Teaching Calm

From now on, following any activity that would fill their ‘stress balloon’, provide your dog with a calming activity. Anything that empties our stress balloon and achieves calm is called a settle aid. Ensure that all settle aids are given in your dog’s safe space. I also recommend feeding all meals in the safe space. The goal is for our dogs to automatically go to their safe space when they can feel their stress building up. To achieve this:  

Stage 1 is to teach our dogs that their settle aid will always appear in their safe space:  

1. Prepare their settle aid. Your dog will likely follow you, curious about what you are doing.  
2. Take the settle aid and place it onto their bed in their safe space.  
3. Your dog is likely to follow you and go onto their bed to enjoy their settle aid.  
4. Shut them into their safe space until they have finished their settle aid.  
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 but leave them shut in for 10 seconds after finishing their settle aid before opening their door. Increase this my 5 to 10 seconds each time. You have waited too long if you see any signs of distress.  

Stage 2 you will start to see your dog running into their safe space when you go to get their settle aid as they know you are always going to place it onto their bed. When this happens:  

1. Grab your settle aid as normal.  
2. As you carry it to their safe space your dog should be following you. Just before your dog goes into their safe space say ‘SETTLE’.  
3. Wait up to 6 seconds for them to go into their safe space.  
4. Once your dog goes into their safe space place their settle aid onto their bed as normal.  
5. Repeat this every session.  

Stage 3 you want to build towards saying your cue SETTLE before going to get their settle aid. To do this:  

1. Follow stage 2 but this time, say the SETTLE cue one step earlier.  
2. Each session say the SETTLE cue one step earlier (so two steps away from their safe space, then three, then four etc.) until you can say SETTLE and they will settle on their bed while you go to get their settle aid.   

Eventually you can use your settle cue for having visitors round or answering the door (to deliveries or a friendly neighbour). A bonus goal is for our dogs to settle in their safe space, shutting them in with a settle aid so we can answer the door.