03/06/2025
TUESDAY'S TRAINING TIP 🐕
Trigger Stacking - What Is It And Why Should We Be Aware Of It?
First of all, what is a trigger?
This can be anything that causes our dog to feel anxious, scared, excited, or stressed. Some common examples include dogs, people, loud noises, wildlife, or even places such as the vets.
Lots of the time in dog behaviour, we try to look for patterns. But, have you ever thought:
"one day my dog is fine, the next he will bark and react to the dog/person/etc, it seems random"?
Imagine this for yourself:
You wake up with a headache that doesn't seem to be going away. You go downstairs to make your breakfast, but find the milk has gone sour so your planned breakfast of cereals is a no-go. You're in the car on the way to work, but there's unplanned roadworks ahead, so you're stuck in terrible traffic, and now you're late to work. On your lunch break, you decide to head to the cafe. Someone pushes in front of you in the queue - normally, you'd shake your head and continue with your day, but this time, you snap!
Across the morning, each individual thing that happened to you had stacked up until that final thing eventually made the day too much to handle. It can be the same for our dogs when dealing with multiple triggers in a day.
You may notice certain signs from your dog that they're having a stressful day, such as their engagement and focus not being the same level it usually is, or perhaps they can't settle as well.
This is why understanding your dog, as well as their triggers and behaviour are so important when dealing with things such as reactivity, so that we can set our dog up for a successful training walk instead of causing more reactions and more stress.
It's useful to know some decompression games and techniques to use with your dog, as well as giving them time to rest after their walk or vet/groomer visit.
Do you know your dog's triggers?
📷 Image: Mad Paws
