Intro Lesson
A solid enrichment and management plan is crucial for long-term success with reactivity training. If your dog doesn't have a solid enrichment plan, often reactivity training isn't very effective. Additionally, many dogs I have worked with have reactivity significantly reduce simply by shoring up their enrichment.
During the intro lesson, we will creating a doable and effective Enrichment and Management plan. The Intro Lesson is a stand-alone service, but is designed to be followed by either the Reactivity Coaching Track or the Pro Daytrain Track.
This lesson consists of two parts - a 45 minute virtual meeting where we focus on analyzing and creating your dog's custom Enrichment Plan, and an in-person meeting in your home.
Enrichment is making sure that your dog's needs (physical, mental, social, health, etc.) are met. This can be particularly tricky to do if your dog is reactive, so the virtual meeting will be focused on analyzing what is working with your current enrichment, what isn't, and brainstorming ideas that you can do to shore that enrichment up as well as making sure we're hitting all aspects of enrichment.
During the in-person portion of the Intro Lesson, I will demo any portions of the enrichment plan that would be helpful, and we'll also work on management strategies so we can reduce the times your dog is showcasing their reactivity, as the more they practice reacting, the more difficult the training can be.
Management differs from training in that management is not about changing the dog's reaction to a trigger, but instead making it far less likely that they'll encounter a trigger. So the management plan may include things like adding temporary barriers, masking noise, etc. to reduce the chance your dog will observe another dog as well as some handling strategies for when you are out and about and you do see a dog.
