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Positive Dog

🤔 Stress or no stress?

Published 10 months ago • 1 min read

Engaged training

Resilience * Emotional Regulation * Self Control

I've seen a few posts going around lately advocating for use of tools that use pain or fear to apply stress to a dog to help them learn.

The trainers promote the idea of a false dichotomy - either you bubble wrap your dog and never progress.. stuck in ineffective training, OR you use e-collars, prong collars, and other tools to either apply stress or to suppress behaviours when a dog is put into stressful situations..

Stress isn’t the enemy—it's a normal, healthy part of life.

Every dog, whether they struggle with reactivity or not, needs opportunities to stretch, grow, build resilience, and experience the joy of overcoming challenges.

However - effective trainers know how to use stress in ways that don't take away our dog's sense of safety.

Safety - physical and emotional - always comes first.

Here's a video of me intentionally putting Jubilee in a stressful situation.

✅ Was it stressful for her? Yes.

✅ Did she learn? Yes

✅ Did she succeed? Yes

✅ Did she feel safe at all times? Also Yes.

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Starting Dec 6th!

🐶 Want your dog to thrive, not just “get by”? Looking to fill in the gaps in your training program?

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Check out my NEW Foundations to Thrive class!
It’s a 6-week online class that teaches the core skills so many dogs are missing: playful self-control, confidence-building, resilience, and emotional regulation.
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✅ Perfect for puppies, adult dogs, and even reactive dogs

✅ Short, fun games you can weave into daily life

✅ Online with recorded Zoom sessions — learn from home!
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It's being offered at a special intro price - https://positive.dog/thrive/

2738 Holden Corso Rd, Nanaimo, BC v9x 1n5
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Positive Dog

Christina Young, BSc, CDBC, PCBC-A

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