Stop Walking your Dog

This new book by Niki French is like a breath of fresh air. So often when people come to us with a reactive dog they almost burst into tears when we tell them they don’t have to take their dog out twice a day. In fact taking their dog out twice a day is doing more harm than good.

Every time a dog reacts (usually because it’s scared), the behaviour is being made worse. There are so many things you can do in the home and garden to keep a dog mentally stimulated and active while building confidence and trust.

Niki French goes on to include over excited dogs and puppies too, which is great.

It’s not your fault

The other thing I love about this book is that Niki states, not every dog that’s reactive has had a bad experience and more importantly it’s not your fault!

Walking a dog when you are constantly on edge, worrying about what’s coming around the corner does you nor him/her any good. Spending time, teaching calm, trust, confidence with some great at home/garden activities or even outside but in a safe space is a great step forward to being able to take walks with your dog where you are not constantly on edge or on the ‘look out.’

This book explains why walking your dog isn’t always a good idea. What to do instead with ideas for activites. It gives clear guidance how to move beyond this stage and start getting out and walking your dog.

No more twice a day, every day

One of the real points I love is moving away from the attitude of ‘you must walk your dog twice a day.’ Even if you don’t have a reactive or over excited dog this doesn’t have to be the rule. What maters for your dog is not being bored and spending time with you. A dog that spends several periods of time in a day with it’s owner doing fun activities and training in the garden is getting far better quality out of it’s day than the owner who walks around the park, following the dog, while talking on the phone.

Don’t get me wrong. Your dog does need to get out and about to see the world, but not necessarily twice a day, every day of the year unless that works for you.

Think about doing some tracking training – reactive dogs cope well with this and are very welcome in our tracking class. 

If you have a reactive dog and need help, get in touch for a chat to see if we are the people to help you.