Keeping their mind slow..
I’ve worked with reactive dogs and reactive horses..
The more reactive they get, thee smaller I get. Not saying I let them kill me, but if they are in a true struggle, I let go of the pressure.. reactive is Adrenalin based.. a horse can kill you when you can’t bring that Adrenalin back to center, a dog well it can kill a sheep, or just your pride.
Fractious minds are hard to work with if you don’t have great skill. To a novice it shows great rebellion, to a professional it shows as stress.
This animal tends to enjoy the endorphine, while you as a trainer struggle to bring it all back to center, it’s party time for them to watch you flounder.
The more you train and pressure these types of horses, the more they rebel.. they will buck and blow up, they can get stiff instead of supple.. the dogs aren’t much different. These types of dogs show the same sign, race faster, run with no good intentions.. ears just shut down. No suppleness to their moves at all, everything is rash.
If you try to train through this moment, you can’t. You have to stop the motion. If you ask for something and they do fifty other things they are searching for the answer, if you don’t stop them from searching, and you turn up the heat, it really goes south. They aren’t afraid to fight back.. you’ve now entered the fight or flight zone. You’re trying to make your point, they are way beyond your point. Stop the motion.. bring the mind back down to slow.
If you keep their mind slow, they don’t react. The training process may take longer, but you can try to start to communicate again; whereas if their mind is going too fast all communication is cut off.. they no longer can team, they can only survive.
There are trainers that never bring this behavior out; things just always feel right. Owners can bring it out faster than a hot potato. Handler stress, uncertainty, bad timing, bad use of command, bad cues, bad body language. All these things can contribute to making this type of animal react.
You simply must keep their mind slow. If you are struggling to get thru the basic fundamentals ask yourself can I keep his mind slow.. if you can’t, then this type of thinker is not for you..
I urge you to try.. let go of the reins and just see.. hopefully your partner will relax and come back into you.. as we say in horses.. drive from behind and let them relax in your hands. If they keep running they haven’t relaxed yet.
If they can’t evolve into that working partner that suits your style, whatever that may be.. set them free..there’s another great handler out there that can…..
Keep their mind slow.