15. Reactivity Lessons for Handlers

I want to talk about the reactivity of the humans in the group.

Names are staying out of this.

But as we were going on our adventures, we came across one, possibly many, many more, but one that stood out to all of us.

Totally oblivious person.

And like no awareness of social cues from us as we all kept trying to get away from her again and again and again.

And she literally kept hunting us down.

So when you're being hunted like that by a person who was probably a really nice, wonderful woman and just completely zoned in on her goal of that her dog wanted social time.

I think she knew there was an issue brewing with her dog, saw us and our nice group of dogs all playing and was determined to immerse her dog into our group because that's what he needed.

She was goal focused and completely unaware of everything else in that moment.

It was really funny having a group of women and trying to get them through this.

moment and stopping the women from exploding.

Because in moments like this, we become as reactive as our dogs.

And once again, we are the life coaches here.

So we get to show our dogs how we want them to behave by demonstrating it ourselves.

What I found fascinating through that was kind of how our own response is affect our dogs so much.

Like we are their life coaches.

So in these moments of reactivity, we truly have to hold it back and come up with something nice.

Like this woman was benign, something nice, just so that our dogs realize there's nothing wrong with her in that moment.

How do you guide your own clients through moments like that?

I typically tell them like essentially what you were saying to us, just keep looking where you're going and just keep doing exactly what you're doing.

Don't worry about that person.

Just stay focused and don't stare at your dog.

Don't stare at that dog.

Just act like everything is fine and it will be.

And then when it's not, cause this