If your dog barks, lunges, or shuts down around other dogs, people, or everyday life, you're not alone, and it's not a lost cause. This is the work I specialise in.
I'm certified as a CBATI (Behaviour Adjustment Training Instructor, trained directly under BAT's creator Grisha Stewart) and a CSAT (Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer).
But honestly, most of what I know about anxious and fearful dogs came from living with my own. That's what taught me patience over pressure, and why quick fixes don't hold.
Reactivity, fear, and anxiety cases get the time they need for real, lasting change, not a quick patch that slips the moment things get stressful again.
Every session is one to one: you, your dog, and me, in your home or on your actual walking routes, working through the real situations that trigger your dog.
We'll always start with a phone call first, so I understand exactly what you're dealing with before anything is booked.
Absolutely. This kind of training isn't only for aggression. Many of my clients come to me for anxiety, fear of strangers, separation struggles, or general overwhelm. If your dog is stressed, scared, or "on edge," this can really help.
Yes, in most cases, though "trained out" isn't quite the right way to think about it. Reactivity is usually fear or over-arousal, not a switch you flip off. My approach works on changing how your dog feels about their triggers, not just teaching them to suppress the reaction.
In over a decade of doing this in Estepona, I've very rarely seen a reactive dog that couldn't improve significantly with the right approach.
The most common mistake is trying to stop the reaction itself rather than addressing why it's happening. It might look better in the moment, but the underlying fear or frustration is usually still there, and can come out in other ways.
The better path is gradual, supportive exposure alongside genuinely changing how your dog feels about the situation, which is exactly what a structured programme works through with you.
Yes. This is one of my specialisms, and it responds very well to the right structured approach. The key is gradual desensitisation, building up alone time in small, dog-led increments rather than jumping straight to a full day at work.
Rushing this is the most common reason separation anxiety training fails.
You'll see this a lot online: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to settle in, 3 months to feel at home, usually applied to rescue dogs. It's a reasonable rough guide, but I'd treat it as exactly that, rough.
In my experience, the 3 month mark is genuinely important, that's often when a dog feels settled enough for real behaviour issues to surface for the first time. But some dogs need far longer.