Should You Put Your Fearful, Anxious, Reactive, or Aggressive Dog Into a Board and Train Program?

Board and train. You drop your dog off for an extended stay with a professional dog trainer who will spend time working with your dog to help them overcome training and behavior challenges. It sounds magical. Especially when you have a complicated doggo who's struggling with fear, anxiety, reactivity, or even some aggressive tendencies and the situation hasn't been improving despite all the things you've done to try and make things better.

While it sounds like a promising last-ditch effort, there are some things that don't get talked about before you send your dog off to boarding school. Here are three reasons not to enroll your fearful, anxious, or reactive dog into a board and train program.

1. Stress

When you're living with the challenges that come with caring for a troubled dog it can be difficult to view the situation objectively. Chances are though, you're already doing things to make your dog feel more safe and secure, which is hugely important for improving their chances of overcoming their behavioral struggles.

Simply having a predictable routine can help them stay grounded. Allowing them to retreat to your closet or under the kitchen table can help them feel more safe and secure. Not forcing them to go on a walk or in the car when they're not feeling brave empowers them with the chance to make choices.

Uprooting them from the safety and predictability of familiar things, people, other dogs, and spaces is incredibly stressful for them. I'm sure by now you can see how a typical board and train facility full of strange people, other dogs, and no semblance or comforts of home would be stressful for an insecure dog. The last thing an already fearful, anxious, or reactive dog needs is more stress.

Additionally, much like people, dogs have a much harder time learning when stressed. Sometimes dogs will completely shut down and learn nothing, besides perhaps, new things to find scary. To spend thousands of dollars to send your dog away to not learn anything and possibly return home with worse problems than when you dropped them off would be disparaging to say the least.

"...everything spiraled out of control after 5 days with them. She came home no better than she went in and i believe the E collar had something to do with her becoming very aggressive and she started biting everyone and everything. I was at the point where i thought she might have to be rehoused."

- Sandy, Albuquerque, NM

2. Environment Matters

Different environments elicit different behaviors. For example, you probably don't pay much attention to a stranger walking into the grocery store you're in. But you'd probably pay pretty close attention if that same stranger walked into your home. In both scenarios a stranger is walking through a door, but which door matters a whole lot in terms of what your reaction is going to be. The environment and context matters for how we respond to certain situations and stimuli, and the same is true for our dogs.

If your dog has a particular struggle, like resource guarding your bed, not liking a few particular people or dogs, or barking at people and dogs from inside your car, it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remedy those problems through a board and train program.

Even if your dog seems to have general reactivity, a board and train program still might not be helpful. Sometimes the seemingly tiniest of changes can elicit significantly different behaviors. For example, a dog I worked with, Teddy, would lunge and bark at nearly every person and dog when walking with female family members, and then reportedly would have zero reactions when walking in the same area with a male family member or male dog sitter.

"Yesterday we had our family pictures. At the studio they had a little dressing room with a full length mirror and Reina went crazy barking at herself in the mirror...We have a full length mirror at home and she looks at herself and doesn't have that reaction."

- Lyssa, Albuquerque, NM

3. Limited Education for Dog Guardians

Most board and train programs have limited follow up meetings, if any, to teach dog guardians how to continue working with their dog and how to maintain any new skills their dog might have acquired during their stay.

Even with board and train programs focusing on basic obedience, many dog guardians find that their dog comes home with greatly improved skills, but after about a week or so they start responding less reliably, or stop responding to the cues altogether.

When working to solve behavioral challenges, additional knowledge and training expertise is required. Therefore, it is even more crucial for dog guardians to learn what makes their dog tick and how to continue working with them to overcome things like fear and reactivity.

"Despite 9 days of training and a boarding facility with a dog trainer, Orion's aggression only got worse. I felt like I had tried everything and was ready to give up."

- Anna Claire, SC

Summary

It might not feel like it when you're in the middle of the storm of your dog's behavioral struggles, but you truly are the best person to help your dog. And you're likely already helping your dog more than you realize!

Getting direct help from a professional, positive reinforcement trainer or behaviorist, and/or a veterinary behaviorist to help your dog right where they are and where the problems exist is the best way to set your dog, and yourself, up for success.