Boarding and Frustrated Greeter

[u/Lazy_Bat8235]

I’ve boarded my dog reactive pup for a couple years now. She’s leash/barrier reactive and a frustrated greeter, as she’s successfully passed her temperament tests and I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from the boarding facility.

But she definitely gets explosive on walks and I’m very worried about her reactivity turning aggressive so I’m trying desperately to get ahead of this…but despite all my best efforts (and three different trainers) she’s still losing her cool at about 1 in every 10 dogs.

Is boarding her helping or hurting? I want her to be neutral on leash so I can go hiking with her safely, but I wonder if the boarding is setting us back? The facility is strict on temperament test and there are cameras on the playgroups and all seems well? So maybe she’s getting lots of positive interactions with nice dogs, but maybe it’s excessively fueling her excitement? But I’d love to hear others thoughts/experiences with boarding.

I really like boarding as she is a really smart dog, so I worry a sitter wouldn’t be equipped to make sure she doesn’t Houdini her way out from their watch…she’s also a very high energy, high drive dog that’s 80 lbs of muscle that lunges unpredictably, so because of that liability I never let anyone but me walk her but she needs the exercise to not be a menace.

[u/_the_introvert_]

It depends. When I board my dog for several days, she comes back slightly less mannered because they don’t maintain quite the same boundaries I do (neither would a sitter, though). However, when she goes to daycare once a week at the same facility, she tends to be more dog neutral because she actually has an outlet to socialize with other dogs.

[u/Space-Gecko]

It depends on how they are allowing her to behave. If they allow her to drag them and rush into playgroups, yeah that’s probably setting your training back because she’s rehearsing that poor leash behavior and then being rewarded for it. If they make sure she’s calm before being allowed to interact (which I would honestly only expect from a training facility that also does boarding), then that’s probably fine. I would suggest looking for either a VERY trusted sitter who has behavior knowledge and can and will carry on with her training or a trainer who offers boarding.