Dogs with fear aggression welcome! Chami’s Story…

Chami has generalized fear aggression.  There are only a few public places she can go safely, and Leash Your Fitness classes are one of them.  We have tried various other classes in the past with her, but the other dogs or people in some of those classes scared her more than the actual activity was benefiting her.  When we did our first Leash Your Fitness bootcamp class with Dawn, I knew we had found a great program.  The key to Chami’s success:  There are only positive interactions encouraged during training.    Dawn, Kelly, and Naomi do not force dogs to finish the task.  They look outside the box to incorporate different activities into our workouts. Up until this class, Chami has either been indifferent or defensive with other dogs.  Leash Your Fitness has been instrumental in helping us build Chami’s confidence.  The other participants respect her space and actively keep their dogs away from Chami so that she can enjoy class and continue to improve her social skills.

Over the last several months, we have been coming to the Sunday bootcamp classes and also started the Saturday running class.  The consistency of seeing the same people and dogs has taught Chami that people and dogs are not a threat.  Since joining LYF, we have even been able to participate safely in dog friendly 5K runs.  Before LYF, we had to avoid the starting gate of the 5K and make our own start.  The crowd at the starting gate was too much for her anxiety.  Our first 5K with LYF was Father Joe’s 5K in November and Chami and I were able to wait in the start corral in a relaxed manner and now we can even walk through the vendor fair without a muzzle on! (thanks to Casey Dean for the action race shot!) 

Leash Your Fitness has been one of the greatest finds where Chami and I can get in a good workout and we can teach Chami that perhaps the world isn’t quite as scary as she anticipated it to be.