Bark To Basics

Meet Oslo !

Oslo is a handsome Great Dane who came in to work on his Reactive Behaviour, his owner had tried training before but the last one was abit too afraid to get close to this big boy, but that's nothing new to us here! Oslo is reactive towards passings people & dogs, his owner traveled all the way from Chesterfield to come and get this behaviour sorted with us and I just love to see that kind of dedication 🙌🏼 Oslo is a large boy which made his reactivity all that more difficult to control when he would lunge, bark and pull toward a trigger. Upon meeting Oslo, we took our time and worked on a little self soothing & decompression and after one minor attempt at telling me off, I was able to take the lead and we quickly became friends as he's really a big sweet boy at heart - we got to work!

Once I had taken the lead after taking the time to get to know Oslo, we worked on leash pressure and communication. The last thing you want with a dog of this size is them lunging or rearing up ! We taught Oslo's owner how to use the slip while maintaining a slack lead as we built a nice relaxed heel. Oslo took to this beautifully and quickly learned that the heel position is the best place to be on a walk. After a few repitions to ensure he and his owner were ready, we began working him around triggers. We had discussed that often times, it's not people that are a massive trigger for dogs like Oslo but trigger stacking can impact tolerance and stress can be redirected towards people who want to come over and say hello to an impressive dog like him. It's similar to how road rage for us works, it's the car Infront of you that's stressing you out but you might direct that stress at the person sat next to you. Thankfully he has a brilliant relationship with his owner so he was really eager to please and make the right decisions.

We spent 5 hours in total with Oslo and had him passing dogs and people closer than ever before, calmly, relaxed and without a reaction. Our half day sessions are split into 2.5hrs across a day so we can give our client dogs and owners a well deserved break, alongside little breaks to observe dogs passing us - during one I got a lovely big kiss from Oslo right in my eye, so it's safe to say we built up some trust which is great progress for him ! He wasn't bothered by our additional handler who assists with larger breeds, despite the handler being a male. We spoke about hand feeding and how this is going to help create long term change for Oslo, our end goal is to have him happy, relaxed & neutral to triggers while maintaining his ability to communicate his feelings effectively with his owner without having to react if uncomfortable - we spoke about how this becomes a reliable way to ask for space, when our dogs react one of two things happen - either they are removed from the trigger OR the trigger is removed from them, all they learn is it works and encourages rehearsal of the behaviour again and again. Ontop of covering body language and communication skill sets for his owner, we also covered how trigger stacking plays a role across a 72 hour period and how we can help mitigate the adrenaline and cortisol response via self soothing techniques that will help him hit his REM sleep cycle and as a result, improve tolerance for the next day. The relief on his owners face at the end of our session is something I live for 🙌🏼

It was a pleasure to work with this big lovely boy, and to be honest I was expecting far worse ! Oslo has bags of potential and I can't wait to see his progress in a few weeks time! He currently has some homework to be getting on with until we see him again to maintain, proof and further the skill sets taught in session 🐕✅
Well done Oslo !