Without a daily routine, life can feel chaotic for humans and dogs alike. Chaos brings stress, anxiety, and even depression, when you feel powerless and overwhelmed within your environment.
The same is true for dogs, particularly reactive dogs who are already struggling to adapt.
A daily routine brings structure, stability, and security to your dog’s life. Routine is also essential to any solid behavior modification plan aimed at decreasing your dog’s reactivity.
It’s very challenging to work towards long term goals when every single day looks wildly different.
Many compassionate dog guardians allow their dogs as much freedom as possible, mistakenly assuming that the more choices the dog has, the better.
While there are certainly times when letting your dog run wild and free is 100% appropriate and healthy, their daily life should in fact, be very structured.
This article will discuss three reasons why a structured, predictable daily routine is essential for your reactive dog.
Even if your dog is not currently struggling with reactivity, a daily routine can prevent potential reactivity in the future and provides healthy structure to any dog’s life.
1. Routine brings structure and safety to your dog’s life.
Dogs have the emotional and cognitive abilities of a human toddler. However, unlike a human toddler, they never develop past that level of ability.
Neither dogs nor human toddlers can comprehend the risks and dangers of the world like an adult human.
Because of this, we closely monitor our toddlers and structure their lives so that all important decisions are made for them.
Not because they are stupid or bad, but because they do not possess the cognitive skills to make good, safe decisions.
When we leave our dogs to determine their own daily routine, we are inviting danger, chaos, and stress into both our lives.
Structure prevents this chaos. Structure describes the environment, rules & boundaries you have in place for your dog.
Adding structure to your dog’s life can take many different forms. Examples include crating your dog while you're away or confining them to a specific area of the house when home alone.
By structuring your dog’s environment, you are proactively preventing your dog from engaging in dangerous or undesirable behaviors.
For example, a dog living with no structure is free to steal a chocolate bar off the counter and bark like a lunatic for 8 hours straight at every car that passes while you’re away at work.
If you are attempting to work on your dog’s reactivity issues, allowing them to practice reactive behaviors for 8 hours daily is counterproductive and detrimental to your goals.
Structure also means having house rules, such as not allowing your dog on the sofa without invitation, preventing them from jumping all over guests, or putting them in a different room during mealtimes to prevent begging at the table.
A dog with no rules or boundaries is much harder to live with and even more difficult to keep safe.
Implementing a daily routine where your dog’s day is structured and consistent protects your dog from bad habits, stress, anxiety and injury.
When we limit their options to only positive, healthy behaviors, we set our dogs up for success, not failure.
2. Routine ensures your dog’s essential needs are met.
Life is busy and many of us struggle to meet our own essential needs, let alone our dogs’.
However, when we plan ahead and create a consistent daily routine for our dogs, we will be more effective at meeting our dog’s essential needs.
Reactivity and other behavior issues are often the symptom of an unmet essential need and until all needs are met, successful reactivity treatment is impossible.
Like humans, dogs have essential physical, mental, and emotional needs.
The exact requirements to meet those needs will vary greatly from dog to dog. For example, some breeds will require much more mental and physical exercise than others.
A French Bulldog may have their physical & mental needs met by 2x 20 minute walks a day, whereas a Belgian Malinois requires significantly more strenuous exercise and mental stimulation.
Meeting your dog’s needs is not always easy and requires mindful planning to ensure all needs are being met consistently. This is where having a structured daily routine comes to the rescue.
Creating a daily routine also allows us to implement strategic activities for our dog that meet multiple needs at once. This prevents us from feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.
For example, scattering your dog’s breakfast kibble around the yard and cheering them on as they sniff for food meets all three of your dog’s essential needs.
Sniffing around the yard for food provides your dog with low impact physical activity, mental stimulation from using their nose to search for food, and emotional connection as we cheer them on.
Playing tug with your dog is not only mental and physical stimulation, it’s also a powerful bonding opportunity for you to connect with your dog while having fun together.
Routine allows us to plan ahead and choose meaningful activities for our dog and provides an opportunity to work smarter, not harder.
Meeting a reactive dog’s basic needs can be challenging, so having a solid game plan is critical for success.
Instead of spending a lifetime playing whack-a-mole with various behavior problems caused by unmet needs, take responsibility for your dog’s wellbeing and craft a daily routine that meets their essential needs.
If you are unsure how to determine exactly what your dog’s needs are and whether or not they are being met, I encourage you to check out Kim Brophy’s book, Meet Your Dog.
This book gives a brief but poignant inside look at the different behaviors and needs of different types of dog breeds.
This book provided me with invaluable insight to help manage my extremely reactive boxer, bulldog, lab mix, Freya. This book opened my eyes to what Freya actually needed from me, not what I thought she needed.
It completely changed how I care for my sweet girl, and we are both much happier and less stressed with our updated daily routine.
3. Routine helps stabilize reactive dogs.
By providing your dog with a predictable daily routine, you give the gift of stability.
When every day looks mostly the same, reactive dogs (who are almost always very anxious dogs) can relax, knowing that their home environment is predictable.
When dogs know what’s coming next, they have an easier time feeling safe and calm.
Dogs are incredible at learning and adapting to our behavior patterns, so when you create a daily routine where your behavior is predictable, you become a rock of safety in your dog’s eyes.
They know that when you leave in the morning, you are indeed coming home that evening to cuddle and go for a stroll.
They know that going calmly into the crate will result in a yummy frozen treat, because that’s what happens every day.
You have given them a level of stability that they can hang their hat on.
When your reactive dog knows what to expect from you, the bond of trust solidifies and deepens.
While some novelty, like visiting a new park or getting a new toy, is positive and healthy, introducing too much novelty can stress reactive dogs.
Creating a calm, low stress home environment and a stable routine allows reactive dogs to heal and reset their frayed nervous systems.
Every time your dog has a reactive barking explosion, stress hormones are released into the bloodstream and remain in the body for up to 72 hours.
This means that when your dog has been barking at the window all day while you’re at work, their bloodstream is brimming with cortisol (stress hormone) and it will take days to return to normal levels.
Many people are unaware of this and unintentionally sabotage their reactivity treatment efforts by allowing their dogs to choose their own daily routine.
If I allowed my dog Freya freedom to choose her own activities, she would choose to bark herself into a mouth foaming, shaking rage every. single. day.
Does that sound like a fun day? No, of course not. Continuous high levels of stress are toxic and harmful to your dog mentally and physically.
By carefully structuring her daily routine to only include access to positive behavior options, like taking a nap or enjoying a nice chew, I am allowing her nervous system a chance to stabilize and heal.
Just like our sweet human toddlers, Freya cannot be given the burden of making important decisions for her well-being.
If you are the guardian of a reactive dog, know that providing your dog with a stable, predictable daily routine is one of the greatest gifts you can offer them.
When there is no routine, there is no stability and without stability, growth in any area is extra challenging.
Life is hard enough, don’t make it harder by living in chaos and stress.
Take the time to sit down and make a plan for meeting your reactive dog’s needs and then stick to it.
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