Intentions are important!

Our first order of business with reactivity is to correct mental arousal (the precursor to reactivity) because reactivity is simply NOT acceptable. Ever. It is dangerous, scary to others and extremely combative to the oncoming dogs so we need to teach our dogs not to make reactive choices and then teach them how to make calm and polite choices instead!

Dogs sometimes look at something calmly with no naughty intentions and then look away and carry on but sometimes they look at something with reactive or ‘naughty’ intentions (fixation, loading, mental arousal) that will escalate into reactive behaviours/choices if not corrected by their handler and it’s VERY important that the human handler learns how to tell the difference and help their dogs accordingly, such as by intervening with a ‘No’ correction to help her continue staying mentally calm and behavioural polite and we heel past with ease. This may sound simple, but I assure you that a very complex and meaningful process is going on that I’ll be patterning with the dog over and over to repattern her mindset and behaviour from reactive to calm/polite.