08/10/2026
Veg! This dog has taught me so much over the 3 years I have spent with him.
Not only have we grown together but we have built a trusting, mutually respectful relationship. That’s right I said, mutually respectful because when it comes to your dogs, you have to respect their personalities, their traits, their characteristics, their flaws, their strengths, their genetics and with Veg all of that has to be respected because Veg is a reactive dog with some unpredictability that has made a huge amount of progress, but he will always be a management case.
Let’s talk about what I mean by all that.
Veg’s reactivity is unpredictable because he is selective about what dogs and people trigger him. When I first started working with Veg he would react to everything and anything… I mean a leaf blowing across the sidewalk, seasonal outdoor decor was his arch nemesis! His reactions were BIG! Like he would lunge and leap and literally flipped to the other side of me like a ninja. We have successfully worked him thru those triggers but some dogs and people will still trigger him. So how do we manage that?We give him space by creating enough distance where he feels comfortable, we refocus him back to us but keep him moving or sometimes scattering treats for him to search for. We don’t hide the trigger we just help him feel better around the trigger. Also his reactions aren’t BIG anymore. His paws don’t leave the ground and if he barks it’s just a couple before he turns back to me.
With Veg the little wins are important because they are stepping stones to the big wins. I’m super proud of this guy and continuing our journey together.
