Why Trail & Bone Exists
The story behind Trail & Bone, what Gibson taught me, and what we believe most reactive dogs need more than anything.
By: Jon Somers
Updated: June 23, 2026
For about four years, Gibson's aggression and reactivity dominated my thoughts. And to an extent, my life.
It wasn't always front and center, but it was always there. A low hum of worry that never quite shut off.
I'd lie awake replaying that day's walk, dreading tomorrow's, googling training methods at midnight, and spending money I didn't have on trainers who couldn't actually help.
Years of stress, thousands of dollars, and for a long time, nothing to show for any of it.
I eventually figured it out. I won’t bore you with that whole story again here. But even after we got to a good place, the experience stuck with me.
Mostly the frustration of how hard it had been to find real help in the first place. The advice contradicted itself at every turn. And going through it all without anyone who really understood was its own kind of lonely.
I started Trail & Bone for owners like me.
That's why I started Trail & Bone. Because I knew there were thousands of people going through the same thing I did, and most of them didn't have anyone in their corner.
But a lot has changed for me since then.
When I met Matt and started learning from him and the rest of the small TWC-aligned community of trainers doing this kind of work, what I picked up went way beyond a better training method.
You often hear people say dogs today are worse behaved than they've ever been. That it didn’t use to be every other dog you meet has some sort of reactivity, anxiety, or aggression issue.
As far as I can tell, that tracks. And my best guess at the reason for it is one very few trainers even mention, much less focus on.
Dogs are animals.
For a retreiving breed, this is what biological fulfillment looks like!
I know that sounds obvious. But I mean it in a deeper way than most people think about.
Yes, they're beautiful, loyal, loving creatures who mean the world to us… of course.
But underneath all of that, they're still animals... with instincts, drives, and needs that go way past a walk around the block and a fenced-in yard.
They were built to explore, sniff, run, chase, dig, and use their bodies and brains the way hundreds of years of breeding shaped them to.
And too often, we treat them like stuffed animals instead of the real ones they are.
Is this cute? Of course. But who is it for: us or them? How much of what they need are they getting versus what we want?
We love them to death. Literally, sometimes.
We overfeed them, under-exercise them, keep their world small and controlled and safe, and then quietly wonder why they're anxious, frustrated, and reactive.
When a dog isn't getting real fulfillment, freedom, or structure, and you stack modern problems on top of that — low-quality food, no mental stimulation, zero outlet for the drives they were bred for — what you end up with is an unhappy, poorly behaved dog who didn't choose any of this.
That's what we're trying to fix at Trail & Bone.
We’re Not Just Trying To Stop Barking & Lunging.
We’re not just trying to solve the reactivity itself, but the root of it. The way we live alongside our dogs day-to-day, the assumptions we make about what they actually need, and the gap between that and what they require to thrive.
Matt's whole system is built around this idea.
Barking and lunging are symptoms, and the real change happens way upstream of them.
It's about meeting your dog's real needs, building genuine cooperation between the two of you, earning the kind of authority that comes from trust rather than fear, and developing impulse control good enough to be useful in the real world.
Once those things are actually in place, then we work on how to handle reactive moments themselves.
With every new client dog, Matt’s first goal is always to build a relationship based on trust. There is and will never be a better way to do that than by providing real, true biological fulfillment.
The Real Work Is Bigger Than Reactivity
That's why Resolving Reactivity is structured the way it is. And it's why the early sections might feel different from what you expected when you signed up.
The real work here is bigger than reactivity. It's about changing the way you and your dog live together, day to day.
I believe in this deeply. And I'm glad you're here for it.
— Jon Somers
Everyday Dog Owner. Founder of Trail & Bone.
