Our process with fearful dogs centres around helping you pinpoint key areas where most of the learning and confidence building happens.

Fearful behaviour in dogs can be very variable, and often becomes ‘generalised’ - which takes time to resolve. Moving too quickly in the short term often creates setbacks in the longterm. We will always take things at the dogs pace - not the pace which is most convenient for the owner.

The FAQ below covers our recommendations and process when it comes to anxious and fearful dogs, as well as additional safety considerations and lifestyle recommendations that need to be taken into account.

Our Assessment Process

Every dog we work with starts with A Temperament, Relationships and Drives Assessment. This is an observational assessment of your dog as an individual, their relationship with you, and how they intend to interact with other animals. This means looking at various factors including:

• Their base temperament (Sensitive Type, Happy-go-lucky, Confident Type)

• Any nervousness or insecurities

• Their energy level (Low, Medium, High, Very High)

• Signs of over-stimulation, obsession, fixation or neuroticism

• How strong and how healthy or unhealthy their attachment is to their owner

• How engaged they are with their owner

• Their relationship with the lead and the tools being used

• Their Pack Drive, Prey Drive, and presence of absence of Defence Drive

It is by understanding all of these factors that we can begin to build a full picture of the root cause of the problem, and how we can begin to work with you towards a lasting resolution. We want to make sure first and foremost that by the end of your first session, you feel confident not only in what’s driving the problem behaviours, but that you feel Calm, Confident and in control of your dog at all times.

Key Skills, Tools and Techniques - Our Training Process

One of the foundational principles for my work with you is what I call Small Changes, Big Wins. This principle is about looking at how by focusing on a small number of key skills, and by making sure you are confident in using the right tools for your dog, we can make a big difference to your experience and relationship.

Once we know that you are using the right tools to ensure you feel in control (Check out our guide on lead placement principles here), we then begin to look at key principles that relate directly to you and your dog.

The techniques we use are always the ones which work best for you and your dog - and we like to ensure that we always test different options to find out what works best for you both. We also put a great deal of value on ensuring the techniques we use are actually effective and based on a thorough and practised experience of Dog Psychology - in a way that is easy for you to understand and easy to put into practice. Because we know that success comes from your ability to repeat what you learn.

Whilst every dog is different, the most common techniques we use in the process of resolving chronic fears and anxiety include:

Proper Tools for Safety and Control

Introducing your dog to a Figure 8 head collar or Halti, which significantly reduces your dogs strength, negates Opposition Reflex (a common cause of reactive behaviour) and allows for much greater freedom and control.

Sensory Order and Lead Tension Fundamentals

When dogs become fearful and shut down, you will very quickly lose access to many of the communication systems (sound, command, scent, sight) that most people heavily rely on to communicate with their dogs. In these situations, the last layer of communication is touch, which comes from the lead, and from you directly.

Most dogs have an unhealthy relationship with lead tension - they may panic, drive into the end of the lead and pull against it in flight. This is the exact opposite of what we want - because that lead may be only form of communication we have. Lead tension exercises help to turn the lead from a restraint into a guide, so that your dog begins to associate lead tension with direction, safety and relaxation.

Place work and Independent relaxation

Many anxious dogs become over reliant on being next to, or touching their owners for security - which can leave them incapable of relying on themselves for confidence. Place work is all about helping your dog to relax independently - its a core skill which we use to transfer a relaxed state to more challenging environments down the line.

Proprioception and grounding work

Proprioception refers to our ability to relate to our environment by means of movement, action and location. In dogs that are fearful or anxious, the ‘flight’ states prevents their ability to relate to the world around them properly. A lot of my clients work with their fearful dogs through the lens of obedience, which fails to recognise that basic activities relate heavily to a dogs sense of self and their surrounding environment. I work with clients to help them learn to calm their dogs into a genuine, relaxed sit - and how we can use different forms of affection in different ways to help our dogs ground themselves and learn to relax.

Pack Drive & ‘Responsibility free’ walking

Walking a nervous dog on the lead is all about bringing the brain out of Defence Drive and into Pack drive, which allows them to better manage environmental stimulus calmly. We also look at how the style of the walk can put unnecessary responsibility on your dog, or remove responsibility, depending on how we walk them.

Unlocking your dog

We explore how Predator/Prey mechanics can impact a dogs movement when they sense threat or danger, and how to ‘unlock’ your dog if they begin to shut down on a walk through parallel movement and lead tension exercises.

Boundary Fears

Getting in the Car | Being in Water | Navigating the Home

Advanced Stage Processes

It is often the case that dogs present fears at specific boundaries which denote the movement from one space to another. Common scenarios include dogs that don’t want to get in the car, dogs that won’t go into the water, dogs which won’t step inside a specific room within the house or onto hard flooring - and other boundary specific scenarios. In these situations, we generally use a combination of lead work, touch and release, and momentum through excitement to help dogs cross boundaries that scare them, which creates a release from their fear.

Touch and Release

Touch and release uses the principle that the thing your dog wants most is to move away from the boundary - so we teach them that if they touch the boundary with any part of their body, we will then move away with them quickly. We first build a strong understanding of the touch and release, before building up your dogs energy and momentum.

Momentum - leap of Faith

Once your dog has a strong understanding that the sooner they move to touch the boundary, the sooner they can move away from it, they begin to increase in excitement and momentum, which creates a ‘leap of faith’ moment- where the momentum to ‘touch’ the boundary carries them straight over the line. This leap of faith is what releases the dogs from their fear - because they made the choice to move into the new space in a healthy way.

Environmental fears

Traffic | Loud Noises | Open spaces

Advanced Stage Processes

Having a dog with an environmental fear can be incredibly overwhelming, not just for the dog, but for the owners. Environmental fears can be very stressful because they are so difficult to control for, and we can end up feeling as isolated as our dogs. Contrary to popular process, the worst thing we can do with a dog that if fearful is to isolate them from everything they find stressful. Just as throwing a dog in at the deep end isn’t going to help them move past their fear, keeping them as far away from stress as possible only leads to an increased sensitivity to these environmental stressors.

Dip In - Dip Out

When working with these types of cases, location is a huge part of success, as is our ability to communicate relaxation to our dogs. Once we have fundamentals in place, I use a process of dipping in and out of higher stimulation and lower stimulation areas - so we can increase exposure for limited time periods, whilst monitoring our dogs stress levels. It is always a fine balance in terms of how long a dog can stay in a place of elevated stimulation, so our job is to coach them through these scenarios and gradually increase stimulation over time. Picking environments with plenty of side streets, quiet corners and grassy areas really helps to create success.

Walk Away - Don’t Run Away

It’s really important that our dogs learn how to leave a stressful environment as well as how to exist within it. Memory and imprint are a powerful part of how dogs become fearful - they develop an understanding that ‘flight’ is how they leave stressful places, so they learn to stay in a flight state for prolonged periods. By helping them to slow down and only leave at a time of calm, in a calm way - we can begin to work back against this flight response by showing our dogs that they can move through these spaces in ‘pack drive’ and leave stressful environments in ‘pack drive’ too.

Social Fears

Fear of People | Fear of other Dogs

Advanced Stage Processes

In most instances, dogs that have a fear of people, and/or a fear of other dogs - comes as a result of development and issues around socialisation during the first 6 months of a dogs life. Early socialisation during this imprint period is essential, and dogs which have been raised with a lack of exposure can be incredibly difficult to treat as adults later in life. That being said, the aim is always to help work with these dogs and help build trust with people and other dogs through controlled, Quality over quantity exposure so that they can build a library of healthy experiences and develop greater levels of confidence.

Separation Anxiety

If you have a dog with Separation Anxiety, my first port of call is always to refer clients to my Separation Anxiety Handbook, which you can download as a PDF straight to your computer, tablet or phone. This booklet covers separation anxiety in great detail - including proper diagnosis of the issues, and has exercises to work through with your dog.

Separation Anxiety Handbook

Working Dogs | Hunting Dogs | Working Lines | Protection Dogs

There are certain breeds and certain lines of dogs which have been selected and bred to work - they are the athletes and SEAL’s of the dog world. These dogs characteristically have much higher energy levels than your standard pet dogs, and benefit from receiving expert training and input from specialists who know the breed well, and know how to get the best of them. These dogs are not going to be happy and not going to be fulfilled as family pets - they need more exercise, more continuous input (a job, a purpose), and an owner with confidence and commitment.

It is essential to understand that you cannot take a dog that has working ancestry and genetics and expect to treat it like a family pet without a job and a purpose. This is true regardless of whether you have a Working Spaniel, Labrador, Shepherd, Pointer, a Border Collie, or any other dog that comes from working lines.

My job as a behaviourist is to look at the full picture when assessing behavioural issues, and with certain working dogs, proper exercise, obedience training, and ‘extracurriculars’ are in my eyes a necessary prerequisite to success, not an optional extra. You are also far less likely to have behavioural issues if you channel your dogs breed specific behaviour and drive into a healthy outlet - and this should be done parallel to any behaviour work we do, not afterwards.

If you have a working dog that is not out working several hours every day, then in simple terms, it is not being fulfilled. So have a look at activities you can do with your dog, such as:

• Swimming

• Search and Rescue / Scent work/Tracking Work

• Gundog Training

• Advanced obedience work

• Agility Work

• Schutzhund / IPO /IGP/ Working Trials

If you have a working dog and are experiencing behavioural issues, you are welcome to book in for an assessment so we can discuss your dogs need further. However please be aware that if you have a working line dog, you will be asked about exercise and purpose - and this may well be a large part of our recommendation for you going forwards.