In this tutorial Max O'Neill (and his team) address a common misconception that anxious dogs simply need comfort, arguing instead that they need to develop a "backbone" by raising their aversion threshold. Using a 9‑month‑old dog named Daisy as a live case study, they demonstrate a series of incremental tolerance‑building exercises: luring Daisy onto a marker board, applying and releasing leash pressure, and rewarding her with distinct verbal markers (“good”, “yes”, “break”). The video explains the theory behind aversion thresholds—how a dog’s stress tolerance determines whether it reacts with fight, flight, or freeze—and notes genetic and socialization factors that influence this threshold. Throughout, the presenters stress repetition, short daily challenges, and clear marker discrimination to make hard tasks become second nature. The tutorial also promotes a free online resource called the Behaviour Bible, which offers a comprehensive course, community support, and live Q&A sessions for owners seeking deeper guidance on reactivity and resilience training.
Chapters
So a couple of weeks ago, posted a video talking about how your dog is not anxious, they lack robustness, e.g., they don't have a backbone. And I got loads of comments, as always, some good, some bad. But one of the big questions that kept coming up, okay, fine, but how do I make my dog more robust? And in today's video, I'm going to give you just one way we can start looking at trying to build some resilience in our dog. It's probably more simple than you think. Um, it's a real-life case example through Daisy, this little tiny cute dog here. And yeah, hopefully if you've got a dog that is anxious, this video will be super helpful.
We'll see if you can get her excited over that. I don't know whether you will.
Come on, baby, come here.
She's terrified.
Come on, come on. Come on, come on.
This is her first big outing.
Come on, let's go, let's go.
Okay, ditch the toy. Let's get some food in action. Uh, we're going to just teach her to stay on this marker board. Take the leash and some food, put it in front of her nose, and see if we can lure her onto there. When she gets on there with all four paws, say yes.
Who's that? Come on, D. Come on.
2 seconds.
Yep.
Let me just move up there.
Come here, kitty. Come.
She's, uh, 9 months, did you say?
Yeah.
Daisy needs a little bit of a backbone, right? So Daisy has to start getting comfortable with doing tough shit. That's okay. And if that means on the marker board, that's okay. If it means coming 3 inches off the ground, That's fine.
Come here. Come on. Good. Good. Good.
Yeah, that'll do.
Good. Break. Good girl.
Nice. Okay. Let's get 10 reps done. Let's keep going.
Yeah. Same thing.
Yeah, until it's second nature to her.
Okay. Come on, Daisy. Come on. Come on.
So for Daisy, little daily life challenges. It's all good. Just slowly growing our backbone. That's all right. Build a little bit of resilience. It's all good.
Come on, break. Good girl.
Your dog has like an aversion threshold, right? So in their head they've got like a level of pressure or stress that they can tolerate. And once they pass that level, they'll go into some sort of reaction, fight, flight, freeze, and all the rest of it. And so getting the dog to do hard things in general theoretically improves that aversion threshold. And so although Daisy isn't reactive, I hope she might have had a little bark here and there. Doing things like this tickles up her aversion threshold and makes her less likely to be reactive 'cause she's better at dealing and coping with stress. Some dogs here today, quite a low aversion threshold. Some much higher. Our golden retriever, very high aversion threshold. E.g., not gonna be upset by much, right? And so she's less likely to go into like a defensive type reactivity. Couple of our Malis and Dutchies though that we've saw today, lower aversion threshold. There's a genetic component there. There'll probably be a socialization component. And so when we see that in dogs, we want to make sure we're getting them— we're challenging them to do hard things and overcoming little obstacles in life in order to tickle that aversion threshold up. Keep going until it's no longer a stressor.
While you're here, guys, uh, in case you didn't know, we have a free program, free community, free resources. I appreciate how difficult it can be trying to put all the puzzle pieces together from different YouTube videos, so we've actually done that for you in a comprehensive free course. It's called it's called the Behaviour Bible, and we even go live in there once a week to answer all your questions. Um, the whole intention behind it is to give you free value. Then should you want to pay us to help you continue your journey and speed up the process of solving your dog's reactivity, and then that option's there too. So yeah, if you want that, the link's in the description. Other than that, enjoy the rest of the video, and I'll either see you in the next video or I'll see you in the Behaviour Bible.
Life. Good day. Good. Break.
Cool. Now I want you to use the lead to get her on, and then when she is on, pressure off the lead and then feed her. All right, lead on. Yeah, on with only the lead. Feed her when she is on and then break off so she gets used to following that lead and following the pressure. No food for now. Food away.
No, okay.
Yeah, good. Yeah, feed her on, break off. Yeah, it's great. Good girl, Daisy.
Yep, that's good, Daisy. Good. Good. Break. Good girl. Is he on? Good. Break. Good girl.
Good job.
Good job. Keep going. Keep going. Yeah.
Daisy's doing hard things all week.
Good girl.
That's good.
Cool.
We'll talk about markers a little bit when we're here. Typically, when we want the dog to keep doing what they're doing and not break them off the command, but yet we want to reward them, we're going to use what we call a duration marker. For a lot of you, that's going to be good. Good means keep doing what you're doing, e.g., room service. I'm going to come to you and pay you. You're not finished what you're doing, but I like what you're currently doing. And what we've seen today is a yes marker a lot. Stop doing what you're doing. Your job's done. Come and get paid from me. Both have a time and a place. So we're going to work on a little bit of marker discrimination. You're going to place her on there. You're going to say good. Pay her in position 2 or 3 times. Good. Pay in position. Good. Pay in position. And then to break her off, you're going to say yes. Move away from her. And she has to come to you to get payment.
Good.
Say good, don't move your hand. Good.
Good. Yeah.
Nice. Mark. And then we need a space, then movement. Even if that movement is us going to the dog or us away from the dog. As we know now, a dog will always prioritize a visual cue over an audible cue. And so if we move at all ever before giving our other— our marker itself, the marker will become the movement and we will never discriminate between either marker because of movement is both of them. So if I say good, or I move and say good and then pay Daisy, or I move and say yes and then pay Daisy, if I do that enough, any sort of movement is going to trigger my dog off the bed. So I'm good, pay, or I'm yes, move, and pay. You could say break to say you're finished. Do what you want within reason, or you can say yes, you're finished, but come to me and get payment. You pair at the yes, you pair at the good, at the break she's just dismissed, no payment. All right, let's go. Good, good. And I'm quite fussy about these, so I'll pick on, pick on you all with these throughout the week. So nope, Nope. Put it back on.
Nope. Yep, that's it. Good.
Obedience this. Look, you like this, right? She's rubbing like, now we're talking. Say yes, move away, and she comes to you and gets paid.
Yes.
There you go. Nice. We want a yes and a break. We want yes to mean come to me and get payment because of— let's say we're here with our dog and we say break, which is do what you want. For most dogs. And she's like, okay, break means I can go eat the muffin, or break means I can now go bark at the dog because you just said to me I can do what I want. So we want to discriminate between the markers. Good means keep doing what you're doing but don't leave it. Yes means finish doing what you're doing, come to me, and you, you have to get paid. It's not optional. You have to come and get paid. And break is you're free, you're at liberty. That makes sense. A couple more for me.
Good. Good. Do you always do 3? Good.
Do you always do 3? Oh, however many you want, as long as you want to stay there for. Don't particularly matter. Yes, nice. Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. Now payment. That's great, good job. Okay, put her up. It's good.
Good girl, Dave.
We'll just start Teaching Daisy some life lessons. She's a, she's a real good girl. Good job. I appreciate you spending time with us. If you wanna join our free private community, click the link in the description, or you can listen to YouTube's very sophisticated algorithm.
It thinks you'll love this video right here.
Otherwise, have a great day and I'll see you in the next one.
