March 2026 – Controlled Aggression Podcast

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:

Thinking about the end game from the beginning of your training.
Creating neutrality through all kinds of distractions.
Look at me, look at me, look at that, and look at that while giving commands for your dog.
Balancing the draw to fight against drift.

Key Takeaways:

Attention is the dog’s anchor. Give them a point to focus on that allows them to be neutral to everything else around. You have to control a dog’s eyes to control their behavior.
You want to lay the foundation for sending on command, not sending on agitation, and discriminating between the two early on in your training.
Create neutrality through time on the field.
No matter how advanced your dog is, keep working on your fundamentals. That is where the strength lies when you are in actual scenarios.

“One of the most important fundamental exercises of attention is teaching the dog to look at me, then look at that, and then look back to me, and then look back to that, and change it up for the dog where I point the dog at different things that might be of concern to him.” — Jerry Bradshaw

Get Jerry’s book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com

Contact Jerry:

Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com

Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com

Tarheel Canine Training: www.tarheelcanine.com

YouTube: tarheelcanine

Twitter: @tarheelcanine

Instagram: @tarheelk9

Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining

Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org

Patreon: patreon.com/controlledaggression

Slideshare: Tarheel Canine

Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine

Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/

Sponsors:

ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com

PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org

Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com

The Drive Company: thedriveco.com

The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co

Dog Armour: dogarmour.com

Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro

Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com

Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official

Train hard, train smart, be safe.

Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Navigating Fears and Phobias in Working Dogs

March 19, 2026 suddeth08 1:34:32

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:

Timing the puppy training early and with a directed purpose, and handling the fear periods in dogs.
Habituation, spontaneous recovery, sensitization, and learned irrelevance.
When to reorient and when to address fears.
Understanding your dog’s phobias to learn how to solve the problem.
Common fears and phobias seen in police and sport dogs.

Key Takeaways:

Too many people restrict social and experiential learning in puppies during the critical stages of development out of fear.
As a decoy, as a handler, as anyone working with a young dog, you need to be attentive to what you’re doing and always be surveying your environment to avoid unintended consequences.
Avoid creating a problem that doesn’t already exist. Take a systematic approach to expose your dog to everything they need to be exposed to.
Generally, fear periods are short-lived. Take your dog into more familiar places, more natural spaces, where it’s not going to encounter a lot of things that are going to be super unusual or might provoke a fearful response.

“I have a phobia about creating phobias. I don’t want to create a phobia in my dog, because the road is going to be super long to try and systematically desensitize to any type of stimuli that’s been created as an avoidance response.” — Jerry Bradshaw

Get Jerry’s book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com

Book Reference: