As you learned in our Intro to Fear, Reactivity & Aggression course, reactivity is an abnormal (emotional) response to trigger(s) present in the dog's environment. Those triggers may be anything from a car, to a dog, to a plastic bag blowing in the street. It doesn't matter how benign we believe the trigger is. What matters is what our dog believes and most importantly how our dog feels when presented with it.

In order to start the process of working through our dog's reactivity, we must have some basic skills on board. These will be our foundation upon which we build everything else. As with anything, you MUST have a solid foundation or everything else will eventually crumble.

Once we have built our solid foundation, then and only then can we progress to the second level, working our skills with varying distractions. Once we have solidified that level, then we can move onto working with our own dog's specific trigger(s).

If we rush any of these things, or are not consistent with our training and management tactics then what we are working so hard to build will eventually fail.