Reset Your Aussie

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Reset Your Aussie Helping owners understand and support
Australian Shepherds

Focus • Connection • Life skills

For a calmer, more easier partnership

Reset Your Aussie supports Australian Shepherd owners who are struggling with over-excitement, overwhelm, barking, or reactivity. This work isn’t about obedience or control. It’s about understanding the breed, meeting their needs, and helping Aussies learn calmer, more thoughtful responses in everyday life. Programs are offered in two streams so owners can start where their dog actually is. Foundations -f or over-excited Aussies,
Reactivity - for dogs who bark or lunge t

The goal is simple - a calmer dog, a clearer plan, and a better life together.

09/25/2026

Sometimes Maeve and Quinn can look reactive.

They might even look aggressive.

If you saw either of them in one of those moments, it would be easy to put a label on them.

Reactive. Aggressive. Problem dog. “One of THOSE Aussies.”

But there’s something we need to remember about Australian Shepherds.
Aussies can have big feelings — and big responses.

They were bred to pay attention to what was happening around their livestock. Movement mattered. Something new or unusual mattered.

We may not have livestock for them to watch anymore, but we still have the dog who was bred to notice.

Maeve can have a big response when there’s sudden movement she can’t control, or something unexpected appears and her inner herding dog decides I need to be notified immediately.

Quinnie’s response can look very similar. But with him, there’s often more emotion behind it. Sudden changes in his environment can genuinely alarm him.

From the outside, you might see two barking, lunging Aussies. But what’s happening underneath may be very different.

People get angry. We get frightened. We become frustrated. And we react. Would you see someone in one of those moments and immediately decide they’re an aggressive person?

Maeve isn’t an aggressive dog. Neither is Quinnie.

They’re dogs who sometimes have big responses to particular situations.

And once we give a dog a label, it’s very easy to start seeing everything they do through that label.

Instead, I want to know:
What was happening around the dog? What might have caused the response? What does this dog need from me right now?

Behaviour gives us information. But one moment of behaviour doesn’t define the dog.

Sometimes a dog having a hard moment is simply a dog having a hard moment.

Does your Aussie ever have a BIG response that leaves you wondering why?

For more insight into those very Aussie behaviours, grab my free Why Does My Australian Shepherd Do That? guide.  Link in bio.
 



09/22/2026

Maeve probably would have been over-qualified for an ordinary family life.

Her breeder pushed hard for me to take her. She’s a smart woman who knows her dogs.

I think she recognized that Maeve might not have done particularly well in a typical family home. We joke now that she probably would have herded the children into their bedrooms and then resource guarded the doors.

Maeve comes from working lines. She is smart, intense and exactly the dog I wanted. But she is also incredibly sensitive to movement of any kind, and she needs to use her brain a lot.

I knew she would need purpose and meaningful activities in her life. But even with all my years of living with Aussies, I hadn’t fully anticipated the extent of her drive or her capacity for work at such a young age.

It isn’t simply about giving her more physical exercise. She needs to move, think, solve problems, make choices and feel that she is doing something purposeful.

That doesn’t mean I have to keep her busy every minute of the day. Learning how to settle when nothing is happening has also been a huge part of our work together.

Not every Aussie is a Maeve. They come with different temperaments, levels of intensity and activity needs. Many make wonderful family dogs, especially in active families that understand them.

But honestly, I haven’t met many who would be content with two short walks a day and nothing meaningful to do.

I don’t think we can expect Aussies to be satisfied with a life that asks little of them.

They need a life big enough for everything they were bred to be.

What part of life with your Aussie feels most overwhelming right now?

If you’re trying to understand why your Aussie does the things they do, download my free guide, Why Does My Australian Shepherd Do That?
You’ll find it through the link in my bio.



09/15/2026

Not every environment is right for every Aussie.

I’ve often said that I want Maeve to be able to go everywhere in the world with me.

I think I need to qualify that. I want Maeve to be able to go everywhere that’s appropriate for her.

I spent two days at a dog festival over the weekend, and there were a lot of Aussies there.

Some were doing great. But I also saw quite a few who seemed to be struggling with the environment.

It was noisy. There were dogs and people everywhere. There was constant movement.

For an Aussies who might be sensitive to movement, hyper-vigilant about their surroundings or unsure of unfamiliar dogs or people that’s a lot to process.

I’ve lived with a lot of Aussies over the years.

Rosie was the one who could really take environments like this in stride.
She loved people. She was comfortable around other dogs. She could spend the day interacting with people and genuinely enjoy herself.

Maeve is a very different Aussie. She goes many places with me and I want her to have a big life.

But I didn’t take her to the festival.

She’s intense. She’s triggered by motion. She prefers order. There was simply too much about that space that would have been difficult for her.

And I think that’s something we need to remember with Aussies.
Helping them become comfortable in the world doesn’t mean they need to be comfortable everywhere.

We can teach them skills. We can build confidence. We can gradually introduce them to different environments.

But we also need to recognize who the dog in front of us is.

Sometimes taking your Aussie with you gives them a wonderful experience.

And sometimes the better choice is leaving them home.
A bigger life doesn’t have to mean a busier one.

Are there environments you’ve realized just aren’t right for your Aussie?

If your Aussie struggles to stay calm and connected when the world gets busy, that’s exactly why I created Calm Starts Here — simple skills for calmness that you can use out in the world.
You’ll find it at the link in my bio.
 


09/07/2026

I often see people say that too much activity can make it harder for an Aussie to settle.

That if we keep doing more with our dogs, we can keep increasing their arousal until they don’t know how to switch off.

And I think there is definitely truth in that. But it’s not the whole picture.

Maeve does a LOT with me during the day.

We do about six miles in the forest. We practice agility. We go out in the world.

I’m not suggesting every Aussie needs to do this much. I like an active life too - that’s one of the reasons I have Aussies.

But I’ve spent the last year being very careful about how she does those things.

Our forest walks are about calm. She moves, sniffs, explores and gets to be a dog. She’s also learned how to pass distractions - at times with my help - without getting over-excited.

When we do agility, she has speed, drive and intent, but she isn’t frantic. And we are now working on staying focused and connected with distractions present.

When we go somewhere new, I watch her excitement level and step in before she becomes over-aroused. And I don’t ask her to spend time in situations that I know she can’t handle.

I’ve essentially built calm into everything we do.

I think that’s a big part of why Maeve can have a very full, active day and still come home and settle by her own choice.

Calm is gradually becoming her default state everywhere.

That doesn’t mean she never gets excited. She’s a herding line Australian Shepherd. There are plenty of things that can still take her from 0–100 remarkably quickly. But we continue to work on calm.

I don’t want to make Maeve’s world smaller so she can stay calm.
I want to help her learn how to be calm while living a big life.

And maybe that’s the distinction we’re missing when we talk about whether we’re doing “too much” with our dogs.

Perhaps the question isn’t only, “How much are you doing with your Aussie?”

It’s just as important to ask, “What emotional state are they experiencing while they’re doing it?”

How does your Aussie struggle with calm out in the world?



09/01/2026

If I’d been two seconds slower, they might have called Maeve reactive.

Today I took Maeve to her new vet for a happy visit.
I was working on helping her feel comfortable and calm in the waiting room.

The vet tech warned me there was a dog in the exam room that opened directly into the waiting room. I moved Maeve closer to the front door and farther away from the exam room. 

A few minutes later the door opened and two people and a dog walked out.

I was already on my feet and moving.

Maeve turned toward them and went up on her hind legs but I had the front door open before she had much chance to respond.

She gave one little woof as we went through the door.

Afterwards I thought about what probably would have happened if I’d been a couple of seconds slower.

Maeve would have barked. I suspect people watching would have thought, “That dog is reactive.” 

Maeve isn’t a reactive dog. But she is an Aussie Shepherd.
A dog had suddenly appeared through a doorway into the space she was occupying.

For generations, Aussies were bred to notice changes in their environment and alert by barking if something suddenly appeared near their herd.

There are lots of reasons dogs bark. Fear. Frustration. Excitement. Happiness. Anticipation. Alerting. Genetics. Learning.

But we have become very quick to put the reactive label on barking.

Barking is information. It tells us something is happening. It’s up to us to try to determine why. 




Understanding helps us figure out what our dog trying to tell us and how we can help them.

What does your Aussie bark at?

If you have an Aussie who barks and you’re trying to understand what’s behind it, I created a free guide called Understanding Aussie Barking.
You’ll find it through the link in my bio.

08/27/2026

Have you ever taught your Aussie something at home, then taken them somewhere else where that response seemed to disappear?

Your Aussie didn’t forget what you taught them. The whole world around them changed.

When they’re overwhelmed by that new environment, it can be much harder to use what they’ve already learned.

Aussies were bred to notice and respond to what was happening around them as they managed their herd. That awareness was incredibly useful in a working herding dog.

But it can also mean that a new environment is a much bigger challenge for our Aussie than we realize.

We’re thinking, “I’m asking you to do exactly the same thing.”
But our Aussie may be processing an entirely different picture.

Quinn struggles with this.

Before he came to us, he hadn’t had much experience simply walking calmly in different places. Most of his outings were limited to being driven to the dog park.

The first few times I took him off our farm, he was incredibly wired up.
There was so much to take in - new places, sounds, smells, movement and people.

So I didn’t expect him to take the skills he’d learned at home and perform them perfectly somewhere else. A lot of his response was spinning, whirling and twirling.

My first priority was to help him cope with those different environments.

Even now when I take him somewhere new, my goal isn’t to work with people. It’s simply to help him use his skills calmly in a new place.

Can he walk with me? Follow a familiar pattern? Notice what’s happening and still think? Turn back to me?

If he can, that’s success.

He’s gradually learning that the skills he knows at home work out here too.

So if your Aussie can do something beautifully at home but struggles somewhere else, don’t assume they’re ignoring you or being stubborn.
Remember what they were bred to do.

They notice the world.
And when the world changes, we may need to help them learn how to respond in that world too.

Learn it here. Learn it there. Learn it everywhere.




08/21/2026

People might think that because I’m a dog trainer, I spend hours every day training my Aussies.

I don’t.

Most days, what people would call “training” happens in minutes. Sometimes seconds.

I’m not particularly interested in having perfectly obedient Aussies.
Instead I want to build a partnership with my dogs that allows us to go places and do things together.

And I think that matters particularly with Australian Shepherds.

Aussies as herding dogs were bred to notice what’s happening around them and work as partners with their human.
Those traits can make them incredible dogs to live and work with.

But our modern world is a lot for them to deal with. There is so much to notice. So much movement. So much happening around them that they may feel they need to respond to.

Obedience can teach an Aussie to sit, stay or walk beside you.
But it doesn’t necessarily help them when the world becomes too much.

That’s where I think partnership matters.

Whenever Maeve and I go somewhere, I pay attention to her.

I know what she’s likely to find difficult. I know when she needs more space, when movement will help her, when she needs time to process something and when she’s capable of figuring it out herself.

She knows I’ll support her when she needs it. She knows the patterns we use when the world gets difficult. And she knows that when she makes a good choice, I’ll notice.

After 18 months together, we’ve become pretty good at reading each other.

That’s not something we built through hours of obedience training.
Instead a few seconds of connection here. A choice there. Hundreds of tiny conversations over time.

That is how our partnership has grown.

Tell me in the comments — what does your partnership with your Aussie look like?
 



08/18/2026

I’ve taken Quinn twice now to the parking lot of our local Foodland to work on his reactivity to people.

I chose it because people predictably walked from their cars to the store and back again. We could watch from a distance where Quinn could move around.

And he did really well depending on what I asked him to do.

We used the same pattern games we teach in our Games program. For those who aren’t familiar with them, we move together in simple, repetitive patterns while I count out the pattern.

Quinn could do that.
He could walk beside me on a loose leash. He could focus on me. He could even look at the people and then turn back to me.

But if I stopped and gave him a simple cue he knew very well — something like sit or down?

I got a blank stare.

I could have decided that his lack of response meant he was ignoring me. Being stubborn. Maybe even defiant.

After all, he’d just shown me that he could listen.

But if I looked a bit more closely, his behaviour was giving me more information than that.

In that environment, the familiar movement and predictability of our pattern games were something Quinn could manage. Processing a cue and responding to it wasn’t.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t do it. In that moment, he couldn’t.

So I didn’t keep asking. I went back to what he could do and gave him more time without asking for something that wasn’t available to him yet.

And I think this is particularly important with Australian Shepherds. They are smart, responsive dogs, which makes it even easier to assume that when they don’t do something they’re choosing not to.

We are very quick to interpret our dogs’ behaviour from our human perspective. I believe we need to look at their behaviour as information they are offering from their point of view.

Sometimes the most important thing your dog tells you isn’t that they need more training.

But that they need to be in a better place emotionally and mentally to be able to respond.
 

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08/14/2026

From the time Maeve was 10 weeks old, I approached leash walking differently.

Instead of making staying close the goal, I wanted to see what would happen if I gave her enough space to move, think, and make good decisions.

Australian Shepherds aren’t bred to sit and wait for life to happen. They are bred to move through it.

For generations they worked livestock freely. If something changed in the herd, they had to notice, adjust, make decisions in the moment and then act on them.

But today, we often ask them to do almost the opposite. We clip on a six-foot leash and ask them to walk calmly at our side. We ask them to sit while the world moves around them. And we ask them to ignore the very movement they were bred to notice.

For some Aussies, that’s easy. For others, it can be incredibly frustrating. Sometimes that frustration becomes anxiety or reactivity.

I saw this with Maeve. Even as a puppy, movement was everything to her. If another dog, a person, or something unexpected appeared, her responses were huge and incredibly fast.

I knew I couldn’t teach her different choices by shortening her line. It would only lead to frustration. She needed enough space to move, gather information and think. That also meant creating more distance from the things she found exciting or overwhelming.

The long line and distance gave me the opportunity to teach her that she could choose a different response.

Over time, one of the choices Maeve began making on her own was turning back toward me. She also began choosing to walk with me.

She wasn’t turning back or walking beside me because of tension on the leash. The longer line gave her the freedom to make that choice.
It also meant she didn’t have to pull to access what she wanted in the world.

And as those responses became more predictable, they stayed with her even when we needed a shorter leash in busier or more urban environments.

How do you give your Aussie opportunities to think, move and make good decisions? I’d love to hear in the comments.

And if this resonated with you, share it with another Aussie owner who might enjoy it.
 




08/11/2026

When an Australian Shepherd is overwhelmed or over-excited by the world around them, it often seems natural to ask them to sit and watch.

I suppose the idea is that eventually they’ll get used to what they’re looking at and calm down. But that rarely happens.

Imagine someone asks you to sit in a chair while the very thing you’re worried about slowly moves closer and closer to you.

You can’t leave.
You can’t create space.
You can’t decide when you’ve had enough.

Would you become calmer? Or would your anxiety grow with every step?

Movement is one of the ways dogs naturally respond when something in their environment doesn’t feel right. And I think this is especially important to remember with Australian Shepherds.

As herding dogs Aussies were bred to notice changes in their environment and respond to them. Movement was part of how they did their job. They could move closer, move away, or change direction. 

Now we often ask them to do almost the opposite. 
Stay still. Sit. Watch.

When Quinn was a puppy, he was tied up and expected to sit while unfamiliar people came into his home. Looking back, it’s not surprising that people have become something he reacts to.

When a dog can’t use movement to help themselves feel safe, reacting may be one of the only strategies they have left.

That’s why I don’t ask Quinn to sit and watch people.

If he needs more distance, we move away together.
If he feels safe enough to look, that’s his choice.
If he chooses to sniff, explore or reconnect with me instead, that’s okay too.

My goal isn’t to teach Quinn to tolerate people by demanding stillness.

It’s to help him discover that when he encounters something that worries him, he still has choices.

Instead of having to sit there until he can’t cope anymore.





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