Reactivity and Agression.

Does your dog growl at guests, lunge at other dogs in the street, or start fights at the park? Maybe they are okay until someone touches them, protect their food and toys or they show active dislike for just one other breed of dog?

Through Family Dog Mediation and behavioural therapy, there are lots of steps we can take to help your dog start to have a more optimistic approach to these situations, and help you as their guardian understand why they may respond this way and how you can best support them. Many overly reactive or aggressive behaviours stem from fear, and the odd dog (naming no names, usually terriers, my own included) can sometimes get a high from shouting at people. But regardless of the cause, there are things that can be put in place to help reduce these big 'distance increasing' behaviours, help your dog feel safer, and in many cases begin working toward teaching or rebuilding social skills again for your dog.

Working on overly reactive behaviour is in reality very, very different from what you often see on the TV. Longlasting changes come from going at the dog's pace, and most sessions will be non-eventful. 'Boring' is the key to success! But it is possible to reduce, and resolve, saying goodbye to feeling frustrated and embarrassed by your dog.

Contact me to book

Explore our support packages

I can help with:

Aggression directed toward people
Aggression directed toward other dogs
Aggression directed toward other animals
Territorial aggression
Frustration based aggression
Aggression that stems from being handled
Resource guarding aggression
Inter-household aggression
On lead aggression
Muzzle training
Management set ups
Rehoming support
Behavioural Euthansia support
Dogs living in large families who have regular get-togethers and need to be able to get along.
Dogs who have had bad past experiences and need to overcome fear/trauma.
For introducing a new dog to the family.
For working through multidog household issues.
Support introducing friends' dogs to your dog.
For socially awkward dogs who appear to want to interact and play with others but don't quite 'get it right'.
Dogs who get frustrated during greetings.
Dogs who socialise well off the lead but poorly on lead (or vice versa).
For dogs who need remedial socialisation to ensure their social needs are being met.

*I will refer MOST aggression cases that involve children and dogs on to Alex at Dotty Dog Training who specialises in working with children and dogs.

Contact Jen to get started!

REACTIVITY SUPPORT... how it works!

Kickstarter session

We get to know one another. I can observe your dog and have a chance to understand the problems.

We identify triggers and the motivation behind the problem behaviours.

Actionable management can be put in place, and we can get started with some practical training.

Where from here? During progression sessions...

We will work on desensitisation, exposing your dog to triggers in a controlled and gradual way. We will Use counterconditioning to change your dog's response to the triggers as we go, swapping fear, anxiety, or anger for more neutral or even positive emotions.

We will also explore teaching alternative behaviours, such as showing them they have an option to move away rather than feel the need to defend themselves or become aggressive. We can also work on loose lead walking, heel, focusing on you and more!

promoting engagement with you, and a positive mental state is a priority - we want our dog to want to be with us, so we will utilise games to promote and encourage this. Adding in games can help keep the dog in a more optimistic state of mind, aiding the reactivity reduction process.

Building confidence through positive training, clear communication, play and exploration. Consistency with training will make things predictable for your dog, and the changes in behavioural habits will begin to become more ingrained.

We can then work on Proofing the behavior by working around different triggers, for various duration and distances.

Time to generalise... we will work to make sure your dog can cope, and thrive in a variety of contexts.

Now the work should be paying off!

Contact Jen to get started!