Rethinking Reactivity with Jessica Wheatcraft

Caring for a reactive dog, or any dog that exhibits maladaptive behaviors, is hard. It often puts a high emotional toll on the person, who may already be struggling to meet their dog's needs while trying to juggle their own lives. And worse, so many go through this journey facing judgment from people who mean well, but don't truly "get it." If you have ever felt alone on this journey, this one is for you. 

👉 In this episode, I talk with Jess Adam from Handlers and Humans about:

• What the studies show about the mental health of guardians of dogs with behavior challenges
• Why accepting your dog can feel like grief
• Caregiver burden and the toll it takes on everyday life
• How to know if you are normalizing the emotional toll and abandoning yourself along the way
• What dog professionals could be doing differently to support their clients
• And more!

🌟 About Jess Adam:

Jess Adam is a licensed professional counselor based in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, twin boys, an 11-year-old reactive pit mix named Dio, and a cat named Bat. Passionate about both mental health and animal welfare, Jess created Handlers & Humans—a coaching practice that helps dog guardians and canine professionals navigate the emotional side of life with complex dogs.
With over a decade of experience as a therapist and counseling professor, Jess brings clinical expertise and lived experience together in a warm, evidence-based approach. She’s currently deepening her work by studying veterinary mental health, further bridging the gap between human wellbeing and animal care. Through individual coaching, group programs, and online courses, Jess helps people show up with more confidence, calm, and compassion for their pets and themselves.

➡️ Website

➡️ Instagram: handlersandhumans

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🐾 For Pet Parents of reactive dogs: Reactivity Roadmap 

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Alert barking. Territorial barking. Attention barking. Demand barking. There are many  "types" of barking that occur inside of the home, but what is actually happening in these scenarios? Why do these types of barking occur so frequently, and why it so hard to get dogs to stop? In this episode we cover:

- How to unpack barking to identify what is maintaining that behavior

- How the environment is reinforcing your dog

- Strategies for reducing barking towards foot traffic and delivery people

- Teaching dogs to self interrupt

- And so much more

About Kiki:

Kiki Yablon, MA, KPA CTP, CPDT-KA, is a Chicago-based dog trainer who holds a master’s degree in applied behavioral science from the University of Kansas, where she conducted thesis research related to excessive barking in dogs. In addition to helping pet-loving households, Kiki teaches fellow professionals through several channels, including as a faculty member for the Karen Pryor Academy and as a co-instructor for Dr. Susan Friedman’s Behavior Works.

http://kikiyablondogtraining.com/

@kiki.yablon on instagram

Support for dog trainers: Leash Reactivity Mentorship for Professionals 

Support for pet parents: Reactivity Roadmap

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

You might be wondering - what do free living dogs have to do with leash reactivity? 

Before the current life we have with pet dogs in Western countries, dogs were free living. And in many countries around the world including India, Turkey, and Mexico, you will still find tens of millions of free living dogs whose lives are drastically different than those of pet dogs in the U.S. 

What does it mean for a dog to have a good life? Is it the autonomy to move about as they please? Or is it a roof over their head, a soft bed, and taken everywhere on leash, at the direction of a human? 

In order for us to help reactive dogs, we need to understand who dogs are without all of the artificial constructs we have placed on them, including leashes and fences. What is it about barriers and humans that have such a dramatic influence on a dog's behavior? What can we learn about free living dogs that will help us better support our pet dogs? 

Tell me what you think about this episode by emailing me at [email protected]

About Kapil:

Kapil Patwardhan works to serve free-living dogs in India. He plays many roles - as volunteer providing medical aid and food for dogs in Pune. As an educator, helping the community coexist with dogs by understanding body language and reducing conflict. As an author, he has written two children's books, using story telling to aid children learn empathy and rest words street animals. As an independent researcher, he works on different research projects focussing on understanding the dog side of the human-dog relationship by collecting ethnographic data on free living dogs. While dogs take up most of his 24 hours, he finds time to step away from the dog world by performing stand up comedy and playing professional darts.

Tours: https://getfloof.com/collections/2027-dog-study-and-immersive-experience-tours

Free ebook of the kid’s book - https://ibh-hundeschulen.org/tipps/neu-der-hund-der-zur-schule-geht/

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Katrina wrote a really fantastic blog post called Why You Should Run From Engage/Disengage. Quick caveat, it's not because she doesn't like the protocol. 

In this episode, Katrina and I discuss:

• Contingencies in training - what they are and how to analyze them
• How the execution of open bar/closed bar and engage/disengage can actually create unintended consequences for reactive dogs
• How to determine whether or not your procotol is working
• Why and how high value food can be coercive for dogs
• And so much more

About Katrina Per-Carruthers:

Katrina is a professional animal trainer with more than 15 years of experience supporting dog and horse owners across Canada.

Katrina  blends an academic foundation in psychology with extensive continuing education through organizations such as IAABC and CASI, and has trained with respected industry leaders including Hannah Branigan.

Katrina's unique background as a former pain-science focused Registered Massage Therapist gives her exceptional insight into biomechanics and body language — allowing her to recognize subtle physical changes that may influence behaviour and helps her to design elegant solutions for even the most complex training challenges.

Katrina has been featured as a guest on the Lead a Horse to Water podcast where she discussed cross-species behaviour and practical training strategies. She lives in Ladner with her Pembroke Welsh Corgi Maeve and her Haflinger horse Samwise

Contingency Analyzer Tool

The Dog School

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

We're starting this new season with a discussion on ACE Freework. ACE stands for Animal Centered Education, and it was started by Sarah Fisher. Sadly, Sarah is no longer with us, but I know how much her work has meant to people and how impactful it has been for dogs, and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to talk about it.

We're joined by the lovely Kim Palermo, who helps us break down ACE Freework, what it is, how it's beneficial, and so much more. 

Get on the waitlist for Reactivity Roadmap

About Kim:

Kim Palermo CPDT-KA is a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor (CCUI) and ACE (Animal Centred Education) Practitioner. She has been working with dogs professionally for over 20 years and has been an avid dog owner and sports enthusiast her entire life. Kim owns a dog training and dog walking business with her husband near Boston, Massachusetts and teaches fulltime at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. She has a fondness for helping dogs with big feelings, and uses compassion and kindness with every animal and human that she works with.

Kim’s passion is to help others pursue their dream of training dogs and she continues to expand her business in a way that supports growth, mentorship, and opportunity for her team.  She is a mentor for the Control Unleashed certification program, the CATCH dog trainers program, and for individual trainers.  She has spoken in conferences, teaches in-person workshops, and presents for her local community. During her free time she likes to escape to the woods to hike, is a beekeeper, raises a flock of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guinea hens, and dreams of the day when she has a farm.

kimpalermo.com
facebook.com/kimberly.palermo
instagram/kimanddogs

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Join the leash reactivity mentorship starting March 22nd

This episode is all about dogs that bark/lunge/growl at strangers, both on walks and inside the home. Lisa and I discuss:

• The difference between reactivity and aggression
• How to help dogs with stranger directed aggression acclimate to new people
• Why "first impressions" are so important for these cases
• How to tell if the dog is actually comfortable around a guest
• What to teach dogs who are reactive on leash towards people
• And so much more

About Lisa:

Lisa Mullinax is approaching 25 years of experience in canine behavior. A Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Lisa has lead behavior programs at multiple animal shelters and provides behavior support to private clients. Specializing in aggression, Lisa now brings her insight and expertise to coaching behavior professionals on navigating their complex cases. Her Stranger-Directed Aggression series teaches dog pros how to get success and stay safe in high stakes cases.

https://www.lisamullinax.com
https://www.lisamullinax.com/aggressionbytes

And for additional resources mentioned on the show, click here. 

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Get on the waitlist for the next leash reactivity mentorship!

Washington area folks – sign up for the seminar with Micaela and Mercedes here!

Find the resource links mentioned in this episode here.

Behavior issues in dogs are almost always symptoms of other underlying issues. So when we focus only on the behavior issue itself, we’re missing the bigger picture, often excluding interventions that would likely make a bigger impact on the dog’s behavior than training ever could. One of the most influential factors in a dog’s behavior is how they feel physically. There is a very high number of dogs experiencing physical discomfort and expressing that discomfort via what we would label as a behavior or training issue. 

To help unpack this topic, I brought in Micaela Young, DVM, CPDT-KA, FFCP, FDM and Mercedes Sonnier ABCDT, CPDT, CBCC, FMD. We cover:

• How discomfort and pain present themselves in dogs
• What to do when you suspect something is wrong, but the vet thinks the dog is “fine”
• How changing assessment procedures in the veterinary office setting can have a big impact on more accurate diagnoses
• Resources that pet parents and pet professionals can use to help diagnose discomfort in dogs
• Why you can’t “rule out pain” in dogs
• And so much more

About Micaela:

Micaela was a trainer before going to vet school and has always approached veterinary medicine through a behavior lens.Her business, Happy Lead Pet Behavior & Vet Care, which focused on in-home behavior & veterinary care for behaviorally-challenged pets, operated until she recently joined Urban Animal, a worker-owner veterinary cooperative in Seattle, WA. She now leads Happy Animal, a program that integrates virtual, ambulatory, and in-practice behavior consulting to maximize success with changing behaviors that happen in or out of the practice. 

Micaela uses her experience as a human with chronic pain that’s been difficult to navigate even with an ability to verbalize the situation to help animals who are unable to advocate for themselves.

About Mercedes:

Mercedes Sonnier ABCDT, CPDT, CBCC, FMD has extensive education in posture and gait analysis. She operates her own business, The Motivated K9 near Tacoma Washington. 

Offering private lessons, adventure days, board and train and specializing in boarding for dogs that are not suitable for traditional boarding. 

Passionate about approaching behavior problems holistically.  She believes that there are often many factors influencing a dog’s behavior and we should try to address as many as we can. She competes in a variety of dog sports and currently shares her home with an APBT and a GSD.

Mercedes and Micaela have bonded over their shared passion for approaching behavior cases holistically, with a particular focus on addressing underlying internal physical factors that often go overlooked or underaddressed.

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Join me & Dan LIVE for a 2 day reactive dog workshop in Livermore, CA from February 14th-15th. Learn more and sign up here. 

Join the waitlist for the March 15th cohort for the Leash Reactivity Mentorship for Professionals AND get $50 off. 

If you have a reactive dog and you're out in the real world with them, it might feel like you are walking through a minefield. You have to keep track of and account for so many things - yourself, your dog, and whatever is going on in the environment. 

In today's episode, I wanted to talk about the skills that handlers of reactive dogs need to be building, to be able to guide their dogs through the real world more successfully. And to have this conversation I wanted to bring in Dan Clark, a colleague and fellow behavior consultant. Dan takes a lot of leash reactivity cases and spends a lot of time with his clients out in the real world, helping them build their confidence and learn how to navigate a wide range of scenarios. 

We discuss:

•  Situational awareness and how to set your dog up for success
• The importance of body positioning so your dog can respond more easily to you
• How to work with your dog if they are over threshold
• How to build your dog's attention and training in a new environment
• And more!

About Dan:

Dan Clark is the Founder and Co-Owner of Out of the Bark, a dog training and behavior consulting company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA-CTP), with over eight years of professional experience and more than a decade of hands-on work with dogs.

Dan’s work is deeply shaped by his journey with his own reactive dog, Jax. After experiencing firsthand the limitations and fallout of punitive training methods, Dan shifted his approach toward science-based, trust-centered behavior modification. That experience led him to pursue formal education in animal behavior, volunteer with shelters, and dedicate his career to helping dogs struggling with fear, anxiety, and aggression.

Dan specializes in complex behavior cases, including reactivity, aggression, and dogs with bite histories. His approach emphasizes situational awareness, environmental management, handler advocacy, and building skills that translate to real-world environments. He is known for his calm, practical guidance and his ability to help owners understand not just what to do, but why it works.

Through his work, Dan focuses on empowering dog owners to advocate for their dogs, prioritize emotional safety, and build lasting trust that supports meaningful, long-term behavior change.

Links:

www.outofthebark.com - For in person consults and training. Zoom consulting and training is also offered for individuals outside of our service area.

Instagram: @outofthebark

Leash reactive workshop for pet parents: https://bigfeelingsclub.eventbrite.com

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

If you do a Google search on how to counter condition reactive behaviors on leash, it spits out a simplified version of the process. Use super high value treats, make sure your dog is under threshold, feed your dog when they notice another dog,  and with time you'll change your dog's emotional state from a negative one to a positive one. Sounds great, right! So then why is it that some people will do this for years, and not get that result?  Is it possible that people just don't have a full understanding of processes like counter conditioning, classical conditioning, and systematic desensitization? 

To help us understand these concepts, I wanted to bring in Dr. Simon Gadbois. In this episode we cover:

- What counter conditioning was originally designed to do

- Why the identification of the the aversive stimulus (or trigger) can be so complicated

- How we are almost always using a combination of processes, whether we are aware of it or not

- How dogs pick up on our cues, including our pheromones

- Simon's work in his olfactory lab

- And so much more

About Simon:

Simon Gadbois did a PhD in animal behaviour and non-invasive behavioural endocrinology in the 90’s with Drs John Fentress and Peter McLeod at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research (1974–2007). His PhD dissertation focussed on lupine socioendocrinology (Canis lupus) but he also worked on other projects in motor behaviour sequences in red foxes, coyotes, wolves (with Drs John Fentress and Fred Harrington), spatial cognition in pigeons (with Dr. Werner Honig), and olfactory learning in rats (with Drs Vincent LoLordo and Richard E. Brown).
In the past 15 years he has focussed on research with sniffer dogs as the common denominator: Reptile conservation (using dogs as research assistants to find the species-at-risk), non-invasive surveys of coyotes with canines (via scent-marking information), and working with sniffer dogs in biomedical applications (early detection of diseases, alert dogs). He also worked with a few fish species in olfactory learning (zebra fish), social communication (elephant nose fish), and behavioural ecotoxicology (mummichogs).
Simon Gadbois integrates ethology, experimental psychology and neuroscience in his research on domestic and wild canids. He favours a synthetic approach that includes a strong focus on the importance of motivational factors in working dogs (and canid behaviour in general) as well as a post-cognitivist approach (including a zoosemiotic approach) to behaviour and information processing in dogs.
In 2006 he founded the “Canid Behaviour Research Lab” now the “Wildlife Ethology & Canine Olfaction Lab” at Dalhousie University where dozens of Border Collies (and other working breeds - mostly from working lines) set paw as volunteer research assistants and experimental participants.

https://simon.gadbois.org

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs

Dog trainers - ever wonder if you could be serving your clients better? 

In this episode I wanted to zoom out and look at dog training from the lens of the services we are providing for our clients, and how we can get better outcomes. I bring in Jeff Silverman from Training Tracks in Cincinnati, Ohio to unpack:

• How to build rapport with clients from the beginning
• Why having a variety of services is necessary to meet your client's needs more effectively
• Creating clarity around the role of the client, and the role of the trainer in changing the dog's behavior
• How holding clients accountable is not about compliance, but cooperation
• And more!

If you're a trainer and you're feeling stuck on this very issue, I invite you to join my private mastermind, The Case Collaborative, starting January 4th. 

About Jeff:

Jeff Silverman and his wife Mel own Training Tracks in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. They have two facilities where they offer pet dog training, behavior consulting, boarding, and daycare with an emphasis on providing practical client-focused training for family pets.

Jeff started training in 1996 as a shelter volunteer looking to help keep dogs in their homes and remains focused on helping average pet owners get the most out of life with their dogs.

While Training Tracks primarily teaches family pet manners, Jeff focuses on aggression and fear in his personal caseload. Jeff has volunteered for all the R+ focused professional organizations including stints as Chair of the APDT board, on the IAABC certification review committee, and much more.

For courses on helping reactive dogs for both pet parents and dog professionals go to www.jessicawheatcraft.com

Subscribe to my mailing list to be the first to know about learning opportunities for reactive dogs