Our Calm Pack Therapy (CPT)
At Just Be More Dog, we work really hard to offer our clients our specialist Calm Pack Therapy programme.
It’s been really successful in helping our clients and their dogs really improve and often solve their fear-based dog-on-dog challenges.
It is one of the most rewarding things we do.
It takes place initially over 5 carefully managed sessions in a secure environment, we then discuss with you the progress and look to gently improve your dogs’ ability to cope with other dogs whilst aiming to keep it fun for them and us…so the dog experience has a rewarding association too.
Results for our clients have been really amazing and rewarding for all.
On our own we cannot stop our dog’s aggression….but we can enable our dogs to learn from the best teachers possible, other dogs.
Why is your dog aggressive?
The vast majority of dog-on-dog aggression is fear-based aggression, it is a level of stress that a dog has reached in a moment where they can no longer cope…and at that moment they may well display aggressive behavior, aka reactivity.
This means that a dog has reached a point of stress in that particular moment where they cannot cope with the situation,e.g. meeting a new dog, and has three options of action ( all completely instinctive);
A) run away
B) freeze and ignore
C) display aggression to rid himself of the stress & fear
Displaying aggression occurs when the dog cannot do A) or B), or has learned that by displaying aggression (C) they can remove themself from the stressful and scary situation one way or another.
Fear-based aggression is a communication to the other dog and us that I just want you to go away, and in dog terms, this means ‘I need you to move back outside of my personal safe space’.
At this moment the dog can no longer cope with the stress of the moment and needs space.
How to help your dog cope
As with most fear issues one of the most effective ways for a dog to learn to become more resilient is for them to learn for themselves, by being taught by other dogs. They can be desensitised over time to stressful situations with other dogs.
Learning from their own kind with calm leadership and support from us is a really effective and kind approach to improve the quality of their lives.
Pack therapy with a number of calm non-reactive dogs, managed at a pace and kept safe, is a truly effective and confidence building approach to minimise and often solve dog-on-dog aggression.
It can only take place at the pace the reactive dog can cope with and with as many positive moments as possible for the reactive dog to reinforce the overall move to a more mentally resilient state around other dogs.
It is unlikely to be a rapid process and we will look for our reactive dog to improve his ability to cope with the stress, his resilience, gradually over time.
How can us dog guardians help the process?
It is totally within our gift to support this learning process both physically and emotionally.
Our dogs look at us and check in with us all the time. They are constantly listening to our tone of voice and watching our body language to see how we are feeling about any given situation.
Our job in this learning process is to provide consistently calm and confidential communication to our reactive dog so we are constantly telling him that we are happy with the situation…he will learn to trust us and learn that he does not need to react.
Success and improvement will always be specific to the dog
It is important to realise and accept that all our dogs are different. They have different genes, life experiences and sometimes traumatic histories.
Our goal in improving our dogs ability to be with other dogs has to be co-existence…if we get that we have succeeded. Anything else is a great bonus.
This improved quality of life is for us as well as our dogs, we will all need to have patience and keep a positive mindset.
If you have a dog that is dog-on-dog reactive with aggression please get in touch and let’s see how we at Just Be More Dog can help.
Ian and Amy
Please get in touch by ian@justbemore.dog or below
