“We did it! You did it! It was an amazing moment!” This is the message Tito’s pet parent, Denise, sent to Beverley McKee, Public Training Services and Care Support Program Manager, after their first Intermediate Obedience group class. 

Tito, a 2-year-old toy Poodle, was a highly anxious and reactive little dog.  He couldn’t tolerate being within eyesight of other dogs and had become very fearful around strangers. He would react to anyone he encountered on the street and rushed to the door and would nip at  house guests. He had also developed some hyper attachment behaviours around Denise and would become extremely anxious with a slow recovery rate if he had to leave Denise’s side. 

Beverley and Denise’s family began working together to methodically develop a plan that would first help to manage Tito’s concerning behaviour, and then build healthy behaviours using desensitization and counter conditioning and teach Tito alternative responses to things that made him uncomfortable. 

Over time Tito began to improve, and they saw a remarkable success with  independence and response substitution training. Next on their list of behaviours to tackle was dog reactivity. With more time, Tito practiced new behaviours around dogs and started to show better social behaviours. 

The final test would be to see if Tito could enjoy a group class, so he was enrolled in our Intermediate Obedience class. These group classes are small, and because we have visual barriers in our training room, Tito was able to integrate at his own pace. We’re happy to share that Tito aced the class! 

By taking a long-term, holistic approach to help maintain and grow the human-animal bond between Denise and Tito, Tito’s behaviour significantly improved.