Aggression
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How rehabilitation works: the right logic
Serious rehabilitation does not start with commands. It follows a hierarchy of intervention, in this order:
1. Safety, making sure nobody gets hurt while we work, through distance and environment management.
2. Regulation, teaching the dog to lower its own state of arousal and stay below the threshold where it can still think.
3. Direction, giving the dog clear information about what to do instead of reacting.
4. Pressure and limits, communicating fairly what is and isn't acceptable, at the right moment.
5. Obedience, only at the end, once the dog is emotionally available, do commands become reliable.
Technically, this rests on two processes: desensitisation (exposing the dog to the trigger at an intensity it tolerates, increasing very gradually) and counter-conditioning (changing the association, the other dog starts predicting good things instead of conflict).
Both done with precision in distance, timing and body-language reading.
