Problem 01 · Reactivity and aggression

My dog reacts to other dogs.

Lunging, barking, hackles up, the lead going tight fifty yards before you’re anywhere near. You’ve started walking at six in the morning to avoid people. That isn’t a training problem you’ve failed at — it’s a distance problem nobody has shown you how to manage.

Free · In person in Norfolk or online · Nothing sold on the day
Two German Shepherds settled together in woodland
01 — Does this sound like your walks?

You already know the list.

Owners describe this to us in almost identical words.

01You check every gateway and hedge before you turn the corner
02You walk at six in the morning, or after dark
03The lead goes tight and you feel it coming before the dog does
04It’s fine until about twenty metres, and then nothing works
05Treats stop existing the moment another dog appears
06You’ve been told to just socialise him more
07You’ve quietly stopped taking him anywhere new
08You’re embarrassed, and then you feel guilty for being embarrassed
02 — Why it happens

It isn’t dominance, and it isn’t your fault.

Three things are usually running at once, and only one of them is the dog.

Cause 01

Too close, too often

The dog has repeatedly been put nearer to other dogs than it can cope with. Every time that happens it learns the same lesson — barking makes them go away. It works, so it gets stronger.

Cause 02

The lead is doing the talking

Tension travels down a lead. A dog that feels you brace before it’s even seen anything learns that other dogs are worth bracing for.

Cause 03

Nobody built the alternative

“Don’t react” isn’t a behaviour a dog can perform. Until there’s something else to do instead, there’s nothing to fall back on when it matters.

03 — The ground

This is what forty metres looks like.

Most reactive dogs never get worked at a distance they can cope with, because no public place offers one. Two private acres does.

Working a dog at distance on the paddock at Church CottageThe paddock at Church Cottage — one dog working, nothing uninvited, distance on our terms

Reactivity isn’t a temperament. It’s a rehearsed answer to a distance the dog never got to choose.

Scott McKay
04 — What we actually do

Distance first. Everything else after.

The order matters more than the technique. Most reactivity work fails because it starts too close, and nobody wants to say so.

01

Find the distance where your dog can still think

Not where you’d like it to be — where it actually is. We watch your dog near another dog and mark the point where it stops being able to take food, hear you, or look away. Everything gets built from that number.

Assessment
02

Change what another dog predicts

Right now another dog predicts tension. We work at your distance until it predicts something better — and we don’t move closer just to make it feel like it’s going faster.

Weeks 1–3
03

Give the dog a job instead

A trained, rehearsed thing to do when it sees a dog, so there’s an alternative available under pressure rather than an instruction not to do the other thing.

Weeks 2–5
04

Close the gap deliberately

A metre at a time, on our terms, with a dog we control on the other end. That’s what two private acres are for. If the week goes badly we go back out again, and that isn’t a failure.

Weeks 4–8
05

Prove it somewhere real

A car park, a lane, a group session with other clients’ dogs. It doesn’t count until it works somewhere you didn’t choose.

Weeks 8–12
05 — Straight about this one

What we will and won’t promise you.

What usually changes

You get your walks back.

  • Walks become predictable instead of a gamble
  • You get your route, and your times of day, back
  • The dog recovers in seconds rather than for the rest of the walk
  • You stop bracing before the corner
  • You have a plan for a bad day, and bad days stop meaning starting again
What we won’t say

That your dog will love other dogs.

  • That your dog will end up wanting to play with strange dogs
  • That it’s sorted in one session — it isn’t, by anyone
  • That you’ll never see the behaviour again
  • That it works without you changing what happens between sessions
  • That we can guarantee it — dogs aren’t machines and outcomes vary
06 — Where this usually goes

One of two, and the assessment decides which.

Caught early

The Fix

One behaviour, not long rehearsed, and the rest of life is fine. Six to eight weeks on that one thing, with the outcome written down before we start.

Long-standing

The Transformation

Years of practice, more than one trigger, or a dog that has already had a go at something. Ten to twelve weeks, with support between sessions and residential as an option.

Both run in person or online · Neither is sold on the day you meet us

Let’s see the dog before anyone talks about money.

There’s no price on this page on purpose. What it costs depends on what we find, and we can’t find it from a form.

Free · No obligation · Norfolk and Suffolk, or online from anywhere