stop wishing away our perfect moments with them, for want of something more.
They are there to remind us to practice gratitude for all we have now, because they are so incredibly good at doing that themselves.

05/05/2024

Found in Facebook memories. Tis the season where more people are out walking their dogs. Keep your dog safe. Be kind and respectful towards other dog walkers. We should all be able to enjoy the outdoors without intrusion.

Today in Riverview park, a couple with a dog suddenly made a beeline straight for me and Meri from across the loop. I immediately got into action and got her partially down a trail that was next to the bench we had been seated on. We were behind a barrier. I cued some "find it" and helped her cope with this as best as possible given the suddenness of the situation. But the person with the other dog stopped immediately on the other side of the barrier where we were when their dog lunged. They then waited until the lunging stopped to try and shove treats into their dog's face. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. That's flooding. That dog was also on a collar only so he was choking himself when he was lunging. It's obvious they did not understand how to do this and if they are under the care of a dog behavior professional, then either they are misunderstanding how this works or they don't have a quality professional helping them. Using someone else's dog to 'train', when it's quite obvious that person is trying to get away from you, is not cool. It is not cool at all. And it doesn't work that way. You're harming both sides of the equation. Do not be that person. Do not *ever* be that person. It's no better than having an off leash dog and allowing them to rush at a leashed dog.

Meri did not come to me reactive. She came to me scared of everything and I have been classically conditioning her since then. See thing/person/mark/reward. It's been going great. She air sniffs after I name the thing/person and we go on our way. No reaction. We have however been rushed by no less than 6 off leash dogs in various parts of this park, one of them coming within a foot of connecting with her. So while I would not classify her as reactive now, she is occasionally proactive with silent launching of herself forward, if she's not comfortable with the proximity/handling/demeanor of the other dog. Obviously I know how to address this so we are working on it when it happens. It's only about a handful of times we are there. And no surprise, when somebody pulls that kind of nonsense, all training goes out the window. She's not there yet. It's my job to keep her safe. And I'm keeping her as safe as possible but it's also other people's jobs to stay the heck away from others if they have not been invited closer.

So today's lesson is don't use other people's dogs to train unless they have given you permission in advance. If you do what this couple did to me and Meri, then you are being incredibly rude and you aren't helping either side of the equation. Meri says please let her feel safer in public outdoor spaces. There's plenty of room for everyone. Be mindful of personal space bubbles.

04/05/2024

Found in Facebook memories. Please understand that there is currently no regulation in most dog care fields. Be your dog's voice please.

Trainer PSA:

Be aware that you are your dog's voice. Your dog cannot object to anyone you hire to contribute to any facet of his or her care. So please be judicious when choosing someone for that care. Until this industry gets much-needed regulation, then you **have** to be the gatekeeper for your dog.

If you need behavioral assistance for your dog, other dog care professional such as veterinarians, groomers, petsitters and the like are not necessarily going to be the most up-to-date source for quality behavior referrals. Some are and some aren't. Behavior education is something that a veterinarian chooses to pursue on their own rather than learn a great deal about it while achieving their veterinary degree. It's just not part of their schooling in most vet schools and when it is, it's minimal unless one chooses to move forward to become a board certified veterinary behaviorist. Just like any other dog loving person, they may subscribe to modern dog behavior knowledge supported by science or they may have a preference for more old-fashioned and antiquated methods.

So it is up to you as your dog's caretaker, to thoroughly research any referral you receive from any other pet care professional, including your veterinarian. Make sure that the person you choose uses up-to-date modern science supported, rewards-based methodology. Utilizing the services of someone who uses 30 to 40 year old methods that include punishment based techniques are only going to set the stage for a broken relationship between you and your dog and can make your dog's behavior worse.

The article below includes some links on how to properly choose a qualified trainer or behavior consultant. Some general guidelines are if the company is a national company or a franchise, then they typically utilize old-fashioned techniques. That doesn't mean a small local company uses modern techniques. You have to look at the websites individually and see what kind of methodology they choose and what kind of tools they choose. Avoid anyone who uses the term "balanced training". Avoid anyone who wants to use a choke chain, a prong collar, and /or a shock collar also known as an electronic collar or stimulation collar, on your dog. These tools suppress behavior and do not teach your dog how to make better choices. They are not training. They are behavior suppression and/or management at best. They also have a huge potential for fallout. They can increase anxiety in anxious dogs and they increase or even prompt aggression.

You would want the most modern methods used for yourself in any area of assistance. Please do your dog the courtesy of choosing modern methods for him or her as well. Your dog will thank you for it.
https://positively.com/dog-training/post/advocacy-a-false-sense-of-security-no-official-oversight-in-the-pet-industry

02/05/2024

I am sure that some of you have seen the completely inaccurate post being shared widely by the veterinarian in San Francisco. The information that she is posting is false. I have been a raw feeder since 2001 and while I feed cooked to Meri right now and fed cooked to Kenzo and Mela from 2019 until they both passed in 2022, it was only because Kenzo stopped being able to process fat in late 2019 and I don't have time (or the interest) in grinding my own fat free raw. Keric eats raw and Meri won't for more than a bite or so, so they each get what they prefer. I did a ton of research in raw before I tried it as a last ditch effort to help my dog at the time, my beloved Merlin, feel enthusiastic about food. He was not at all interested until I tried raw. Feeding him was challenging. So was training him initially. He is the reason that I became a dog trainer. I didn't have the right words myself to properly dissect what that veterinarian wrote but I knew it was not accurate. So now I present this fabulous rebuttal chock full of actual facts. No one should push any given diet on anyone else's dogs. But also no one should blast anyone else's dogs diet when it's been properly researched and implemented. If you don't believe in raw feeding, don't do it. It's that simple. Let people like things please.

FACT CHECKING CARRIE ON NEOSPORA...
Carrie Jurney is a US vet specialising in neurology. She wrote this post two days ago. It's getting well shared by those wishing to dump on fresh feeding, so I thought I'd give my tuppence worth.

In short, Carrie is apparently out the door with cases of neospora in raw-fed dogs. Out the door. Big queue of sick dogs down the road.

“I now see it all the time in pampered city pooches”.

Like so many conventional vets before her, Carrie makes the instant, though typically unsubstantiated, link to the latest silly craze of pet owners who wish to feed fresh food to their pets (supported very much by the literature).

“...you get it from eating infecting meat”.

This bit is true. It does come from infected beef.

Neospora is a common pathogen of industrially-raised cattle in the US and Canada (ranging from 5-85% of some herds), causing abortions and reproductive problems in said beasts, and the dog IS an intermediate host. In other words, they can pick it up (antibodies to it are often seen in rural dogs - sometimes 3-8% of rural / farm dogs in US and Canada, according to the link below) and they CAN shed it. Most will never even know they have it but it is possible it can over-grow in some dogs for some reason (usually young puppies) and can cause harm (neosporosis), albeit rarely. Neospora does not cause disease in humans.

While viable tachyzoites (the stage of the parasite that can infect dogs) can be found in the brain, spinal cord and eyes of the cow, these parts not permitted in the raw food chain since the BSE crisis. That said, unlike the EU, in the US, these parts can may still be sent for rendering to put back into dry food but the processing temperatures kill all parasites we know of. In the EU these parts go for cremation / dumping.

This leaves the placental tissue of infected cattle as one of the main sources for dogs. It shouldn't surprise you to hear, infected placenta is NOT a common food ingredient in raw dog food. At all. The main reason being you that you can’t buy it from meat processors. It normally goes with the gut to rendering plants (in the US) and for cremation here (EU). The only real source of placenta would be small producers that see a chance of “padding up their mixes” with some yummy placenta…that they either scoop up off the ground after a cow has given birth and pop in the freezer (they don’t do this) or, should she die in childbirth, the whole beast goes in the grinder (remote, but possible).

This is why, to date, the normal route of infection has been rural dogs, off lead, scavenging afterbirth in a field (or the same dogs drinking from contaminated water sources near mega-farms or those sullied by coyotes, that also carry the parasite in abundance).

More recently, viable tachyzoites have been found in the hearts and livers of infected cattle too. These additions DO make it into raw dog food.

However, the most important point here for everyone to remember is that freezing meat for just 24hrs kills Neospora in all its forms…and virtually all raw dog food is made using FROZEN ingredients that are thawed and then deep frozen in storage and shipping and then in your home.

This means, that for Carrie to see city dogs plagued with this issue from raw dog food, the producer would have had to be making their product on infected meat and then get this material FRESH into all her city dogs within 1-2 days of manufacture.

That is a manufacturing impossibility. It doesn't happen. The chances of Neospora infections coming from frozen raw dog food in pet shops is effectively nil. It's why, when they look at microbiological issues in complete, frozen raw dog food sold in shops, neospora does not come up.

(Neospora is not found as much in meat muscle either, so the meat in your supermarket is not a worrying source of neospora infection, on top of the fact most of it has been frozen, unlike at a butchers, some of whom still deal in fresh meat).

In short, that Carrie is seeing Neospora infections “…all the damn time in pampered city dogs” and it's because their owners are feeding them frozen raw dog food is utter nonsense, at best.

Clearly, by the tone of her post, she has been told this every which way by exasperated raw feeders, but instead of looking into and, dare to dream, correcting her message, Carrie simply silences dissenting voices (leaving the anti-fresh food messages up there, of course) and recommends that if people want RELIABLE information on how to feed dogs to go to Lisa Freeman of Tufts University.

That is Lisa Freeman, of Royal Canin/Purina/Hills Pet Food fame (honestly, she's cash-funded by all three), you know, the scientist that’s currently in court for (allegedly) COLLUDING with the FDA, repeatedly linking grain-free pet food and instances of DCM, in an effort to (allegedly) stall the growth of natural pet food in the US. No such link has ever been found. The studies she said showed a link, did no such thing. The damage to the grain-free pet food industry (and thus gain to the cereal-based crap largely sold by Royal Canin/Purina/Hills Pet Food?) was immense, hence the court case and $2.4bil for loss of earnings.

Despite multiple studies showing dry food is inflammatory and adding something as simple as omega 3 to "complete" dry food pays massive dividends for brain health in dogs, something you think would be of interest to a neurologist, it's Carrie's stance fresh food is bad and that we should all go to Ronald Mc Donald for our nutritional information.

Best advice - if concerned about Neospora in your industrially-reared meat, feed it from frozen.

https://www.facebook.com/100004830333446/posts/2790025081168476/?mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=93tsxj7GOcSaUl2W

02/05/2024

This is one of my older articles but on an important subject: this can be why some dogs, when reaching one of the social developmental stages, start visibly becoming reactive when out and about. Keep them safe and this is less likely as they grow up. Tolerating is not the same as enjoying.

https://positively.com/dog-training/post/behavior-problems-safety-first-why-spatial-issues-can-create-reactivity

01/05/2024

Exactly!!!!!

I find it so strange sometimes that ego can make us think we are better than or more intelligent than any other species on the planet.

We can’t even fathom a language based on chemical communication let alone speak it. Struggle to learn the body language of other animals and often presume they don’t feel pain, a basic survival need.

When we start to look at one another as equals, we start to improve our connection and our relationship.

30/04/2024

From Facebook memories, still relevant.

Let's talk about living with a different species. So many people live with many different species yet it seems like some people who live with dogs, have expectations of them to act like humans. While we share many traits including emotions, dogs are not humans. No one expects their cat to behave like a human. No one expects their hamster to behave like a human. No one expects their snake to behave like a human. No one expects their bird to behave like a human. Why do so many people expect their dogs to have human like manners in situations that we place them in that aren't natural to them? These unrealistic expectations cause so many problems when simply allowing a dog to be a dog while teaching them how to navigate our world appropriately is a far better option. So many people choose dogs as accessories to their lives. Dogs are thinking feeling sentient beings. They are a different species than us however. So we have to provide for *their* needs while setting them up for success in our world. Nothing less than this is going to be appropriate. Below is my dog Meridiana being a dog. Link below her includes suggestions on how to not misunderstand this magnificent species we choose to share our lives with. Please allow your dog the courtesy of being a dog.

https://positively.com/dog-training/post/dog-lifestyle-what-dogs-want-us-to-know

29/04/2024

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
There is never going to be any justification for what that woman did.

A German Wirehaired PointerAs a canine behavior specialist, I have helped many owners who were at the end of their proverbial ropes. In some cases, the cumulative stress of dealing with things like constant chewing and destruction had taken its toll. In others, issues such as separation anxiety and....

29/04/2024

I stand with Zak on this subject.

28/04/2024

Yesterday I wrote up an explanation of what redirection aggression. Today I reshare an article that I wrote about Mela's issues with such when she first came to us. Maybe it can help you with your dog's issues.

I had hoped that when Kenzo was fully healed from his second TPLO surgery and the ensuing infection that followed in the other knee and a few other body parts, that he would be interested in engaging in play again. But the over-stimulation assaults that Mela subjected him to, although not frequent,

28/04/2024

Does your dog seek to eat anything on the ground/floor that is accessible? Please consider teaching an auto leave it. You will increase your peace of mind. Trust me on this!

Kenzo and Trent in 2015 posing near what were likely Jack-O-Lantern mushrooms (which are toxic).

27/04/2024

Brody is still looking for a home with a human who better understands his needs. Please share!

27/04/2024

Let's talk about redirection aggression. I wrote a bit about this the other day while sharing someone else's post on the subject, that was somewhat confusing 2 different things. Today I will elaborate on this.

Redirection aggression is when a dog is overstimulated about a scenario/trigger/context and they redirect their overstimulation onto a nearby human or canine housemate. This is an overreaction that is caused by a fast cortisol spike. Exactly how intensely this manifests will depend on the context and the individual dog. When a dog does this regularly, this is not the result of trigger stacking (explained below). It is an indication of poorly developed impulse control and an inability to effectively self-sooth. I often call this frustration intolerance. With true redirected aggression, the dog generally has a specific target individual, whether that is another dog they live with or a human in their household, that they feel safe enough redirecting that cortisol spike onto. It can certainly be directed at anyone but that is less common. This happens with varying degrees of intensity, none of which are fun for the recipient. Trigger stacking will certainly make it worse but it already exists as part of the dog's personality. There are ways to address this by teaching the dog in question how to more effectively self-sooth in an incremental manner. Sometimes dogs like this will need behavior medication in addition to behavior modification to help their brain reach a place where they can think before acting. And sometimes they can learn with behavior modification alone. Each dog is an individual and needs assessed as such.

Trigger stacking is an accumulation of stresses in one day (or several days in a row) that creates a shorter fuse in the sentient being, regardless of the species. Many humans know this as spoon theory. This is why those who have been my clients know how important it is to keep their dog's baseline cortisol levels lower overall, with various techniques that I have taught them to use. If dog redirecting is uncommon for *that* dog, it is indeed caused by trigger stacking. Key word here being "uncommon".

With true redirection, the dog must be taught what to do instead of immediately going into fight mode. This is usually done gradually and can include going from biting the other dog or human handling the leash, to biting the leash itself or a toy/tug being carried for that purpose to displacement sniffing and eventually just shaking it off and carrying on with one's day. Most dogs who redirect immediately and with intensity cannot even think when in that mind frame so the behavior needs carefully evaluated and the distance needs determined that the dog can think long enough in order to help the dog cope with these triggers more effectively.

This is a process that only qualified modern rewards-based trainers and behavior consultants are familiar with. Choosing a trainer who uses correction based techniques such as leash jerks, especially on a prong or a choke collar or choosing to use what many "balanced" trainers call an e-collar but is just a shock collar will only make the cortisol spike higher. That may appear to "stop" the behavior by suppressing it but that "method" is not helping the dog learn any coping skills. Choosing to address this behavior in a punitive manner will create a much more dangerous situation. Please help your dog make better choices by choosing a well qualified modern rewards-based trainer/behavior consultant who can truly help your dog build better neural pathways.

Below is a photo of my past Chow Chow Mela, along with my perfect Kenzo. When I first got Mela, she redirected her overstimulation of pretty much anything (deer, squirrel, etc.) onto Kenzo, biting him in the cheek. He was a lover, not a fighter so he turned his face and she just got a mouthful of fur most of the time. That still did not make it okay. So she was taught to bite the leash instead and then to sniff to displace and then finally to shake off on cue. Mela was unable to think when in that mode initially and she was afraid of the clicker so I could not use that. She also was unable to even think about taking food outside for quite some time. I used verbal marking/capturing and our relationship to help her build her coping skills. No punishment needed to help her make better choices.

26/04/2024

I'm sure some of you have been wondering what my puppy Keric looks like now. This is him at a little over 5 months and probably somewhere around 55 lb. He was at class at Animal Friends. I strongly recommend their Kinderpuppy classes.

25/04/2024

All. Of. This!

Here’s a PSA on behalf of all dogs.

Stop correcting your dog for sniffing.

Stop it. Please.

How would you like it if I corrected you for looking around a room? Imagine if you raised your head to look around a new place and I popped you or shoved you or said “HEY! PAY ATTENTION” You’d get pretty upset pretty quickly I’d imagine.

Dogs don’t smell because they are ignoring you or being stubborn. We humans primarily depend on sight, but dogs use smell AND sight to assess their surroundings and communicate. People spend more time interpreting visual data than olfactory information. Dogs are just the opposite.

Dogs devote lots of brain power to interpreting smells. They have more than 100 million sensory receptor sites in the nasal cavity as compared to 6 million in people, and the area of the canine brain devoted to analyzing odors is about 40 times larger than the comparable part of the human brain. In fact, it’s been estimated that dogs can smell anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 times better than people.

Scent gives information. Smelling is normal. Smelling is necessary and natural. Smelling is relaxing. Air scenting is HUGE for recovering reactive dogs. LET YOUR DOG SMELL!

Correcting a dog for sniffing is one of the worst things I watch people do. It’s another example of how controlling we try to be in our dogs lives. If you don’t want your dog to smell, teach him to focus on you instead for part of the time, and then give other ample times to smell. If he’s pulling you to smell, use a different tool that inhibits pulling but still allows for some nasal exploration. Even better work on collar pressure work too so your dog learns to smell when there’s less pressure! Walks on a long line on a dirt road or in a field for your dog to zig zag back and forth on to smell is MUCH healthier and more tiring for them as animals than trying to keep them within 6 feet of you on a neighborhood walk.

Please accept that smelling is normal and work WITH your dog on it, rather than just trying to suppress it. Just because that blade of grass or tree isn’t interesting to YOU doesn’t mean your dog deserves a correction. Who cares if you don’t walk the extra block - spend those 5 minutes on that one tree if you need to. Your dog doesn’t complain when you watch YouTube videos of kittens for hours or read the news or binge on Netflix, so let him get his scent binge in to.

Happy smelling pups!

25/04/2024

This post is a very well described but there are actually 2 different things being explained here. What is written as the explanation here is primarily about trigger stacking, which is an accumulation of stresses in one day that create a shorter fuse, regardless of the species. Many humans know this as spoon theory. The other thing being described is called redirection as noted. But that is not necessarily an accumulation of stressors. That is actually an *overreaction* to a specific trigger that causes a cortisol spike in which the individual being triggered has not developed coping skills for seeing/hearing/etc. that particular trigger. In that case, they generally have a target individual, whether that is another dog they live with or a human in their household, that they feel safe enough redirecting that cortisol pike onto. This happens in varying degrees of intensity, none of which are fun for the recipient. If the individual being triggered has *also* had a trigger stacking day, the spike can be even bigger than usual. This is why those who have been my clients know how important it is to keep the dog in questions cortisol level lower overall, with various techniques that I have taught them to use. But with redirection, the dog must *also* be taught what to do instead of immediately going into fight mode. This is usually done gradually and can include going from biting the other dog or human handling the leash, to biting the leash itself or a toy/tug being carried for that purpose to displacement sniffing and eventually just shaking it off and carrying on with one's day. Most dogs who redirect immediately and with intensity cannot even think when in that mind frame so the behavior needs carefully evaluated and the distance needs determined that the dog can think in order to help the dog cope with these triggers more effectively. This is a process that only qualified modern rewards-based trainers and behavior consultants are familiar with. Choosing a trainer who uses correction based techniques such as leash jerks, especially on a prong or a choke collar or choosing to use what many "balanced" trainers call an e-collar but is just a shock collar will only make the cortisol spike higher. That may appear to "stop" the behavior by suppressing it but that "method" is not helping the dog learn any coping skills. Choosing to address this behavior in a punitive manner will create a much more dangerous situation. Please help your dog make better choices by choosing a well qualified modern rewards-based trainer/behavior consultant who can truly help your dog build better nerve pathways.

Redirection isn’t just a thing dogs do.

Redirecting is when we feel a strong surge of emotion, often distress, and instead of that stress being channeled appropriately, it instead gets directed at the wrong individual or thing.

Take Primrose, if there was a dog barking at her at a distance, and she wanted to eat them but was on lead and so unable to get there, she might spin around and bite whoever was holding the lead instead. That bite was intended for the dog egging her on, but ultimately somebody else gets the end of those emotions.

We are not beyond this as humans. It happened a lot. Parents have work troubles, so their tethers are shorter, so the kids get told off more. Somebody has a bad day at school, so they’re nasty to their family when they get home. Somebody is going through external stress, but the person closest to them at the time gets it.

And we all do it. It’s an exaggerated reaction to somebody stalling at a green light after we’ve had a bad day. It’s snapping at somebody we love for next to no reason. It’s being unable to compartmentalize the stressful events and allowing them to flow into other interactions.

The difference between us and dogs is that we can communicate. We have the ability to recognise our mood, how triggered we are, and act accordingly. We all have that ability, but it takes practise to act on it.

I find saying ‘I’m in a bad mood’ helps. We are allowed to communicate that. For some reason, most people feel ashamed to admit it, but letting others know means that often they will act accordingly and let things slide a little more. Even when I’m teaching, I’ll let my students know when I’m grouchy, so they know the frowns aren’t anything to do with them. I also find just acknowledging it is sometimes enough to help improve it.

Secondly, it’s recognizing what we are actually mad with and separating it from the people we are around. It’s not their fault. Alienating people who love you will only make you feel more isolated and distressed in the long run.

Thirdly, it’s apologizing if you do snap. Sometimes our mouths act quicker than our brains, and we say something we instantly regret. No matter how much red you see, apologise if you said something horrible as a redirection. Even if you don’t want to apologise, do. As soon as the dust settles, you’ll regret saying something in the spur of the moment.

Finally, space. This applies to dogs, too. If you feel yourself at risk of redirection, leave. Go to bed and watch some videos, go for a walk, just take yourself away until your heart rate settles and you’re able to think through your reactions.

The way human and dog brains work are remarkably similar in many ways, and it’s both fascinating and uncanny how some people can study or teach behaviour and yet are unable to apply the knowledge onto themselves. Similarly, the more we understand our animal responses to things, the easier it is to ride through our emotions without being submerged.

Redirections are natural, but they are also workable. For both dogs and humans. We just need to change the habit and learn to think through heightened emotions instead of immediately responding to them.