Dogs Trust Ireland - What is Trigger Stacking
For this project, I was tasked with creating a 2-3 minute animated educational video explaining the concept of "Trigger Stacking". Aimed at aspiring dog training professionals, the goal was to break down canine behavioral psychology into an easily digestible format. The video needed to maintain a calm, relatable, and professional tone that aligned with the client's broader course curriculum.
ASK
Dogs Trust approached me to create a 2-3 minute animated educational video explaining the behavioral concept of "Trigger Stacking". Aimed at aspiring dog training professionals, the goal was to break down complex canine psychology into an easily digestible format. The video needed to maintain a calm, relatable, and professional tone that aligned with the organization's broader educational course.
Approach
To make this psychological concept instantly understandable, I utilized a clean, flat, infographic-style animation. The narrative strategy relied heavily on empathy, opening with a highly relatable human scenario a hectic morning commute involving running late, a full bus, spilled coffee, and a dying phone. I then bridged that exact feeling of frustration directly to canine stress.
DESIGN
To make the psychological concept of trigger stacking instantly understandable, the design leaned into a clean, flat, infographic-style animation. We opened with a highly relatable human scenario a hectic morning commute involving running late, a full bus, spilled coffee, and a dying phone before bridging that exact feeling of frustration directly to canine stress.
Rather than building complex, distracting environments, I used minimal backgrounds and distinct color blocking to keep the viewer's focus entirely on the educational message and the subjects' body language. To visualize the core concept, I designed tangible "stress blocks" bearing simple symbols (like a vet stethoscope or a loud noise) that literally stack up beside the dog as its day progresses. This simple visual metaphor, combined with side-by-side split screens , clearly illustrated how minor, everyday frustrations compound over time to push a dog over its threshold.
