Leash Reactivity

With Michael Ellis

80 Videos

4 Hours of Content

This course contains over 4 hours of lecture from Michael Ellis's on leash reactivity. The goal of the course is to teach people how to manage leash reactive dogs in a safe manner. We also introduce the tools that are needed to help dogs become less reactive.

In Michael's opening lecture, he explains that we don't feel it necessary to set up scenarios where dogs are stressed and put into a reactive frame of mind just to demonstrate leash reactivity for the purpose of a training video. This would not be fair to the dogs. 

To be clear, if you are looking for a training course that contains videos of dogs reacting aggressively towards other dogs, or video of dogs acting aggressively toward another person this is not the training course for you. We simply do not believe that it is necessary to see videos of dogs reacting badly to learn about leash reactivity.

It is also important to explain that there are no quick fixes for leash reactivity. The majority of dogs that are leash reactive did not get that way overnight, they are going to require a lot of management and training to solve their problems. The fact is some dogs may never be cured, but they can be managed. 

There are many stressful situations (we call them triggers) that cause dogs to be reactive. There are also many levels of reactivity that dogs display when faced with a stressful situation. These all vary from dog to dog depending on the dog's genetics, its past training history, the environment the dog has been exposed to, and the dog's stress threshold. In this course, you will learn how to approach and analyze a leash reactive dog. Michael explains how to approach management. He also teaches trainers how to develop the tools needed to help handlers alleviate their dog's stress.

The majority of leash reactivity is a result of dogs becoming insecure in specific situations. Insecure dogs learn that acting aggressively results in the dog either being taken away from the situation that made them nervous or the dog learns that acting aggressively results in the trigger being removed from the dog's proximity. 

The goal of this course is to teach dog owners (and professional dog trainers) how to develop tools they can use to redirect a dog away from stressful trigger with the least amount of pressure. Success depends on the dog and the handler's willingness to put in the work to solve the dog's problem.  Simply put, rehabbing a leash reactive dog takes time, hard work, and training. Michael also makes it very clear that this may not always be possible with every dog. 

The material in this course is not meant to be watched one time. It's not a documentary. We recommend trainers watch it many times and take notes. You will find out that every time you watch the material in this course you will learn or remember something you had missed or forgot.

In the end, you will understand that it doesn't matter what your end goal is, Michael's training concepts simply work.

To get a feel for the layout and content of our course we recommend you look at the course outline.