Highly Sensitive Dogs and L.E.G.S.

What can highly sensitive dogs teach us about expectations, perception, and welfare? This course explores the lived experience of dogs who process the world with heightened sensitivity, and how easily they can be misunderstood when measured against cultural ideas of the “perfect” dog. Bridget Sullivan draws from personal experience and the L.E.G.S. framework to help participants better understand what sensitivity can look like across different dogs.

This presentation examines how sensitivity interacts with Learning, Environment, Genetics, and Self, influencing how dogs cope with sound, movement, pressure, novelty, social situations, and everyday family life. Participants will learn how to recognize the needs of highly sensitive dogs, adjust expectations, and support them in ways that honor their individual experience rather than asking them to simply “get over it.”