What Regulates Behavior? A 3-Part Series on Dysregulation, Dogs, and Doing Things Differently You’ve heard the phrases before — “train the dog in front of you,” “behavior is communication,” “a calm dog is a good dog.” But what if we’ve misunderstood calm? What if calm isn’t something we train , but something we create ? In this series, I shared three guiding insights that changed the way I work with dogs — and honestly, with people too: 1. Dysregulated ≠ Disobedient What look

Dog training is full of quick advice: “Correct that.”“Stop the barking.”“Don’t let them get away with it.” It’s tempting — especially in moments of stress — to want a behavior to disappear . But here’s the problem: You can’t delete behavior. You can only change it. Let’s look at what’s really happening in the dog’s brain — and why approaches that rely on stopping, suppressing, or punishing often backfire long-term. What Are You Hoping the Aversive Actually Does? When someone

Shocked. And disappointed. Yet again. Another off-leash dog encounter... and another entitled man unable to handle accountability. No harm done physically this time, but here’s the story: There’s a man in my neighborhood who walks a Golden Retriever — a dog that years ago charged Grady and Tuli from over a football field away while we were on a run. We weren’t even near its house, but it came hard and angry. Territorial. Aggressive. No leash. No control. I saw it coming and

“A tired dog is a happy dog…” …or is it just a tired dog? We hear it all the time....tire them out....drain the energy. Run them hard!!...

Engagement is life. Without it, we shut down. With it, we thrive. I’ve watched this unfold firsthand — in dogs, in people, in myself. My...

Why We Acknowledge the Gut-Brain Axis in Horses — But Not in Dogs As a horse person, I’ve seen it over and over: A horse starts acting...