10/28/2026
Meet Cairo! 🐾 He's a big, handsome young Doberman who's been working with us to become calmer and braver around unknown people and other dogs. Cairo tries REALLY hard to be brave, and his humans are fantastic at supporting him.
And one of the skills we're teaching him? How to get out of the car. Yep. Really. Sometimes, rather than working with a dog's reactivity triggers directly, we need to work on what happens *before* we encounger them.
Cairo's actually pretty polite, but for many dogs who are reactive or worried about their environment, getting out of the car goes something like this:
1. Door opens. Dog pushes past owner and launches out.
2. Dog IMMEDIATELY starts scanning for potential threats while owner collects themselves.
3. Arousal goes through the roof, barking and lunging and chaos ensues.
So, we're teaching Cairo a different routine: wait politely for for his release cue, exit in a controlled way, and immediately check back in with his human.
This gives his owner time to check the environment before he exits AND helps interrupt that automatic "out of the car → on high alert" pattern.
And even if your dog isn't reactive, this is a great skill to teach! When you're handling a large, powerful dog, having a predictable, cooperative car-exit routine is a pretty fantastic safety feature.
Good behavior modification isn't just about changing how dogs respond to triggers. It's also about setting them up to succeed BEFORE things get difficult.
Cairo and his humans are absolutely nailing it! ❤️💪
