Games that double as behavior modification

This is the section that matters most.

Everything here looks like a game. All of it is doing structured behavior work. I've listed each one with what it's actually treating, who developed it, and whether I'd recommend learning it with help. The step-by-step instructions live in the numbered library: I've linked each one rather than repeating myself.

Correct attribution matters to me. These protocols were developed by named people who did the work, and they deserve the credit.

Pattern games: Leslie McDevitt

Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed program introduced pattern gamesLeslie McDevitt's short, repeating games with a fixed and predictable structure, such as counting to three and delivering food on three.Read more →: short, predictable, repeating sequences a dog can run on autopilot. The mechanism is simple. An anxious dog's nervous system is desperate for predictability. A pattern supplies it, which frees up enough mental bandwidth for the dog to cope with something they otherwise couldn't.

The 1-2-3 Game: treats: scanning, hypervigilance, inability to move past a triggerAnything that reliably produces a strong emotional response in a particular dog.Read more →, general leash tension. The count gives your dog a rhythm to attach to instead of the environment. Especially good for dogs who freeze and lock on.

The Up Down Game: treats: not being able to hold still. Vet lobbies, waiting at a curb, standing in line, letting something pass. Fills stationary time with a self-sustaining loop.

Look At That: treats: the underlying emotional response to a trigger. It reframes "I see the thing" from a threat into a cueA word, sound or signal that tells a dog which behavior will be reinforced right now.Read more → that predicts food. Over time the trigger itself starts predicting good things.

McDevitt has several more games worth knowing: Give Me A Break, Ready-Set-Down, and the mat work that underpins the whole program. Her book and courses are the primary source, and they're worth owning.

Learning it properly: the first two you can run straight off the page. Look At That is the one worth learning with a trainer once you are using it on real triggers, because the timing is everything and it is hard to see your own. That is what a private lesson is for.

Engage-Disengage: Alice Tong, building on McDevitt

Engage Disengage: treats: leash reactivityReactive behavior that appears when a dog is on a leash and largely disappears when they are not.Read more →, specifically. It teaches a dog to self-interrupt before they tip over thresholdThe point at which a dog stops being able to think clearly about what is happening around them.Read more →, rather than relying on you to notice and intervene. Alice Tong, KPA CTP, LCSW, built it on McDevitt's Look At That and published it on clickertraining.com in July 2014. It's become one of the most widely used approaches to leash reactivityReactive behavior that appears when a dog is on a leash and largely disappears when they are not.Read more →.

Learning it properly: the setup is where this one goes wrong. Too close and you rehearse the reaction instead of the alternative, which makes the problem worse. Reading your dog's distance threshold in real time is the hard part, and it is not something a page can give you, so work through it with us.

Behavior Adjustment Training: Grisha Stewart

BAT 2.0 is a different philosophy from the food-based games above. Rather than feeding through exposure, BAT gives the dog control over the distance between themselves and the trigger, and lets them make the choice to approach or leave. Stewart describes leash skills as roughly eighty percent of BAT: the handling is the technique.

Treats: fear, frustration and aggression, particularly in dogs who find food-based protocols too arousing, and dogs whose core problem is a lack of agency.

Learning it properly: the leash handling genuinely cannot be learned from a written description, and the set-ups need a helper dog or a person you can direct. Bring us in and we will run the first ones with you.

Relaxation Protocol: Dr. Karen Overall

Relaxation Protocol: treats: the underlying inability to settle. Not a specific trigger, the baseline. Most reactive dogs are running at a permanently elevated resting state, and this is the most structured tool for lowering it.

It's a fifteen-day list of tasks, freely available as a PDF, and it's the closest thing to homework there is. Do it in a boring room with nothing happening. The exercises matter less than what your dog takes from them: holding still and doing nothing is a rewardable, safe thing to do.

Learning it properly: most people can run this one from the page. Do get help if your dog cannot complete Day 1 after a couple of weeks, because that usually means something else is going on, and sometimes that something is pain.

Mat work and station training

Mat Work and Go To Place: treats: door-dashing, guest arrivals, general chaos at predictable moments, and dogs who can't switch off in the evening. It gives your dog one clear answer to "what should I be doing right now," which is a question a lot of anxious dogs never stop asking.

Capturing Calm: treats: the belief that calm is boring. Most dogs get attention for doing something and ignored for doing nothing, and they draw the obvious conclusion. This flips it, costs nothing, and works quietly in the background for weeks.

Find It as a redirection and threshold tool

Find It: treats: the moment when something appears and you need your dog's nose on the ground right now.

Two things make this work rather than just being a distraction. First, a dog with their nose down is not scanning and fixating, and the two are hard to do at once. Second, if it's been practiced hundreds of times in easy places, the cue itself carries a relaxed emotional association into a harder one.

The failure mode is using it too late: once your dog is already over threshold, they won't take food, and you're now trying to distract a dog who can't be distracted. Use it when you spot something at a distance, not when your dog has already locked on.

Treat and Retreat: Suzanne Clothier

Developed by Suzanne Clothier for shy, socially anxious and fearful dogs. One treat is tossed toward the dog and one is tossed away behind them, so approaching is always followed by an easy exit. It builds confidence around people without ever cornering the dog or requiring them to hold their ground.

Treats: fear of strangers, shy and under-socializedA dog who encountered too little of the world during the developmental period when new things are most easily accepted.Read more → rescue dogs, and dogs who approach and then panic at close range.

Clothier's Auto Check-In is also worth knowing: teaching voluntary attention rather than cued attention, which is a meaningfully different thing.

Learning it properly: if your dog has any bite history, this is not one to improvise. The setups involve people, and someone has to be managing them.

Cooperative care and consent

Cooperative Care Chin Rest: treats: handling fear, vet anxiety, grooming struggles, and muzzle avoidance.

The chin rest is really a start button, and lifting the chin reliably stops everything. Dogs who have a working way to say "stop" stop needing to escalate to growling and biting to be heard. This has a bigger effect on quality of life than almost anything else in this document.

Learning it properly: if your dog already has a serious handling problem, work with a trainer and your vet together, and ask about pre-visit medication rather than white-knuckling through appointments.

Where the line is

Games are the right tool for a dog who is worried, over-aroused, or under-stimulated.

Get professional help if you're seeing:

• Any bite that broke skin, on a person or another animal
• Reactivity that's getting worse despite consistent work
• A dog who can't take food anywhere outside the house
• Guarding that involves stiffening, freezing or air-snapping
• Sudden behavior change in an adult dog, which warrants a vet visit first, because pain presents as behavior