# Why some dogs lose it at passing cars | Diona The Trainer

Benzi the Dachshund x Jack Russell had volcanic reactions to passing cars in Heidelberg. The arousal that builds before the walk starts, and how the waterline came down. By Melbourne dog trainer Diona Chu.

By Diona Chu · 7 minute read

---

Benzi is a Dachshund cross Jack Russell from Heidelberg. When Sajee and Shelly brought him to Diona, cars were setting him off on every outing. Any car on any street. The reaction was volcanic: lunging at the end of the lead, barking continuously, needing several minutes to come back down. Shelly described the walks as transferring Benzi's anxiety directly into her own body. She would spend the whole time scanning ahead for traffic, dreading the walk before it started.

That anxiety loop between owner and dog is self-reinforcing. The dog reads tension in the handler. The handler reads reaction in the dog. Both arrive at the next walk already partway up the waterline.

## The arousal starts before the walk does

One of the first things Diona noticed was that Benzi's arousal build-up was not beginning at the first car he saw. It was beginning at the cupboard where the gear was stored. The moment Sajee reached for the lead, Benzi was already on his way up. By the time they were out the front door, the waterline was close to the top. The first car they passed tipped it over.

Afternoons were significantly worse than mornings. An afternoon walk has the weight of the whole day on it. If a dog is consistently worse at a specific time of day, the question is what has been adding to their arousal since they woke up.

## What the first three sessions aimed for

Diona told Sajee and Shelly early in the program that Benzi would still lunge and bark at cars. That was expected and not the measure of progress. The measure was how fast he came back down. An explosion that takes two minutes to recover from is meaningfully different from one that takes thirty seconds, even if the behaviour at the peak looked the same. Recovery first. The reactions would reduce as the waterline came down.

The volcano image applies here. Every dog has a resting state and a point where they overflow. Training is not about sealing the volcano. It is about how high the baseline sits, and how much it takes to reach the rim. A dog with a lower resting waterline needs a bigger trigger to overflow. Benzi was running at high tide most of the day. The car was not the problem. The car was just the last thing before the top.

## Reading the recovery instead of the reaction

De-escalation signals are specific: ears going low or turning outward instead of tracking forward, eyes softening, a look away from the trigger, body weight settling back, a slow blink, a sniff at the ground. Any of these is the water dropping. That is the moment to say "ready" and invite PLAY.

In one of Benzi's sessions, he spotted a car, started his usual escalation, and then, at a moment where the lunge would have been expected, he glanced at the car and turned back to engage with PLAY instead.

"He made an amazing choice here at 0:01. He spotted the trigger, then decided to re-engage with PLAY."

That does not come from the dog learning that cars are not threatening. It comes from the waterline sitting low enough that the car does not reach the rim. The game is more interesting than the reaction when the dog is not already primed.

## Shelly's message

About two months into the program, Shelly sent: "I said to Sajee yesterday, it's actually fun taking him for a walk now. I feel like I'm not having to be so hyper stressed and trying to predict the movement of cars myself. Felt like his anxiety was fed through to me. He was an absolute joy."

She followed up with video of him on a long lead through a grassy area that had previously been a reliable trigger location. He was nose-down in the grass, uninterested in the road running alongside. "He couldn't care less. He was more interested in the smells."

Sajee: "You've honestly changed the game with Benzi."

---

**Private training in Melbourne.** If your dog has a specific trigger that sets off a predictable pattern, the program starts by working out what is maintaining the baseline, not just what tips it over. [Enquire about private dog training.](https://www.dionathetrainer.com/private-dog-training.html)