Reactive Rover Services

Our Reactive Rover classes and other Reactive Dog Services focus on helping you help your dog become less reactive towards other dogs while on leash. Our approach is to teach you how to apply practical management and humane training to help your dog learn alternate behaviors to reactivity. We teach you how to use these techniques effectively in the real world to help you handle situations as they arise.

Our Reactive Rover services are intended to address a variety of aspects of reactivity towards other dogs, depending on your dog's individual needs. These are the Reactivity Services we currently offer:

• Reactivity Evaluation
• Reactive Rover 1 (Group Class - 6 Weeks)
• Reactive Rover 2 (Group Class - 4 Weeks)
• Social Skills (Group Class - NOTE: Under Development)
• Reactive Rover Training Walks (Optional Add-on for Classes)
• Private Consultations for dog-dog reactivity

Reactivity Evaluation

To determine which of our training services would be the best fit for your dogs training needs, the first step will be for us to evaluate your dog. Once you have registered for your evaluation, we will contact you to set up a time to meet with you at our office.

When we meet, we will discuss your dog's reactivity to develop a good understanding of the challenges you are facing. After that, we will evaluate your dog's reaction to one or more of our own dogs in an large outdoor setting, noting the distances and types of reactions (including stress signs) which we observe as our dogs approach.

The evaluation takes about 30-45 minutes to complete and half of the fee paid can be applied later towards the service you decide to take with us.

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Reactive Rover 1

Reactive Rover 1 class establishes the foundations you will need to get your dog started on the right track for learning better behavior. The focus of the class is to...

• Establish a solid management plan to prevent further development of the reactivity
• Teach you training techniques to help your dog learn to listen to and watch other dogs with greater relaxation
• Teach your dog better impulse control to reduce excitement-based reactions
• Help you build confidence about how to handle situations in a calm and directed manner to be more proactive and less reactive

All reactive dogs can benefit from the techniques we will be teaching you, but not all are suitable for the Reactive Rover class. If you are interested in getting help, please register for our Reactivity Evaluation to give us a chance to observe your dog's

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Reactive Rover 2

Once you have learned the foundations for how to teach your dog to become less reactive in Reactive Rover 1, it is important to keep working with your dog to help them continue to improve.

While this is possible to do on your own, but it can sometimes sometimes be difficult to have access to other dogs to work with and/or people willing to help you. Sometimes it can also be challenging to know how far to go with your training without pushing too fast or knowing when you need to raise the bar for your dog. Reactive Rover 2 class is intended to address these challenges in a controlled and supportive environment.

Some of the benefits...

• Each new class has different dogs attending, so you are able to work with a variety of changing challenges in each class
• Classes cycle every four (4) weeks so that the time commitment isn't excessive and the cost is reduced

The class gives you the opportunity to stay enrolled until your dog is able to tolerate having non-reactive dogs pass by at close distances (5-8 feet) without showing overt reactivity. If your intent is to have your dog start to learn how to socialize (say hello and sniff) with other dogs, our Social Skills class (currently under development) will help you achieve this in a safe way.

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Social Skills

Is your dog uncomfortable with other dogs in the last 2 feet (or when sniffing starts) when they come over to visit? Our Social Skills class (currently under development) may be a good fit for you.

The objectives of the class are to provide your dog with safe opportunities to learn on-leash social skills with other dogs while you learn how to read their body language to maximize success and minimize stress. All dogs in class (including ours) are required to wear basket-style muzzles to ensure everyone's safety and to reduce your stress of training.

If this sounds like something which you would like to pursue, please contact us and let us know that you would like to be notified when the class starts up.

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Reactive Rover Training Walks

Are you taking or have you taken the Reactive Rover or Social Skills class and want to have a professional dog trainer come along to give you training feedback on your walks? Would you like someone to be your extra set of eyes and ears for greater safety? Do you need to have another calm dog to practice with?

We can help you by...

• Giving you observational feedback to help you improve your training techniques and  to teach you how to set your dog up for success
• Reviewing your management plan at home and your management during walks to make sure that your dog's environment isn't undermining your training
• Acting as spotters for other dogs on walks
• Providing a "distraction dog" to work with if you have limited access to other dogs or need to set up more controlled situations than what you have in your neighborhood

You can either sign up for the walks at the time of class registration (for a discount) or later on while you are attending class.

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