The Weekly High Five 🐾

Hey Reader,
​
I got a text a last year around this time. It was one of those first real spring days, windows-down weather. A family I was working with had just gotten home from a walk with their dog.

Three words: "He was wild."

Pulling from the start. Spinning in circles. Barking at every dog they passed. They'd been looking forward to that walk all week. Figured he finally deserved the long outing he'd been missing all winter.

By the time they got home, their pup couldn't settle for over an hour. They were exhausted.

I asked one question: How long was the walk?

Forty-five minutes. There it was.

Here's the deal. When you see a dog spinning and lunging on that first warm day, it's easy to read that as excitement. Like finally, he's getting the energy out. He looks happy.

But that's not what's happening. Essentially, a dog coming out of a low-activity winter and stepping into a full spring environment is flooded. New smells, warmer air, people outside again, other dogs everywhere. The nervous system doesn't ramp up gradually. It gets hit all at once.

A flooded brain can't learn. It can't settle. And it definitely can't respond to "sit" or "leave it" or "come." It's not that your dog forgot everything. It's that the brain isn't in a state to receive any of it.

Calm has to come first. Commands are useless until the brain is ready to listen. Right?

This week, try something simple. Take a 15-minute walk instead of your usual one. Let your dog sniff freely. Don't push for loose leash work or practice moments. Just go short, let them take it in, and head home before things start to unravel.

Notice how quickly they actually settle when you get back. That calm at the end of a short outing? That's what you're building toward. Not the marathon.

That family texted me a few days later. Fifteen-minute walk, home before he hit his limit. He came inside and laid down on his own.

Not because he wore himself out. Because his nervous system got a manageable dose instead of an overload. Calm first. That's always the starting point.

If you want to know how to build from here, my Loose Leash Foundations Guide covers the full approach. How to read the signs before your dog tips over threshold. How to progress from short structured outings to longer real-world walks.

If you already grabbed it, now's a great time to pull it back up. If you haven't yet, here you go:

​Get the Loose Leash Walking Guide →​

You got this.

Happy training,

Pam,
CPDT-KA