We’ve all heard of “impulse control training” - teaching dogs to wait, leave food, or stay calm when excited. But are these exercises truly helping dogs develop emotional regulation… or just teaching them to perform calmness on cue?

In this episode of Rewriting the Rules, Bethany Bell (founder of the Canine Dialogue Dynamics Method) explores the crucial difference between trained impulse control and true impulse control.

You’ll learn: – Why reward-based exercises aren’t wrong - but not the whole story. – What happens in the brain when real impulse control develops. – Why suppression and calm performance can backfire long term. – How safety, trust, and dialogue nurture genuine self-restraint.

This episode invites you to see impulse control not as a behaviour to train, but as an emotional skill that grows through safety, communication, and understanding.

Join Bethany as she redefines what calmness really means - and why helping dogs feel safe enough to choose calm is far more powerful than asking them to perform it.

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Let’s raise dogs with dignity. Let’s teach through connection. Let’s begin the conversation.