Pets and Their People Blog

This blog post is the Winner in the Pet Professional Guild’s Pets and Their People Celebrating Life Together community outreach competition in the Pet Professional Activities- Write a Blog Post category.

Happy dog lounging content on his bed. Social walks and play dates with other dogs. Public events with your four-legged friend. All situations I imagined when we brought home our tiny, adorable beagle puppy.

Anxiety (genetic), fear, the pandemic and two dog attacks.

My beagle is anxious and fear-reactive. He has really BIG feelings, and not to mention, a loud voice. I am a professional dog trainer. If I were to say I was prepared for our life the past 3 years, I’d be lying through my teeth.

The dark and twisty side…

I have Multiple Sclerosis and I am also a caregiver to my adult son who lives with multiple challenges including legal blindness. Our goal for our precious beagle pup was to be a loving, gentle companion for my son. Unfortunately, Vader our beagle, was not the happy-go-lucky Snoopy dog we anticipated.

Vader doesn’t go places with us often, he needs medications, we do not go to parks, we do not go for walks, we do not have play dates with other dogs and we must remove all line of sight to other dogs unless we are prepared to manage appropriately.

Sounds rather terrible, doesn’t it? Would you believe me if I told you we live a wonderful and enriching life?

The bright and shiny side….

Vader is a Champion Trick Dog and a stellar Scent Work dog. He is sweet, sensitive, silly, cuddly, fun, and oh so smart. Our weeks are filled with hours of tricks, finding smells, games, toys, cuddles, KONGs, lick mats, snuffles mats, kisses, laughter and Sniff Spot/specific location sniffaris. We support him to feel safe in the presence of dogs by giving him choice, autonomy, comfort and yummy rewards.

It’s a good life, just not the one we imagined. Vader is an amazing family member, just not the one from the picture in our minds.

Vader is living his best life, and so are we!

Have a reactive/fearful dog? Let me lay it out for you.

1. Throw away that image of the family dog you thought you’d have. Now, accept the dog in front of you.
2. Forget the traits you wanted in a dog and embrace YOUR dog’s personality.
3. Consider Scent Work and Trick training. Both can be extremely fun and enriching for your dog, and completely possible for reactive dogs.
4. Learn about enrichment! Daily walks are often highly overrated, difficult and can be traumatizing for your reactive dog. There are many ways to both physically, mentally and emotionally enrich your dog.
5. Consult with a force-free, ethical trainer! Do your research. Ask oodles of questions.
6. Advocate for your dog! Advocate for you!

Finally, love the dog you have and find ways to live your absolute best life. 😊

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About Celebrating Life Together

The Community Outreach Competition was designed to saturate social media and our local communities with fun, effective educational training messages for pet owners and pet professionals.

The Event Goals:

• Encourage, motivate, and incentivize pet owners and pet professionals to participate in the mass production of fun and informative education for pets and their people!
• Provide great examples of positive-reinforcement training and pet care procedures that all pet owners can embrace.
• Actively engage our local communities to participate in an event that “celebrates life together” with our pets.
• Focus on business-to-business education in our pet professional communities, sharing our knowledge to support pet owners and their pets.