On Saturday morning I went to take my dogs for a big walk, sort of an attempt to make up for a lack of good walks during the week. Sabella was really amped up to be going on a walk, and was whining (she is a reactive German Shepherd) and quite frantic.

I leashed up the dogs, but didn't want to open the kitchen door to leave until Sabella had settled down. Why? Because leaving with her in this state would reinforce her frantic, hyped-up behavior. I at least wanted a period of no whining so I could click and open the door.

As it happened, I had run out of treats so Cath offered to cut some more treats up for me so I could do some training on our walk. This meant that Sabella had to wait longer. If left to her own devices, this would probably see her get more and more anxious to leave - but I didn't leave her to her own devices. I rewarded her when she was calm.

When we were ready to leave she walked nicely to the car. We had a quiet ride to our destination. She didn't bark at any dogs on the ride. Throughout our walk we encountered many dogs, including a pair of off-leash Labs who were very keen to introduce themselves as top-dogs in the area (no fooling anyone there, they soon changed their attitudes when they met Django - the world's greatest diplomat).

On this very enjoyable walk I was wondering about the difference between more successful and less successful walks with Sabella. Certainly when she has had lots of exercise, she is more likely to be easy to handle and less reactive. But on this walk she had had very little exercise throughout the week and, in fact, I was expecting her to be a nightmare in all honesty!

The difference this time was that, rather than just reinforcing a minimum acceptable level of calm, I was able to ask for (and get) more calm. I guess I hadn't been raising my criteria appropriately, there was more "calm" available than I had bothered to ask for in the past.

I vowed to make it a rule - we don't leave the house until she is at that level of calmness.

I decided that I really needed a scale so that I knew exactly how much "calm" I could ask for. I thought about all the observable behaviors I could look for, but that got complicated. Truth is, my brain already KNOWS what to look for. It's better if I don't have to think too hard about it! All I really need to do is ask my brain to tell me, "on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is 'amost asleep' and 10 is 'about to smash through a window and bite someone', how calm is this dog right now?"

Clinical Psychologists use the 'SUDS' which stands for "Subjective Units of Distress Scale". They ask clients, "on a scale of 1-10, how frightened/angry/upset does that make you feel?" Of course, we can't ask a dog, but we can make an assessment based on their observable behaviors and in many cases, a dog's owner will be able to give you a reasonably good figure even if completely untrained in doing so. Most of us know when our dog is very calm, calm, moderately anxious, anxious or very anxious, right?

Hence, the Calm-O-Meter (TM) was born. This will easily enable me to assess how calm Sabella is before I leave the house, before I put her in the car, before I let her out of the car, before I attempt to walk past an approaching dog rather than turning the other way and leaving.

It will also enable users to set criteria for an appropriate level of calm. It makes no sense to take an untrained, reactive dog and ask for Grade 1 Calm straight off the bat. No doubt there are some people who could do it, but not 99.9% of the population. Whereas 99.9% of the population could click and treat when their dog is just 1 grade calmer than before. 99.9% of the population could put off leaving the house until their dog is at a grade of calm they know they have achieved in the past.

Let me know what you think! If you have a reactive or high-energy dog, try it, report back to me by posting a comment below (you may need to register first).