On the latest episode of The Family Pupz Podcast, we asked the owner and head trainer of Sit Pretty Behavior & Training, Vanessa Charbonneau, how she applied the training and experience she gained with working with car reactive dogs to her own life.

Her answer was fascinating.

We also get Tanya's thoughts on how she is affected by triggers, and how she deals with it.

Check out their answers above!

To learn more about how to train a dog that is reactive in the car, check out Vanessa's webinar, Chaos In The Car, here: https://www.sit-pretty.ca/training-options/chaos-in-the-car-webinar

To listen to the rest of the conversation with Vanessa, check out the podcast episode below:

[TRANSCRIPT FOR THE VIDEO BELOW]

Family Pupz: Well I have a, I guess, semi-interesting question for the group.

Has your insight into reactivity, into behavior, has that spilled over into your own life, into things that you might be reactive about?

And have you used some of those techniques on yourself? Take me through some of that, if that's relevant.

Vanessa Charbonneau: I think for me, the more I've learned about reactive dogs, I really think that what's hit home for me is trigger stacking, or that reactivity loop.

And being able to identify when I myself am in that reactivity loop, and having strategies to pull myself out of it.

So we always talk about with our reactive dogs, decompression, you know, “my dog had a bad day, how do I help him come back down from that, and get back to baseline?”

And I think that is something that I've managed to pull from my training side of myself and bring it into my own life is addressing triggers stacking, recognizing trigger stacking, and being able to pull myself out of that, that loop.

It’s the same with my kids, too. I've got two kids and identifying them when they're starting to get trigger stacked, and realizing that you know, that outbursts of behavior that's coming as a result of that trigger stacking, is not my child being defiant or malicious, or whatever label you want to throw on them.

That's my kid saying I cannot handle any more. And then that allows me to approach that in an entirely different way than I would if I labeled my kid as “stubborn” in that moment.

So that to me has been a game changer for sure.

Family Pupz: Well, my thing is that sometimes when I get, let's say, triggered in some way, and I’m feeling in a certain way, but maybe I'm not very aware of what exactly am I feeling, my most recent exercises were, “okay, I'm just a little off, like what's going on?”

And then I would just like, sit down and write out like, my thoughts, what the situation is, and just once I started writing down, it really helps me pinpoint a certain trigger or a certain feeling and a certain narrative that comes as a result of those experiences.

And then, if that helps me, then, recognize whether that's the reality or just something I've made up in my mind. Or if it's a narrative that actually serves me and my well being, or if this just like, the mean girl is speaking in my head, whether I want to listen to her or not.

And that has just helped me bring some awareness to where my emotions and reactions are coming from.

Vanessa Charbonneau: Yeah, I love that.