My parents divorced a few years ago and I ended up moving from Snowpoint City to Malie City. Long story short, the experience left me with some pretty bad anxiety and my mother got me an Alolan vulpix as an emotional support animal to help. He was the sweetest, most affectionate thing I’d ever…or at least that was the case until he evolved a few weeks ago. I can’t take him anywhere without him shooting ice beams at strangers or getting super protective of me! What do I do to combat this?

This is a rare but unfortunate possibility in dealing with service pokémon. All of them normally receive training to minimize negative personality shifts as a result of evolution, but in the cases of wilder pokémon, such as most fox-like ones, sometimes, the training doesn’t quite stick.

Now, the reason why I say this is because it’s just a matter of training. It’s entirely possible for a service pokémon to be retrained to heel. If you’ve done your vulpix’s initial service training yourself, you can also do the same with your ninetales. Simply repeat the process you used to teach your vulpix to heel in public situations. It may take just as long as it had with your vulpix to retrain your ninetales, but be patient.

Alternatively, if you weren’t the one to train your vulpix, take him back to the service trainer who had, or take him to a pokémon center and ask for a trainer who specializes in conditioning service pokémon. Be prepared to be involved with the retraining process even here; your ninetales will respond far better with you present than if you simply left him in the trainer’s care. If you do choose this option, rest assured that you can still take your ninetales home at the end of each session. Just remember to continue reinforcing your trainer’s work as you go out and about with your ninetales.

Best of luck, anonymous!