In this video, I’m out with Mila and I’m showing you the “search” game I use to stop lunging when another dog walks by—especially the dogs that tend to trigger her. When I spot a trigger in the distance, I pause the walk, set Mila down, quietly hide a few small treats, and give one calm cue: “search.” The goal is for her to not see where the treats land, because I don’t want her chasing food—I want her using her nose and actually thinking. When Mila is in search mode, it should look super boring: head down, sniffing, focused on finding the treats. That’s the whole point. Instead of building excitement or frustration and exploding into a lunge, she redirects that energy into sniffing and problem solving. We practice this every day—inside, in the backyard, and on walks—because it takes repetition, patience, and consistency. Over time, her reactivity has gone way down (we still have a couple tricky dogs), and I’ve even noticed that after enough practice, I can do fewer searches and she’ll stay calmer around dogs passing by.