Hey there, dog lover! Welcome to this episode of the Unconventional Dog Trainer. We hope you enjoy our battle tested, relationship based solutions for helping your unconventional dog shine, with your host, Luzelle Cockburn. Let's dive in.

What can you do to help your reactive dog? Hi, I'm Luzelle, the unconventional dog trainer. And in today's episode, we are going to talk about the three strategies I use with every reactive dog to help them. But before we get started, remember, my philosophy is every dog is different. And I cannot tell you how many dogs I screwed up because I tried to prevent issues or fix.

Issues that I thought would come up from one dog based on what I learned and had to fix 10 times from my previous dog. It wasn't until I actually learned to just take time out. See what the dog in front of me is giving me and then responding accordingly that I stopped creating issues for myself now How can you do that?

You can head on over to thedogtraininglab. com and you can grab our free resource How to become your dog's best friend. That is What I use mentally, it's my mental checklist that I've written down for you that I go through with every dog I work with so I've shared it with you so you can get to know your dog a whole lot better and just by following the getting to know Their dog's better.

A lot of owners have seen huge changes in their dog's behavior. All right, so without further ado, let's get started. So the first thing I implement with a dog is a stress detox. Why a stress detox? And I will cover what it is and exactly how to do it in a future episode. Now, I do a stress detox because I want the dog and owner to start from a relaxed point, especially a reactive dog, because usually the dog owner, if there's a reactive team going through the spiral of despair, I understand the spiral of despair, because I have been there, my friend.

It is when. You take your dog out for a walk, nothing, you've not had an incident before, or even if you've had, even if, or even if it's the first walk, you take your dog out, and then they have a big emotion and a big blow up, and so they react. That gives you a fright, not only that you're shocked and surprised and you have feelings of, Maybe shame, maybe embarrassment, maybe confusion.

And it all comes down to, you don't know what to do with this information your dog's giving you. Because it could be at something totally innocent like a child. Now, what do you do? Problem is, we don't know what to do. So, we have all these feelings of stress and fear come through us. And of course, that releases.

The hormones that our dogs can smell. And once our dogs smell the fear hormones coming through our body, that they caused, don't get me wrong, they, they caused it, but of course, they're your dog. How could they cause you stress? In their mind, they do not connect. The two that it was them that caused you those feelings to them.

They just now all of a sudden smell all those fear, um, pheromones and smells and scents. And now all of a sudden they're thinking, Oh, I must have been right. And that person or dog or whoever or whatever it was must be scary. So I was right. And so the circle of the cycle of despair starts because next time you go out.

You are going to start from a more stressed state of mind because the dog reacted and so it just continues. And then your dog reacts and then it's, Oh yes, I was right because now my owners lost it. And then you start panicking before you even start taking your dog out. And this is the problem with most reactive dogs and owners.

And I can tell you this because it's. I have been there. This is how I know. Um, so, this is why I do a stress detox. For a period of time, depending on the dog and the owner, stay home. Do things at home. Learn the part two, which is the skills. While you just completely stop walks, because no good is going to come from continuing in that stressed state.

When are you most likely to overreact or punch someone or yell at somebody? When you're stressed or when you're calm? Of course it's when you're stressed. So, first things first, we need to bring the owner and the dog's stress levels down. Secondly, while we're going through that stress detox, We need to build in the skills you guys will need because you are a team so your team needs some skills in order to, um, handle stressful situations successfully.

So during that period of the stress detox, it's not that we're not going for a walk, but keep in mind a half an hour walk is a half an hour walk, whether it's in your backyard or out and about. But during the time of the stress detox, We are going to do our exercise in the backyard or in the hallway or in the house or somewhere really calm and relaxed.

We just do not need any stress events right now. And then we will teach skills. Of course, all reactive dogs need to learn to wear a muzzle for their safety and yours. And to show if something happens, at least nothing bad will happen to your dog, because They can see that you are taking steps, um, dog control or whoever you got in trouble with can see you already taking steps to help and support your dog.

So muzzle training is definitely something that's important. And you also need to learn how to maneuver your dog, how to help them, what they need, what their critical distances are. All these sorts of things is going to fall into this period of time where you and your dog are going to learn to. Work together.

And then, of course, thirdly, you have to work on your relationship because the whole reason we're in this reactive state is usually because our dog has lost trust and faith in and on us because they reacted, we couldn't deal with it. And now they're like, Oh, my human can't deal with it. I have to deal with it.

Either that or another dog, maybe. Bailed your dog up and now they think, Oh, my human can't deal with any situations. If my best course of action is an offense rather than defense, because if I wait for my owner, they're not going to be able to do anything. So your dog is, these are the dogs that become, that go out to attack a dog after they've.

Um, had a dog in their space or even was attacked. Um, and just keep in mind, according to dog rules, the dog that enters the other dog's space is in the wrong. So, if I come over and give you a hug, I'm in the wrong if you don't like hugs. That's how it works. According to dogs. It's not the dog who or the person who doesn't like hugs That's at fault in dog world It's the person or dog who entered the other animal's space without permission They are the ones that are in the wrong whether you like it or not That's the reality of the situation.

So this is where I find that a lot of people, the attitude of, uh, all dogs should play is really not helpful for dogs because the biggest thing that dogs should learn is proper, uh, slow, soft greetings, not rushing into another dog space because that's a recipe for a dog fight. All right. So you need to work on your relationship.

Um. So we will, we usually set up small challenges so that you and your dog can overcome these. It doesn't matter that they react. It's how quickly they recover and how well you can deal with this. Because if you can learn not to dump all those stress hormones, then your dog's going to learn, Oh, my human's actually got control of the situation.

I don't actually need to worry anymore because my owner's got this. So, these are the three things I do. Just to recap, I start with a stress detox. During that stress detox, I teach my dogs the skills that we will need to work through um, their reactivity. So I will teach them basically. All the maneuvers we're going to need we'll muzzle train them and everything like that so that they can have success.

And then thirdly, I work on our relationship and I teach my dog that they can trust me, rely on me, and that I'm going to be there to protect them and take control over the situation. And that they don't need to take charge because I've got this. And that is what I do with every reactive dog. What it looks like is different for every dog because if I do the this this Specific thing with one dog that does not mean it's going to be helpful for another dog because every dog is different So go and grab the how to become your dog's best friend Um, workbook from TheDogTrainingLab.Com and get to know your dog a whole lot better so you can help them more. And I would appreciate your feedback. If you found this episode helpful at all, you can also reach out. I would be more than happy to help you and your reactive dog. Happy training.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Unconventional Dog Trainer. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe so you don't miss an episode, or share it with a friend to help us help more dogs enjoy long, happy lives in their homes. We also have more resources for you at thedogtraininglab. com.

Catch you in the next episode.

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Kindest regards

Luzelle the Dog Trainer & The Naughty Good Dogs!