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My Everyday Dog Training Tools by Doggy Dan
The Online Dog Trainer
I call it the Calm Freeze, but first let me put it into context by describing a
scenario that many of you will have experienced where this technique is so
useful.
You are calmly walking down the road with your dog or puppy when suddenly
another dog comes into view and grabs their attention. Immediately they
become too excited, overly aggressive or maybe very fearful. It is important to
point out that every dog will respond differently yet the calm freeze technique
will work whatever their emotional response. On the energy meter your dog is
heading rapidly up the scale and is at say, a 7. The adrenalin has not yet kicked
in but we need to do something fast to calm them down and avoid a complete
melt down.
Now usually what happens at this point is that we then mirror our dog and we
too become highly energized, with a tug on the lead, quickly correcting our dog
with a “leave it” command. To which our dog responds with more energy and
barks or pulls even harder resulting in an increased response from ourselves
and before we know it their adrenalin has kicked in and we might as well all go
home to calm ourselves down.
So here is where the calm freeze technique comes into play. At the point at
which you detect an increase in your dog’s energy due to the sighting of another
dog, calmly walk your dog a couple of yards away. Then with your back to the
other dog as a distraction, crouch down and without a word take your hand
palm up, under your dogs chin and lightly hold the collar.
Here are a couple of other important points to make sure that you are doing it
correctly. Firstly, you do it all in silence, no talking. Secondly, you hold as lightly
as possible, this is not about causing your dog pain. And thirdly, you look away
from your dog, down at the ground with a relaxed expression. Your dog will read
you like a book and will very likely be stunned into silence! Once they are calm
then you simply loosen your grip and gently let go, stand up and carry on
walking, leaving them in that calm state of 2 or 3 on the energy scale.
Now if you try this and they take no notice of you then that is because they are
the pack leader and not you. So it’s time to get the basics put in place first.
So you may be thinking, is that it? And the answer is absolutely Yes! But
remember, the beauty of this technique and this whole method lies in its
simplicity. You see our thoughts, our words and our actions are all important
and when we align all three we become very powerful. If you only shout the
words “Calm Down” at your dog but you are still stressed and pulling