The First Few Walks With Your Rescue Dog

The first few walks that you take your rescue dog on are key to understanding how to proceed in training. Whether you got a rescue from the UK or abroad, those first few walks will give you a tonne of information... so lets break it down.

Firstly it's important to wait a while before taking your dogs for walks - for foreign rescue dogs, the dog cannot leave your premesis for the first 48 hours but even with this most rescues recommend a week of decompression at home before you introduce the outside world. The important thing is that your dog is Sleeping, Eating and resting well at home - if they are not rested & eating, they are not settled enough to tackle any stress outside.

For the first few walks, we just want to give them some space and time to sniff, no agenda, no training, and definitely not off the lead.

Go to a quiet area where your dog can take in their environment without any stressors in the environment. Don't ask anything from them. Often a secure field is a good place to start.

Next we need to slowly see how they respond to stressors in their environment - Stressors may include: Dogs, Wildlife, People, Cars, Bikes, Children, Loud Noises, anything that your dog has a heightened response to and either freezes, startles, tries to run or maybe growls at.

The way we do this is to keep your distance from the stressors but watch how your dog responds to them - do they stare? fixate? Try to make space from?

This will tell you if they are struggling with that thing and from that information you can start to desensitise the dog to it.

To effectively desensitise your dog, it's important that you work with a trainer who can coach you through the process! Building confidence is key to avoiding reactivity and helping your dog become confident.

And most importantly, if your dog is afraid of something, please don't jump into forcing an interaction (this is often seen when a dog is fearful of other dogs or people) - If you dog is pushed into interacting, this is likely to escellate reactivity or aggressive behaviour. Work through it with your dog with the help of a professional.