A proprietary and holistic approach to dog training based in Dog Psychology & Pack Leadership, using balanced communication 🐕🧠
R.E.S.T.™ is not a single tool or technique, but is instead a holistic strategy for integrating dog psychology, pack leadership, and balanced dog training tools and techniques into your life over 4-6 weeks as a dog guardian and caretaker to soothe your dog's nervous system and mindset. R.E.S.T.™ stands for
R egulate a Canine Nervous System
E stablish a Healthy Relationship
S ocialization & Desensitization
T rigger Response Training
Reactivity, aggression, and anxiety is rooted in a highly dysregulated canine nervous system. This happens when a dog's biological and emotional needs have not been fulfilled properly as a canine.
Reactivity, aggression, and anxious behavior becomes an autonomic nervous system response to stress for many dogs, aka it's involuntary. Dog's don't know the behavior is wrong or unreasonable in the modern human world until we set boundaries and help them understand that those decisions are not acceptable.
Dogs have a hierarchy of needs, like Maslow's. The need for shelter, nutrition/food, water, hygiene, sleep, veterinary care, and hygiene. They also have emotional needs for feeling consistently and adequately protected, having routine provisions, and clear boundaries & guidelines for activities. This is so they have the ability to shift into their parasympathtic nervous system state.
Balanced dogs have 3 primary "attitudes" or "energies"
Soft & Affectionate
Aloof & Neutral or Indifferent
Zero Tolerance
Balanced leaders are not loud, angry, mad, resentful, or unreasonable. They do not get loud or big to try and "dominate" but are instead patient and firm, while floating between the 3 attitudes listed abve while policing and overseeing the general movement, resources, space, and choices for the pack. When humans become balanced pack leaders, dog start to trust, respect, love, and be loyal to them because the human is more "believable" as a leader for the dog, despite being a different species.
Learn to provide social fulfillment by setting boundaries for respectful engagement & "asking for permission" to access resources. Use healthy energy and balanced taining tools to communicate clearly and set boundaries so you don't need to nag or micromanage your dog about their behavior
After your dog has a regulated nervous system and you've established trust and respect as a Pack Leader with them, now you can take them out into the world and teach your dog to relax and decompress out in public.
Desensitizing and being [re]socialized to environmental stimuli and the human world around you at reasonable distances from triggers, strengthening your newly build pack connection.
Setting boundaries and giving reminders for behavior expectations in the pack, increasing your dog's stress threshold or tolerance, while also advocating for your dog so they feel safe and build confidence.
After you've successfully regulated your dog's nervous system, rebuilt your relationship, and started to teach them how to relax and be neutral to the world around them, now you can begin counter conditioning techniques to reprogram their nervous system and build new, healthier behavior patterns in response to triggers or stress.
Using engagement games, increased accountability, and positive reinforcement for offering good behavior around distractions to start neutralizing your dog's overall emotional state to bring them to a fully regulated state of mind in your pack.