March 2019 | Article Blog | 10 minute read

For owners of reactive dogs, how many times has Rover lunged at another dog, car or worse, someone passing you on the sidewalk? You can barely hold their leash as your dog violently jumps and barks at the ‘threat’. You’re feeling embarrassed and frustrated. You’ve taken your dog to group classes and private training but he’s still ‘the same’.

Understanding dog behavior is learning beyond the surface of what we see. As with all behaviors, it is usually rooted in psychological affectations. Your dog’s behavior is dysfunctional on a psychogenesis basis. As with humans, dogs have a viscerally-connected psychology. Dogs experience emotions with a primal capacity. They act the way they feel.

The most common types of dogs I work with are dangerous to extremely dangerous. I’m not talking about the dog that lunges, as described above…but rather dogs that have attacked viciously. Some have killed other dogs and animals. Some have viciously attacked people causing dozens and dozens of stitches. On the ‘lighter side’ are dogs with OCD behavioral issues such as spinning in circles or skittishness or fear biting. I actively work with dogs that are court designated as “extremely dangerous” over 150 lbs. These are usually dogs that have bitten over one dozen humans. At all times, I utilize science-based psychogenesis evaluation to work toward understanding the ‘why’.

It is imperative to address a dog’s psychological dysfunctions not through medication nor treat training (I’ll get to that in a later article why it stunts your dog’s ability to emotionally mature). It’s akin to a person overeating when they are depressed. Food substitutes as a cover for the psychological pain but the psychological pain still remains, regardless. How do we ‘fix’ Rover? We change the way your dog sees the world around him on his evolutionary intuitive level. Reciprocal empathy plays an integral role.

In 1/10th of a second your dog has processed a threat

To diagnose the ‘why’ means understanding the reactions of your dog relative to their hyper processing time. From over 1400 days and almost 20,000 hours alone with extremely dangerous dogs genuinely intent on trapping to kill me, I’ve determined it takes 1/10th of a second for a dog to process a trigger. Through nature, dog’s process at a speed which I consider a vein of quantum thinking. Your dog’s logical process is augmented by their psychological and emotional elements. Your dog’s functional brilliance processes so quickly it appears instinctive…it is actually the way your dog quantitatively processes logic. Conscious awareness sympatico with instinct.

Additionally, what your dog feels in the sense of safety, security and confidence from his humans, determines his reactivity. Your dog processes and ‘feels’ everything seemingly at once. The truth is your dog is processing so quickly that we tend to not observe their nuanced behavior. How you, his human, can assuage these ‘life-threatening’ fears for him means understanding your dog by watching him constantly…if you paid as much as attention to your dog as you do to your cell phone…

Learning to notice the signs of his nuanced body behaviors, which manifest from his fears, is crucial. It is amazing how quickly this happens.

It is CRUCIAL to address a dog’s psychological dysfunction(s) at the root basis. By extrapolating the human psychology platform onto dogs, applying psychogenesis evaluation, we apply logic, emotive experience and social intuition onto our dog’s behaviors. We evaluate the reasons why your dog is reactive. It’s akin to a person over-eating. Why are they over-eating? Are they eating when they are depressed. Do they over-eat when they are stressed? Food substitutes as a cover for the psychological pain but the psychological pain still remains, regardless. How do we ‘fix’ Rover? We change the way the dog sees the world around him on an evolutionary intuitive level. We change the way how we make your dog feel safe.

Understanding your dog’s worries, before they become psychologically debilitating. Letting your dog know you are aware of the (potential) threats will ease his vigilance and stress of him always being on alert. Instead of your dog feeling ‘alone’ on walks with you, work on letting your dog know that you are a team. Respectful communication may seem foreign to you but to your dog, it’s exactly what he craves.

No amount of human medication or treats will psychologically ‘fix’ a dysfunctional dog

Most dysfunctional dogs are a result of human abuse and often neglect. Simply ignoring budding issues is neglectful dog parenting. Instead of realizing that the behaviors your dog is starting to exhibit should immediately be addressed, some owners think it’s cute or worse, not a concern. Through time, owners will proclaim their dog has ‘suddenly become uncontrollable’. Despite all the telltale nuances that were previously being ignored. As easy as it is to find hundreds of free basic dog training videos online, owners often fail to take the time to recognize their responsibility of being a loving and responsible dog parent.

When the developing behavioral issues start to make you wonder whether your dog’s behavior will become a problem…that is the time to begin gently yet firmly guiding your dog toward socially acceptable manners with your loving confidence. Being complacent creates a more difficult dog that listens less and less to you. It stunts your dog’s ability to mature. Don’t let apathy become antipathy as it will funnel your dog toward entrenching negative behavior socially.

Being complacent stunts your dog’s ability to mature

With Rover’s seeming aggression, it’s important to efficiently and accurately ascertain your dog’s dysfunctions at the root of their historical psychology. An accurate and timely psychogenesis evaluation ensures your trainer is not trying multiple methods which can confuse your dog. It can cause your dog further anxiety. More problematic is when your dog learns to adapt predaciously to incorrect training. Being predatorial also infers intellectual adaptation.

Dogs follow your lead. They cognitively process for logic (reasoning) behind your actions with them. Figuring out how to simplify your dog’s complex psychology into articulation will, in turn, allow you to have the confidence of knowing why your dog has been reactive. By knowing the basic (functional) reasons why your dog is wanting to attack another dog can then make it ‘make sense’ to us. If Rover has been attacked in doggy daycare by a furry dog, we need to work on reducing Rover’s anxieties every time a furry dog approaches by adapting to his psychogenesis.

How to make Rover feel safe in a crowded doggy world

How we do that depends on the dog. There is an estimated 900 million dogs in the world. When I evaluate and train a dangerous dog, my three main efforts are to coach and train the dog, sometimes for the first time, on how to rebuild their:

Self Esteem
Self Confidence
Self Worth

This is a common want of every domesticated dog. From mildly OCD dogs to extremely dangerous giant dogs weighing over 150 lbs. Dogs want to know they are valued. If they are feeling unsafe, they will react aggressively. Respect the brilliance of your dog. Understand that your dog would give his or her life to defend yours. This profound loyalty is rare in human society. Dog behavior is based on this familial reference innately evolutionary.

As I mentioned above, I have the very unique reputation of being the only trainer in North America that works alone with predatorial dogs using only a regular fabric cinch collar & leash…nothing else. Because of my unique skill set, every predatorial dog I work with, I interact directly. When working with owners, if their dog is dangerous, I’ll tell the owner to very firmly and securely hold onto the leash (a few times dogs have gotten loose, attacking and biting me, so I am always scared).

I watch the dog to understand them psychologically. I make eye contact to establish the dog’s behavioral pattern, watching how they reacts. From there, I start talking to them to ascertain their Voice Key. I talk to them and start going through a range of tones, cadence, rhythms, intonations, etc…watching their body behavior. This is developing the dog’s Voice Key. I watch the dog’s body positions and his physical responses to touch, including the way I touch the dog’s body. I do this to understand how the dog reacts to various stimuli. I read dog’s in about 2/10ths of a second. Caution is always foremost.

Understanding Your Dog’s Voice Key

One of the important steps in determining a dog’s psychology is establishing their varied complex behaviours. I make immediate adjustments when their reactivity changes, good or bad. Working with the dog initially also requires learning reciprocal leash control. I pay attention at all times not just for safety reasons but to make sure I don’t miss any slight nuance. When we pay attention to the dog’s behavior, we start to connect and understand. If we don’t, we get bit.

As your dog begins to trust you, they begin to listen to you. Use a firm, confident Voice Key with clear breath. Do not compromise your physical confidence. Do not come from the place of alpha as per se…that is ‘brute force’ and only causes your dog to fear being physically punished (and shows the trainer’s inexperience and unspoken ego). If a man forced you to the ground, they would be in jail.

Our dogs are an integral part of our family. Remember your dog will give their life to save yours. One of the best tools to remember is it’s not the language (English, Spanish, Chinese, etc…). It’s the way we talk to our dogs. That is your dog’s Voice Key. It is in our intent. It’s demonstrating to your dog that any ‘threats’ will be handled by his owner rather than your dog feeling obligated to be on alert constantly.

Efficiently and accurately applying psychogenesis evaluation of your dog’s dysfunctions starts at their base psychological root. Training extremely dangerous giant dogs stalking me for minutes at a time, genuinely intent on trapping and killing me, is an incredibly specialized experience. It is like living with a lion and a serial killer in the body of a dog. Walter Tsai the Great Dane has a bite strength in the 700 PSI range.

I have learned from my unique experiences of living in genuine fear of being killed that every single nuance means something relatable to a dog’s psychology. We can literally understand every dog through our innate desire to protect and see our dogs happy.

About VID Dog Training

VID References Science-Based Psychogenesis

VID Dog Training (‘Viscerally Intuitive Dog Training’) identifies the primary causes of every dog’s behavioral issues through true psychological analysis. By knowing the root dysfunctions, we logically ‘downstream’ to your dog’s physically manifesting behaviors with comparatives. It’s the ‘why’ that complements the ‘how’. It’s why using treats, medications, shock/prong/painful collars are classical tools of the past. When you understand your dog, you are saying to them you understand their fears.

Think of the friend that hates being a passenger in a car. We naturally assume it’s because they think we are a bad driver. It behooves us to find out what we can do for them to feel safe as a passenger. By asking them questions…we learn they dislike being a passenger because they are scared. More questions and we learn they were once in a bad car accident. With dogs, we apply the same logic path. But dogs don’t talk so how do we ‘ask’ Rover why he wants to attack every dog? This is when we can teach our dogs to process simple emotional triggers. To slow down and process some pretty darn complex emotions for them through our patience and consistency of simple VID training.

Classical information relies on the general perspective that dogs are ‘pack animals’. Better to call them group animals. Dogs prefer to live in a group, such as a family. They can intermingle with other dogs in the group with mixed results but not creating significant issues. They are loyal to one another and will die to protect any of us. When we review the genesis of a dog’s need, we come to the aforementioned realization dogs are more than a familial animal…dogs exist in varying degrees of the three dependencies (in a future article, I will discuss why ‘pack animals’ are ‘dependents’). Dogs are emotionally fluid.

Dogs exist in varying degrees of dependencies. We begin to understand the dog’s need to belong. They want to feel safe. Despite their public behaviors…your dog genuinely does not want to attack other dogs nor have to feel stressed. You can begin maturing your dog simply by letting them know their human is protecting their environment, feeding them and sharing affection.

Dogs Are The First And Last To Always Love You

Imagine how amazing it is to be a dog with all that Love selflessly shared with you. Learn to understand that that is part of your dog’s genetic personality. Then you’ll understand the ‘whys’ of your dog.

There is a viral picture of actor Keanu Reeves holding a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “A dog is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself”. That is incorrect. By extrapolating the familial, we upstream that thought, to the simplicity of the dog’s inherent dependencies. The dog doesn’t love you more than himself…the fact is:

‘A dog loves you as much as he loves himself’

Anything more is infatuation.

VID Dog Training
Collar & leash is all anyone needs.

The modernization of dog training. Finally.

James Tsai trains extremely dangerous dogs. He is best known for successfully working with giant dogs weighing over 150 lbs that have developed predatorial behavior due to extreme human abuse. James is recognized by the Court of New York, Southampton Animal Shelter, SRGDRR (largest nationwide Great Dane Rescue in America), New Hope For Danes (oldest Great Dane Rescue in Canada, est. 1984), CooGo (Taiwan-affiliate), Furever Freed Dog Rescue and Animal Hope and Wellness Foundation (Los Angeles). He does not use treats, medications nor any restrictive collars. James has a 100% success rate.
@ArfArfBarkBark
james@ArfArfBarkBark.com