Building Optimism and Joy: The Emotional Foundation of Dog Training

Dog training isn't just about behaviour and dog behaviour isn't just a training issue. 

We have been caught up in sits and stays and recalls. It's not about compliance or control or having a well-behaved dog to make life easier. 

Dog training, done right, is about helping, building and managing excellent canine emotional health.

It's about creating a dog who feels optimistic about the world. A dog who expects good things. A dog who has agency and confidence and joy.

Because a dog's emotional state is the foundation of everything. Their behaviour, their learning, their physical health, their relationship with you - it all flows from how they feel.

Let me share what emotional health looks like in practice, and how we build it through the way we train and live with our dogs.

Optimism is a learnable emotional state.

Dogs who have primarily positive experiences begin to expect positive experiences. Their default assumption becomes "something good might happen" rather than "I need to be on guard."

An optimistic dog approaches new situations with curiosity rather than fear. They recover faster from stress. They're more resilient when things go wrong. They're easier to train because they're engaged and willing rather than shut down or defensive.

Chips, my reactive boy with the docked tail, struggled with optimism for a long time. Pain meant his baseline was discomfort. He expected things to hurt. He anticipated threats. His worldview was shaped early. 

But even Chips learned optimism. We worked at his pace, when we gave him control, when we made sure good things happened reliably and predictably, he started to expect safety and positive outcomes. 

How We Build Optimism

Optimism develops through consistent positive experiences.

• Predictable good things. Meals arrive on time. Walks happen regularly. You come home when you leave. The world follows patterns they can anticipate.
• Removing unpredictability and punishment. Dogs can't be optimistic if they never know when something bad might happen. If you sometimes shout, sometimes punish, sometimes force them into scary situations, they learn to expect threat. They become hypervigilant, not optimistic.
• Making good things happen often. Don't save rewards for perfect behaviour. Sprinkle good things throughout your dog's day. Treats for existing. Praise for making eye contact. Play for checking in with you. Good things happening frequently, for small reasons, builds optimism.
• Allowing them to create good outcomes. When your dog makes a choice and something good happens as a result, they learn they have agency. They learn their behaviour matters. They learn they can make good things happen. This is profoundly optimistic.

Darcie is learning optimism slowly. She came to me expecting the world to be overwhelming and threatening. But every day she lives with predictable routines, with choice, with good things appearing regularly, she's learning a different expectation.

She's learning that maybe, just maybe, the world isn't so bad after all.

Creating optimism is easier when we incorporate Scentwork into the mix, you can learn how to do that through my highly accessible book Seeking Optimism.

The trauma therapy world talks about "triggers" - the things that activate our fear response. But there's another concept that matters just as much: glimmers.

Glimmers are the opposite of triggers. They're the small moments when something good happens. When you feel safe. When you experience joy or connection or peace.

Dogs experience glimmers too.

For an anxious or reactive dog, glimmers might be:

A moment when they notice another dog but don't react. A second of play with a toy. 

Choosing to approach you. Taking a treat gently. Falling asleep in the same room as you. A relaxed body for just a few breaths.

These moments matter enormously.

Why Glimmers Are Important

Every glimmer is a moment when your dog's nervous system shifts out of threat mode into safety mode. Even briefly.

And every time that shift happens, it becomes slightly easier for it to happen again.

Neural pathways strengthen with repetition. If your dog only ever practices fear and reactivity, those pathways dominate. But if they also practice moments of safety, curiosity, play, connection - even tiny moments - you're building alternative pathways.

You're teaching their nervous system that other states are possible.

Part of supporting your dog's emotional health is learning to recognise glimmers.

Not just the obvious good moments, but the tiny ones. The split second when they looked at a trigger and looked away calmly. The moment they stretched out instead of staying tense. The brief tail wag. The soft eyes.

These are data points telling you their nervous system is shifting.

And when you notice glimmers, you can amplify them. Not with huge celebrations that might break the moment, but with gentle acknowledgment. A soft word. A small treat. Your own calm pleasure at witnessing their peace.

You're marking those moments. Making them significant. Helping your dog notice them too.

Holly had so few glimmers in the beginning. She was shut down, frozen, disconnected. But I watched for them obsessively. That half-second when her tail moved slightly. That moment she looked at me without fear. That brief exhale that suggested her body was releasing tension.

Those glimmers told me she was still in there. That underneath the shutdown was a dog who could feel safe, eventually.

And they did increase. Slowly. Until she became the bouncy, joyful dog she was meant to be.

This is perhaps the most important principle in emotionally healthy training: set your dog up to succeed.

Don't put them in situations where they're likely to fail, become overwhelmed, or make "mistakes." Create situations where success is almost inevitable.

What This Looks Like in Practice

• Start with easy versions. Teaching recall? Start in your living room with no distractions, not at the park with squirrels and other dogs. Teaching loose lead walking? Start in your garden, not on the high street.
• Work at your dog's pace. If they're struggling, you're asking too much too soon. Back up. Make it easier. Let them succeed there before progressing.
• Manage the environment. Can't trust your reactive dog around other dogs yet? Don't go to the dog park hoping for the best. Walk at quiet times, maintain distance, set them up to stay under threshold.
• Remove obstacles. If your dog won't take treats on walks, they're too stressed. The environment is too overwhelming. Make it easier - quieter route, shorter walk, more familiar territory.
• Celebrate small wins. Your dog looked at you when you called them? Success! They took three calm steps? Success! They didn't react to that dog across the street? Success!

Why Success Matters for Emotional Health

Every time your dog succeeds, something important happens neurologically.

Dopamine releases. This feels good. It creates motivation to try again. It builds confidence. It creates positive associations with training, with you, with the situation.

Success is inherently rewarding.

But failure - being put in situations where they can't succeed, where they're overwhelmed, where they "get it wrong" - is inherently punishing. It creates stress. It damages confidence. It makes your dog less likely to try next time.

Even if you don't actively punish failures, the experience of failing is aversive. The experience of being overwhelmed is traumatic.

So we don't set dogs up to fail and then try to fix it. We set them up to succeed in the first place.

Here's a radical idea: stop being stingy with rewards.

Reward your dog for existing near you. Reward them for making eye contact. Reward them for calm behaviour. 

Reward them for coming when called. Reward them for staying when you asked them to stay. Reward them for walking nicely for three steps.

Reward everything you want to see more of, and reward it generously.

The Scarcity Mindset in Traditional Training

Traditional training often operates from scarcity. Dogs must "earn" rewards by being obedient. Rewards are withheld until the behaviour is perfect. You don't reward "easy" things because the dog "should" do those anyway.

This creates dogs who are constantly working to earn love, attention, and good things.

It creates a transactional relationship. It creates dogs who are focused on avoiding mistakes rather than offering behaviours. It creates stress around training because resources (your attention, treats, praise) are scarce and must be earned.

The Abundance Mindset in Emotionally Healthy Training

What if instead, we operated from abundance?

What if good things flowed freely? What if your dog could trust that treats appear, praise comes easily, play is available, your attention is theirs?

This creates emotional security.

When resources are abundant, dogs don't have to work so hard to earn them. They can relax. They can experiment with behaviours without fear of "getting it wrong" and losing access to rewards. They can be themselves.

And interestingly, dogs trained with abundant rewards are often more responsive, not less. Because training is fun. Because engagement with you reliably produces good things. Because they're operating from a place of security rather than scarcity.

What Rewarding Everything Looks Like

Foxy, my tiny bold girl, gets treats for so many things. For looking at me on walks. For coming to check in. For sitting calmly while I prepare her food. For being in the same room as me. For making good choices.

Does this mean she's "spoiled"? That she won't listen unless there are treats?

No. It means she's secure. She trusts that good things happen with me. She's motivated to engage because engagement is reliably rewarding.

And because of this abundance, she's confident. She offers behaviours freely. She recovers quickly from stress because her baseline is "good things happen."

That's the power of reward abundance.

Here's something we often forget: dogs read our emotional states.

Not just through our words or our body language, but through something more subtle. Our energy. Our nervous system state. The quality of our presence. The attachment we share with them.

When you're calm, your dog is more likely to be calm. When you're anxious, your dog picks up on that anxiety. When you're joyful and playful, your dog often mirrors that state.

This is called emotional contagion, and it's powerful.

Why Your Energy Matters

If you're tense and worried during training, your dog feels that. They might interpret it as danger (you're on alert, so there must be something to be alert about). They might absorb your stress and become stressed themselves.

But if you're genuinely calm and positive - if your nervous system is regulated - your dog can use you for co-regulation. They can borrow your calm. They can match your peace.

You are your dog's external nervous system regulator.

This is especially important for anxious or reactive dogs. They're already dysregulated. They need you to be the regulated presence they can orient toward.

What Matching Positive Energy Means

This doesn't mean fake happiness. Dogs can tell when you're performing emotions you don't feel.

It means actually cultivating genuine positive states in yourself. Finding your own calm. Your own joy. Your own patience.

Some practical ways to do this:

• Breathe properly. Deep belly breaths activate your parasympathetic nervous system. You literally calm your own nervous system, which helps your dog calm theirs.
• Move at a relaxed pace. Rushed, jerky movements signal stress. Slow, smooth movements signal calm. Your dog notices.
• Use a genuinely warm tone. Not high-pitched false excitement, but authentic warmth and pleasure in your voice.
• Celebrate genuinely. When your dog succeeds at something, let yourself feel actual joy about it. That authentic positive emotion is what they'll connect with.
• Manage your own stress. If you're having a bad day, your dog knows. It's okay to keep training sessions short or skip them entirely. Your emotional state matters.

With Darcie, I've had to be very conscious of my own energy. She's so sensitive to pressure, so attuned to tension. If I'm stressed, she shuts down. If I'm anxious about whether she'll cope with something, she picks up that anxiety and fulfils my expectation that she won't cope.

But when I'm genuinely calm and optimistic - when I believe she can do something, when I'm not worried about the outcome - she does so much better.

My nervous system state directly impacts hers.

When we combine these principles - optimism, recognising glimmers, setting up for success, rewarding abundantly, matching positive energy - changes happen. 

Training stops being about controlling your dog. It stops being about correcting mistakes or demanding compliance.

Training becomes about building a dog who feels good.

A dog who expects positive experiences. A dog who has moments of peace and joy throughout their day. A dog who succeeds regularly. A dog who lives in emotional abundance. A dog who benefits from your regulated presence.

And here's the profound truth: dogs who feel good behave well.

Not because they're being controlled or corrected, but because they're operating from a place of emotional wellbeing rather than stress and survival.

What This Creates

Dogs trained with emotional health as the foundation are:

• More responsive. Not because they fear punishment, but because engagement is rewarding and they trust you.
• More resilient. They recover from stress faster. They handle change better. They have emotional resources to draw on.
• More confident. They've experienced success. They've had agency. They know they're capable.
• More connected to you. The relationship is built on positive experiences, trust, and mutual enjoyment rather than compliance and control.
• Happier. Which is, ultimately, the whole point.

This is what I saw with Chips, despite his pain and reactivity. When we worked this way - setting him up to succeed, rewarding his efforts generously, matching his energy needs, recognising his tiny glimmers of peace - he could access moments of joy. Even in a body that hurt. Even with a nervous system shaped by chronic pain.

This is what I see with Darcie as she slowly unfolds into confidence. Each glimmer of curiosity. Each moment she chooses to engage. Each successful experience. Each time I meet her with calm, regulated energy. It's all building her emotional health, one moment at a time.

Here's the question I want you to sit with: How does my dog feel during and after our training sessions?

Not "are they obedient?" Not "did they perform the behaviour correctly?" But how do they feel?

Do they approach training with eagerness or reluctance? Do they show stress signals or relaxed engagement? Do they seem to enjoy it or endure it? Do they seem more confident afterward or more uncertain?

Your dog's emotional state during training tells you everything you need to know about whether your approach is working.

If training leaves them stressed, shut down, anxious, or reluctant, something needs to change. It doesn't matter if they're "learning" the behaviours. The emotional cost is too high.

But if training leaves them brighter, more engaged, more confident, more connected to you - then you're building emotional health. You're creating a dog whose life is genuinely better.

And that's what training should be. Not a series of commands they must follow, but a practice that enhances their emotional wellbeing and your relationship.

Because dogs deserve to feel good. They deserve to live with optimism, to experience glimmers of joy, to succeed, to be rewarded abundantly, to be met with positive energy.

They deserve to have their emotional health be the foundation of everything we do with them.