What "Trigger Stacking" Is And How It Relates To Dog Reactivity

On the latest episode of The Family Pupz Podcast, we asked the owner and head trainer of Sit Pretty Behavior & Training, Vanessa Charbonneau, explains what "Trigger Stacking" is, and how it relates to reactive behaviors in dogs.

Check out her 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]

Vanessa Charbonneau: When I talk about trigger stacking, I always throw that word around and realize that not everybody knows what it means. 

But a trigger is anything that our dog reacts to, our stressed out by, or is eliciting emotions. And if we're constantly being triggered, we're being triggered multiple times a day, or multiple times in every car ride, those triggers start to stack on top of each other. And then we have a dog who's climbing higher and higher and higher towards their thresholds and getting more and more and more stressed. And if we're getting triggered every day, or multiple times a day, our dogs never have a chance to regulate those stress hormones and come back down to normal. And this results in a dog who's kind of wound tight all of the time and very trigger sensitive. 

So we're seeing more reactions more easily with dogs who are constantly being exposed to them.