Dogpoint

When I brought my rescue Mercury home, he was scared of grass.
Earning his trust came first, but most owners stop there.

I have worked with hundreds of rescue and shelter dogs and their owners over the years, and this year I adopted one of my own.

The first thing almost every owner does is focus on earning the dog's trust, which is the correct place to start. Without trust you have very little to work with.

The problem is that they never leave that phase. They get so caught up in being nice and making sure the dog never feels uncomfortable that months later the actual rehabilitation still hasn't started.

Mercury had probably never seen that much open space in his life. Everything was new and overstimulating, so training him on day one would have been pointless.

Many of you are struggling with this very experience right now and you're not exactly sure how to proceed and I don't blame you.

So here is the order I followed with Mercury:

𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀

I let him settle in and start following the routine of the house without asking anything of him.

𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁

I waited until he would approach me on his own, take food from my hand and let me pet him.

𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲

Once he started acting somewhat normal, and only then, the training began: rules, boundaries, routine, and enforcing them consistently.

Most people treat that third step as optional, something for later once the dog is fixed, when in reality it is a big part of what fixes the dog.

A dog without clear rules has to guess all day long.

Is this allowed?
What happens if I do that?
What does he want from me now?

All that guessing creates stress and anxiety, and a stressed dog stays bottled up instead of continuing to decompress.

Once your dog understands how things work in your house, what you expect and what you don't, all of that turns into a background process.

Psychologically speaking, it clears their head and frees their brain up for actual dog things, like enjoying the grass, their food and the time they spend with you.

DM me RESCUE and I will tell you where I would start.

- Marc Windgassen
No Drive... No Joy.

You come home and the couch looks like a crime scene.
Your dog isn't being spiteful, and here is why it happens.

The cushions are gutted, the door frame is chewed, and your favorite shoes are in several pieces across the living room.

What you're looking at is an unmet need, and in my experience it almost always comes down to one of four things:

𝟭. 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘅𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆

Your dog gets stressed the moment you leave and has nowhere to put that anxiety and frustration.

So they vent it on whatever is closest, which is usually your furniture.

𝟮. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲

A dog without enough physical and mental work still has all that energy, and it has to go somewhere.

If you don't give them an outlet, they will find one themselves, and it's usually the couch, the appliances, or the car bumper.

For the very unlucky among you, it's the wiring in your car.

𝟯. 𝗡𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝘂𝗽𝗽𝘆

A crate taught early gives a puppy a safe place to settle when you're gone.

Skip that stage and every unsupervised chew on the table leg makes the habit a little stronger.

𝟰. 𝗧𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻

A brand new puppy has no idea where they're allowed to go or what they're allowed to chew.

Leaving them alone without rules, boundaries, structure, and routine is like giving a new hire the company credit card on day one and acting surprised by the bill.

Keep in mind that dogs explore the world with their mouths, because their paws can't feel things out the way our hands do.

Adult dogs do it too, puppies just do it with more enthusiasm and less of a responsible thought process.

So before you spend more money replacing furniture, take an honest look at what your dog's day looks like while you're at work.

Save this for the next time you come home to a crime scene, and repost it for the friend who just brought home a puppy and needs to read this.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Your off-leash dog just spotted another dog and you have about two seconds before they're gone.

You thought the park was empty, so the leash came off. Now there's a dog at the far end with no owner in sight, and you have no idea if it's friendly.

You call once, then louder, and a few seconds later you're jogging after a dog who thinks you're playing a game with them.

A missing recall doesn't feel like a problem... right up until the day you needed it and something goes horribly wrong.

So what happens when you're in a dicey situation and your dog doesn't come back?

The loose dog turns out to be aggressive, the gate is open next to a busy road, or a jogger panics, and rightfully defends themselves against what they perceive as a threat.

Your dog either turns around on the first call, or you watch whatever happens next from a distance too far away to stop it.

That's why recall is the most important command your dog will ever learn, and why "they usually come back" doesn't cut it.

"They come back sometimes" is not something you should be comfortable with.

Your dog needs a bulletproof recall that holds up when they're excited, scared or halfway to something they really want.

Most recalls fail for boring reasons.

Your dog learned "come" in controlled environments like your living room, so when they're outside with real distractions, it means very little.

Or you only call them when the fun is over, and the reward for coming only turns up sometimes, so at 50 feet your dog decides that coming back to you today isn't worth it.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝗶𝘁

Every recall gets paid until it's rock solid, and a sprint back earns a much bigger reward and emotional celebration than a lazy stroll.

Your dog comes in, sits, gets paid, then hears "free" and goes back to sniffing, so coming back never means the fun is over.

The long line stays on until the recall is bulletproof, so your dog never gets to practice ignoring you.

DM me RECALL and tell me what your dog does when you call them.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Yelping at your biting puppy is why they bite harder.
To them that yelp is just another squeaky toy.

A young puppy uses their mouth to explore, to play, and to work out what everything around them actually is.

The biting is not the puppy being bad. It is a natural drive that nobody has shown them where to put yet.

That is your job, and it comes down to three things.

1️⃣ Redirect the energy.

The second those teeth come out, put a toy or a tug in their mouth instead of your hand, every time, until reaching for the toy becomes their default.

Correct when they overstep. Once the puppy clearly knows the right choice from repeated practice and chooses your hand anyway, that gets a correction.

And this matters, they are puppies, so a correction must be stern but fair, proportional, and never more than the moment calls for.

Only use a correction once they genuinely know better.

2️⃣ Stop feeding the reaction.

When they nibble and mouth and test you, the worst thing you can do is react.

Yelping, yelling, or yanking your hand back is the squeaky toy they were fishing for. Be quiet and boring, and the game is no longer fun.

3️⃣ Don't skip their mental and physical stimulation

A puppy that is properly worked, in the head and the body, has far less of this energy to throw at your hands in the first place.

Most of the biting people complain about is just an under stimulated puppy with nowhere to put their drive and pent up energy.

If you are in the puppy stage, save this because you'll definitely need it! And send it to a friend if they're still fighting their puppy over it.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take your puppy to stop biting you? Or is this something you're still struggling with?

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Friederike Fabritius had no time to train her dogs by herself.
So we taught her kids, who walk them every day.

Friederike is a neuroscientist, Wall Street Journal bestselling author and keynote speaker. Her calendar looks about how you'd expect.

Her dogs pulled on the leash, which is not something you fix with a spare hour on a Sunday.

Since the kids spend the most time with the dogs, they were the right people to learn and implement the plan.

She also studies how the brain learns for a living, so she was never going to settle for a mediocre method that didn't hold up.

She said our approach makes sense "from a neuroscience and behavioral psychology perspective" and called it "wonderfully pragmatic, clear, and grounded in common sense."

"It has been wonderful to see how much both the children and the dogs have learned."

Busy people run their businesses the same way. You don't do every job yourself, you make sure the person doing it knows exactly how.

Dog training works the same. Whoever walks your dog most is also the one who needs the plan the most, and it has to be clear enough so that they can run it without you.

What the family got:

✔ Walks without the constant pulling
✔ Kids who applied the training on their own
✔ A recording and written summary after every session

"Most importantly: it absolutely works."
- Friederike Fabritius

If your dog turns every walk into a tug of war and your schedule has no room for a training project, I'll build a plan that your whole household can learn and implement!

DM me PULL and we'll book your first session.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Feeling sorry for your rescue dog is making them worse.
I've trained hundreds of rescues, and now I live with one.

When you bring a dog home from a shelter or off the street, you usually know some version of their story.

Neglect, abandonment, a rough start, sometimes worse. So you give them space, time to decompress, and room to learn that you are safe.

That part is right, because without trust you can't build anything.

The problem starts when the sympathy never switches off. Owners get so worried about upsetting the dog that the rules quietly disappear. No boundaries, no routine, nothing clear about what is allowed and what isn't.

Every "no" feels cruel, so it never gets said.

From the dog's side, that feels like living in a house where nobody explains anything, so they have to figure out every single interaction on their own.

Can I jump on the couch? Do I bark at the door? Who decides what happens on this walk?

A dog guessing all day is a stressed dog, and stressed dogs are the ones pulling, barking, resource guarding and ignoring you.

Dogs actually like knowing where they stand. Clear structure means they don't have to overthink every moment with you, which is exactly why rescues with rules and a routine end up calmer and more obedient than the ones everyone tiptoes around.

I see this with clients constantly, and I'm living it right now with my own rescue. Plenty of patience, plenty of trust building, and a clear set of house rules from day one.

Treat your rescue like a normal dog! Because if you keep focusing on their past, you miss the dog standing in front of you today.

If you own a rescue, which rule did you let slide because you felt sorry for them?

Save this for the next time you catch yourself making excuses for your dog, and repost it for the friend who just adopted one.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Honey lunged at every dog she passed on the walk.
Her owner started crossing the street to avoid it.

By the time she spotted another dog she was already whining, pulling, building up to the explosion before it ever happened. Her owner was embarrassed, worn out, and quietly walking her at 6am so nobody would see it. If you have a reactive dog, you already know that feeling.

Here is what almost everyone gets wrong about this.

Reactivity is the number one reason people call a trainer this year, and most of those dogs get labeled aggressive when they are not.

Aggression is intent. Reactivity is a dog that cannot regulate itself around a trigger, and the standard advice is to suppress the reaction and hope it fades.

Suppression can stop the lunging, but the dog is still producing cortisol every time it sees another dog, so the problem just sits there waiting to come back.

With Honey we did not manage the symptom, we changed what a dog on the walk actually means to her. Every dog she passed without reacting got a game of tug.

Dog appears, tug appears. We repeated it until the wiring in her brain flipped, and then spaced the reward out so it held on its own.

Now she sees a dog and her brain goes straight to the thought process of "If I stay calm and behave.. I get to play tug of war!"

Same trigger, opposite chemistry, cortisol swapped for dopamine.

The walk looks like this now:

✅ Passes other dogs without lunging
✅ No more whining or winding up before a trigger
✅ Owner walks her in daylight again, on a loose leash

That is the gap between simply suppressing a behavior and rewiring it in your dog's brain.

If your dog turns into a different animal the second they see another dog on the leash, DM me 'REWIRE' and I will show you how we flip it.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Your dog losing it when you leave is not them loving you.
It's separation anxiety, and you built it.

Most people read the meltdown as devotion. The dog cries, so it must miss me.

That story feels good, but it is completely wrong!

Here is what separation anxiety actually looks like the moment you walk out the door:

The barking, screaming, and howling that the neighbors hear everyday at the same time.

Scratching and clawing at the door hard enough to leave marks.

Destroyed furniture, shredded bedding, chewed through anything within reach.

Peeing or pooping in the house despite having full control of their bladder and bowels every other hour of the day.

And the same frantic circus the second you walk back in.

None of that is a dog being spiteful or dramatic. That is your dog in real distress.

Now the part nobody wants to hear... Separation anxiety is 100% human-caused.

The way most owners handle greetings, departures, comfort, and daily structure quietly teaches the dog that your absence is an emergency.

That is the bad news and the good news sitting in the same sentence.

If people created it, people can reverse it. A dog is not born unable to be alone, they are taught to fall apart but their owner, but they can also be taught the opposite!

So if your dog does two or more of the things above, you are not dealing with a quirky personality. You are dealing with a fixable problem you simply have not addressed yet.

Save this so you can actually name what you are seeing at home, and repost it for the dog owner who still thinks their dog just loves them a little too much.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.

Your dog's nonstop barking isn't random.

Every bark has a cause, and most of them are fixable.

Here is what is actually going on when your dog won't shut up, and which ones land on you.

𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝘂𝗽 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆

This is the big one for busy people. A dog with no outlet for their physical and mental energy will find one, and barking is the cheapest release valve they have.

You are lucky they picked barking over eating your couch. The fix is not more scolding, it is draining that energy properly through engagement games and real mental and physical work until they are genuinely tired and have nothing left to bark about.

𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿

The mailman, the garbage truck, the neighbor's dog walking past the window. Your dog reacts every single time and you have quietly accepted it as normal.

It is trainable. But it takes structured work and time. A dog can learn to clock a trigger and stay quiet instead of losing their mind over it.

𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲

Dogs run on routine. When something new shows up out of nowhere, a stranger, an unfamiliar dog, a sound they can't place, they flag it.

To you it is nothing because you process it and move on. To them it is a break in the pattern, and barking is how they warn you and the rest of the household.

𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗳

Some breeds are wired for this. Rottweilers, Mastiffs, and other guardian types bark to defend their space because that is the job they were built for.

You do not delete that instinct, you decide when it is allowed instead of leaving them to freelance security for the whole street.

𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲

My favorite. The small breeds, the Chihuahuas I affectionately call pocket demons.

They yip because at some point it got them attention, food, or whatever they were after, and nobody corrected it because they are tiny and cute.

So they learned that noise pays.

Most barking problems are not a mystery and they are not permanent.

DM me QUIET if your dog won't stop and you want it handled properly.

- Marc Windgassen
No Drive... No Joy.

Your rescue decompressed months ago.
So why are they still this anxious?

Everyone tells you the same thing when you bring a rescue home. Give it time, love, and patience. And they are right, at least about the beginning.

A newly adopted dog needs three weeks to two months just to decompress. New house, new people, new smells, and no idea what happens next.

Pushing training in that window does more harm than good, so you back off and let them settle.

Where it falls apart is that most owners treat decompression as the whole plan.

Weeks turn into months of tiptoeing around the dog, avoiding any rule that might stress them out, and the anxiety never lifts because the dog still has no idea what is actually expected of it.

Decompression is step one, not the destination. Once a dog feels safe, the next thing they need is structure, clear expectations, and someone calm enough to give them consistent answers.

That is what settles a nervous rescue, not another month of walking on eggshells.

A dog left to guess stays anxious, and one given clear answers finally relaxes, because they understand how their new world works.

Save this for later, or send it to someone about to bring a rescue home.

- Marc Windgassen

No Drive... No Joy.