Doggsense with Jamie

08/29/2026

08/29/2026

Rosie is a young pittie who is still learning impulse control. She is either on or sleeping. ☺️ She did so great today around a lot of people and a lot of distraction.

08/26/2026

Leroy is the best gentle giant. 🥰

08/25/2026

Dot got to meet her new Aunt Jamie and the crew today. You all know I’m a sucker for a hound. I’m sure there will be many more play sessions and swimming lessons with her new friends in the near future.

08/13/2026

So many people have such high expectations for their dogs. Most even without doing any work to achieve it.

This might sound obvious but confusingly, it seems to get forgotten.

💥 No single animal species is inherently friendly to every other creature. None.

🤔 Yet when we think dogs should be friendly, welcoming and kind to every single person and dog they meet, we are holding them to that impossible expectation.

Universal friendliness is not achievable or sustainable for animals because of:

- their survival needs e.g. food
- fear and defense behaviours
- protecting babies
- territory/space boundaries
- past associative learning

There are a lot of reactive dogs in society today and that's due to a myriad of reasons. One of which, I believe, is because we've stopped dogs from being able to trust their own gut and make up their own minds about how safe and comfortable they feel, and react accordingly.

We expect blanket friendliness and prosocial behaviours no matter what and it is simply unachievable for living beings. Aggression is expensive for animals in that it uses up energy and is risky to their lives. Naturally animals will want to avoid potential conflict first but we thwart our domesticated dogs from doing that with our leads and needs.

That expectation of blanket friendliness can mean we force dogs to have interactions when and with others they wouldn't if left to their own devices.

❓Can we support our dogs' ability to make their own decisions governed by their experience of the world on any particular day? If we focused on doing this when they were young or learning about their new life (as newly adopted), this would buffer against reactivity becoming an increasingly desperate need to express discomfort and unhappiness.

👉🏻 There's not a single animal that is friendly, tolerant and happy with all. Therefore reactivity in certain scenarios is less a behaviour problem to be fixed, and more a failure in our understanding of dogs and a dismissal of their right to have autonomy in their choices.

We expect more from our dogs than we expect from ourselves. This is causing us great disappointment and causing dogs great distress.

08/12/2026

Great training often doesn’t look like much. A lot of work goes into creating a calm neutral dog in a busy environment.

08/12/2026

It’s a sugar and caffeine kind of day. Sugar for the dogs (pup cups) and caffeine for me. Leroy’s knees aren’t what they used to be so he doesn’t come for the ride but mom always brings one home for him.

08/11/2026