by Kate LaSala | Jun 30, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Resource Guarding
One of the most common things I hear from new clients—either on their intake forms or during our first consult—is this: “I think my dog is trying to protect me.” Often, this belief comes up when a dog barks, growls, or even snaps at strangers or when...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 31, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs
As someone who focuses on fear and aggression, a majority of my clients have fear of strangers, or “stranger danger.” This includes subsets of strangers, like fear of children, fear of men or fear of people who look or act a certain way. When your...
by Kate LaSala | Nov 11, 2024 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity
Can dogs be racist? This is a question I get from clients when they sheepishly bring this up in consults and sort of whisper “I think my dog is a racist.” I assure them, first, that they’re not alone and second, that as embarrassing as this...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 13, 2023 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding, Separation Anxiety
One of the biggest differences working with a qualified trainer and trying to DIY your training is knowing when or how to make your training more challenging for your dog. One of the recent survey questions submitted was “how do I know when my dog is...
by Kate LaSala | Jul 4, 2022 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs, Separation Anxiety
A while ago I wrote about the importance of interval training in dog training. This idea of mixing high intensity practices with periods of rest or easier practices is a concept encourage my clients to use when training their dogs, especially separation anxiety...
by Kate LaSala | Apr 4, 2022 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs, Separation Anxiety
If you’ve ever exercised a lot or trained for a big event, you’re familiar with interval training. This idea of mixing high intensity practices with periods of rest or easier practices is a concept encourage my clients to use when training their...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 28, 2022 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs
When you have a dog who is afraid of stranger and leash reactive, it can make walks and just living your life, very challenging. It’s embarrassing, disruptive and in some cases, possibly dangerous. But there are things we can do in the course of training...
by Kate LaSala | Jul 26, 2021 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Resource Guarding
I commonly have clients write on their intake form or tell me during our initial consult that they think their dog is “protecting them.” Maybe their dog barks at, growls or bites strangers so people jump to the conclusion their dog is guarding...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 25, 2021 | Dog Training, Separation Anxiety
Since the majority of my behavior practice involves working fear and aggression cases, including separation anxiety, I spend a lot of time helping clients navigate how we can break the things their dog is afraid of, whether it’s strangers, absences,...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 18, 2021 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity
With the horrible events in our nation’s Capitol recently, I’ve been struggling a bit with how to appropriately provide relevant, but sensitive content for this week, so it seemed fitting to broach the topic of racism, or at least racism in dogs. ...
