Delightful Dogs
792 Sawmill Road, Bloomingdale, Ontario N0B 1K0 Kitchener, ON, Canada

Make sure your little (human) ones know that candy isn't good for your pets, too!

Many times every week I tell owners of reactive dogs the same thing: Please stop worrying about taking your dog for exercise walks. Maybe it is time to stop wal...ks for a while. And here is why. . If your dog crosses his threshold reliably when you walk him - whether that is because he reacts intensely to every dog in the neighborhood or he is highly anxious about traffic noises or he cannot be around people at this point - then every time you expose him to his trigger in a high intensity HIS REACTIONS WILL GET WORSE. . Stress responses rarely disappear into thin air one day. Rather, the dog goes through a cycle of encountering his trigger - being stressed - reacting intensely - and becoming EVEN MORE LIKELY to react badly the next time. . What you might be doing by continuously walking your reactive dog in an environment that’s full of trigger is to actually ingrain and strengthen his reactive response. . Now, I am all for exercising dogs both physically and mentally. But we need to look at this in the bigger picture. What good does it do if your dog had a 2 mile walk but he flipped out 10 times during it? Is this really the level of adrenaline you want him to associate with a stroll around the neighborhood? Should we not weigh the dog’s longterm mental wellbeing against the benefits of physical exercise through walking? (By the way - an on-leash walk is not actually tiring physical exercise for most healthy adult dogs anyway) . For most dogs with reactivity problems, we need to cease all random exposure to triggers and work on them in isolated, well-planned out settings. This could mean not walking your dog in your neighborhood at 7pm when everyone else is out. Or maybe not at all in your neighborhood - and instead in a less busy area nearby. Or maybe it means finding other forms of exercising his mind and body for a while. Please do not feel like you need to walk your dog in the presence of his triggers daily. . You know your own dog best. Does he seem highly stressed after his walks because he encountered a dozen scary and difficult situations? Then that walk is probably not worth it. . Be your dog’s advocate - if you listen to your intuition you probably already know if he should be walked or not. See more

It's hard to believe that yesterday marked 21 years that Delightful Dogs has been in business. Thank you all for your loyalty and support over the years!