About "Reactive Dogs"
Welcome to ReactiveDogs.be, a website dedicated to providing information and insights in reactive dog behaviour. It strives to capture up-to-date scientific insights and translate them into practical hands-on tools.
"Reactive Dogs" is a continuation of the work I started during my "International Dog Trainer Eudcation" by Turid Rugaas.
As a lifelong passionate dog owner, I was confronted with a dog who became reactive towards other dogs. Despite my understanding of the most common (positive) training techniques, I wasn't able to help my own dog. Implementing these techniques gave some result, and allowed me to pull him through the situation, but I remained frustrated. This because I noticed that I wasn’t actually helping my dog. He wasn’t less uncomfortable with the situation or wasn't improving his coping skills at all.
When Turid taught me about her “complete adult dog”-philosophy, I knew this was the missing piece of the puzzle. Reactivity is a symptom with multiple causes. All these underlying reasons have to be tackled to enable your dog to overcome its symptom. As an owner you have to understand what reactivity is and what it does with your dog, before starting on its rehabilitation.
The holistic view on dog-reactivity that I developed based on Turid's teachings, resulted in a multi-level approach that provides owners a framework to guide them through the long process of transforming their reactive dog into a complete adult dog!
A last word of advice for everyone working with reactive dogs:
Aim for perfection - be happy with progress
About The "Reactive Dogs"logo
The Logo is based upon one of the oldest rock-arts that includes dogs. It's an 8000 year old scene, depicting a hunter with his 13 dogs, found in Saudi-Arabia.
I'm very fond of primitive / aboriginal breeds, land races and typical "village dogs". Dogs indemnified by human amelioration.
They can teach us things, things we've seem to forgotten in our modern day "dog keeping". Mutual respect, trust and compassion
(Image: © Journal of Anthropological Archaeology/Maria Guagnin/Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)
Philosophy
The information I provide and the training I give are based on the below key values.
Force Free
No forcing
No punishing
No leverage equipment
Welfare Minded
Increase welfare
Increase emotional balance
Increase empowerment
Certified
Scientifically educated
Latest insights
Continuous learning