Sarai and George had previously trained my puppy George. Little does everyone know; George has a big sister named Nala! Nala is 3 years old and is full of anxiety. She is an Australian Cattle, Boarder Collie, Terrier. We originally lived in Ohio and had worked with another dog trainer who was supposed to teach us how to manage Nala, 5 months old at the time who is an extremely dominant working dog. The sessions in my opinion were very relaxed and I don’t feel like we were pushed to understand the type of dog I had to do the correct training for her. (Not all dogs are receptive to the same training). After completing the course of training, Nala was supposed to be on and off leashed trained. With this being said, I would never allow Nala to be off leash as she is not reliable. She would run after a dog and nip at them or see a squirrel and go after them. She had absolutely no recall. I was told to put her in situations in which she would react, without knowing why she was reacting in those situations. This was supposed to help her be more comfortable with her surroundings. Which honestly did nothing besides stress her and I out, as well as made me nervous about handling her.
After years of being done with training, her dog reactivity only had gotten worse. She would bark, lunge, and growl at small dogs walking by, especially female dogs. I finally caved in and gave Nala round 2 of training this time it was with Sarai and George. Sarai evaluated her and told me what she believed was going on in Nala’s mind. Nala has extreme low confidence & fear which was causing the dog reactivity in her case. My goal for Nala was to help her gain confidence so she wasn’t living in a scary world in her mind. After a session or 2, Nala finally started trusting Sarai and George. They walked me through how I can help her navigate the world and understand the type of dog I have. Nala is not the case of being “fixed” in the matter of 6 weeks. But they gave me the tools to help her, which in time will allow her dog reactivity to diminish.
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