Anxious Canine Aggression: How We Can Help
Transformed With Canine Flow
15 Nov 2017
Category:- Understanding Canine Flow
Some of you may recall Stewie, an amazing Shiba Inu, who started me on a journey of teaching Spirals and Emotional Flow work to transform behaviours for dogs.
Practitioner Dawn Stone's recent success with Toshi, another Shiba Inu, has reminded me of those beginnings and also just how needed this kind of behaviourial work is.
Both Stewie and Toshi were displaying aggression to humans and were both very fearful and anxious. The breed rescue tasked with Stewie's rehabilitation and re-homing were determined not to give up on him. However, after unsuccessfully trying the dog behaviour and training methods they knew of, they began to feel at a loss, when somebody mentioned my name to founder Janice. Having successfully worked with Stewie when Toshi first came into the rescue, Janice had an idea that our behaviour and training methods might be just what he needed.
Behaviours Toshi displayed were described as: not tolerant of people, not tolerant of other dogs, threatening to bite, fearful, shaking all over, anxious, flighty, never seen sitting or lying down, moves at the slightest noise, and zero tolerance for strangers.
Luckily, one of Canine Flow’s most confident practitioners Dawn Stone lived nearby. She was happy to go and see if there was anything we could do for Toshi. Dawn, just as with Stewie, made HUGE progress. Even the initial consult amazed everyone due to Toshi's acceptance of Dawn herself, and of relaxing at all! His difference afterwards was sensational. The video below shows Dawn working with Toshi by using some of the Canine Flow techniques
In total Dawn visited twice, then with Toshi already such a different dog, the rescue staff were better able to begin to teach him basic training such as 'sit'. More importantly too, they could begin to build a bond and have some fun with him, as a potential pet dog. He has now even started to enjoy agility classes and is (at the time of this blog) looking for his forever home.
I am extremely proud of Dawn's work, and feel eternally grateful to be able to teach people how to do this kind of thing for dogs! We are literally transforming behaviour through promoting Emotional Flow and thus clearing trauma memory. We have many ways of doing this, depending on the dog, the behaviours, the owner's themselves, and even each practitioner's unique approach.
All of us at Canine Flow do cross our fingers (and paws) for the day this kind of work is seen as behaviour assistance or a training method rather than a therapy. Whilst the two continue to remain differentiated, more and more dogs like Toshi will be deemed un-trainable, or not re-homeable, as their behaviour tries to be trained out of them and ‘therapies’ seen as something different or not as likely to work on a practical level.
With Canine Flow, there is no need to train dogs out of issues like Toshi's, so it actually makes life easier for everyone concerned.