How DaVinci Changed the Way We Think About Dog Training and Reactive Dogs
- Sit Pretty Pup Parents
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
DaVinci the Maltipoo was our first reactive dog.
And for a long time, we mourned all the things we thought he was missing. Busy patios. Events. Meeting new people and dogs. There were so many things that seemed to be part of a “good dog life” that simply weren’t enjoyable for him.
At first, that was hard.
Then, we realized something that completely changed the way we thought about dogs:
We were measuring DaVinci’s happiness against somebody else’s dog and against our own expectations of what a happy dog’s life was supposed to look like.
But DaVinci was an individual, as every dog is. He didn’t need to love everything to be happy. He didn’t need to meet every dog. He didn’t need to enjoy strangers. He didn’t need to sit on a crowded patio. And he certainly didn’t owe anyone access to him to be a “good dog.”
Right-Sizing Dogs’ Worlds
Our job wasn’t to turn DaVinci into a dog who could do everything. We realized our job was to make his world as big as he could handle and to make that world a wonderful place for him. That realization changed the way we trained and nurtured every dog after him.
Training became about freedom, confidence, understanding one another, and safety. We teach commands. Sit. Stay. Leave it. Here. Focus. The skills dogs need to navigate life safely even within their homes.
A dog who knows what “leave it” means can safely explore more places. A dog who has a strong recall can be given freedoms that might otherwise be unsafe. A dog who knows how to focus can find safety when an environment becomes overwhelming. And a dog who trusts the person at the other end of the leash doesn’t have to feel like he or she is responsible for handling every situation.
That last one has become especially important to us.
We want our dogs to know we can and will handle it. Whatever the “it” is.
We won’t force an interaction. We won’t let someone pet our dog just because it would feel awkward to say no. We won’t insist a dog greet another dog. We won’t keep moving closer to something when a dog is clearly communicating that he or she needs space.
We learned about dog body language, studying it until we could read dogs like a book. We often know what they were feeling and can now frequently predict what’s going to happen next between dogs based on their body language, alone.
Confidence and Trust
A difficult lesson to learn and live, especially as “Wisconsin nice” folks: Sometimes, being a strong dog parent means being willing to disappoint another person.
Our dogs can learn that they don’t always have to escalate their communication because we’re listening to their quieter signals.
We also spend a lot of time building confidence. And sometimes that has very little to do with the thing a dog is afraid of.
Learning a new command. Successfully navigating a new environment. Walking across an unfamiliar surface. Solving a puzzle. Jumping over obstacles. We want our dogs to experience the feeling of, I wasn’t sure about that, but I did it, and my person helped me and kept me safe while I did.
We don’t believe helping a dog with a fear means always avoiding that fear. That can often be unrealistic. We’ve had success with small, controlled and positive exposures.
If something makes one of our dogs nervous, we may let them experience it from far enough away or for short periods of time with positive reinforcement. Then, depending on the dog, we can slowly increase the challenge as their threshold for a reaction grows.
Confidence not Fearlessness
Not every fear needs to be conquered. This might be one of the most important things DaVinci taught us.
Sometimes we work through a fear because it meaningfully improve a dog’s life or safety. Other times? We decide it just isn’t necessary. A dog doesn’t need to enjoy every environment or experience.
If crowded festivals make a dog miserable, that dog doesn’t need to become a festival dog. If your dog doesn’t want strangers petting them, your dog’s life isn’t less complete.
Which Doors to Open
Training can open doors for our dogs. Being a strong dog parent means knowing which doors should stay closed. A smaller world doesn’t have to mean a smaller life.
Eventually, we stopped thinking so much about everything DaVinci couldn’t do. We started looking at everything he could do. More importantly, we started looking at whether he was happy.
Did he feel safe? Did he have things he loved? Did he get to explore? Did he play? Did he have people he trusted completely? Did he get to be a dog?
Those questions mattered so much more than whether his life looked like somebody else’s idea of the perfect dog life or whether he was someone else’s idea of a good dog.
The Lessons We Carry with Us
DaVinci has passed, but the lessons he taught us are still very much alive in our home and helping us save reactive foster dogs that people said couldn’t be helped.
The lessons he taught influence how we train our own dogs. How we advocate for them. How we introduce them to new experiences. How we respond when they’re afraid. And how we think about what it actually means to give a dog a good life.
They’ve instilled in us the belief that every dog is a good dog, and it’s our job to help dogs find their way to thriving in a life that works for them and the people that love them.
We gently work on the fears they need to overcome to be safe and to keep their families safe and respect the ones they don’t need to overcome. And then we help them find people who will continue doing the same.
Because DaVinci taught us that a smaller world doesn’t have to mean a smaller life. A dog who feels safe, understood and loved can have an incredibly full, beautiful life. 🩵
We believe there’s value to working with a trainer or veterinary behavior professional for many dogs. These are just some of the principles that have shaped how we approach our own dogs and fosters. This is not a substitute for dog training and is not training or medical advice. Wishing you dog love and that this finds you sitting pretty in our dog life.
