How to help your reactive dog part 1

Over the next few posts we’re going to be talking all about how to help your reactive dog. I’ll talk you through all the major steps I discuss with my training clients to help them and their dogs have calmer and happier walks. Reactivity doesn’t necessarily have a strict definition and can mean different things to different people. In these posts, I’ll be using the term reactive dog to refer to dogs who have big feelings about other dogs. Maybe you’ve got a dog who barks and lunges at every dog they see, or perhaps you’ve got a dog who can go past some dogs with no problem, but not others.

Understanding your reactive dog

There are a number of reasons why your dog may dislike other dogs. They may have had a traumatic experience with another dog, they may not have been well socialised as a puppy… the list goes on. Whilst it can be useful to know where the reactivity started, we simply cannot always know why a behaviour started. We don’t have to know how it started to help them feel more confident and less worried about other dogs. We can’t do much about what has already happened, but we can take proactive steps to help your dog move forward. It’s also important to point out that it isn’t your fault you have a reactive dog. 

The Stress Bucket

The Stress Bucket is a metaphor for your dog’s ability to cope with their life. Some dogs will naturally have a big bucket that doesn’t fill quickly and empties out easily. This means they can cope with most things they encounter and don’t get stressed out at everyday events. Others dogs will have smaller buckets that are easily filled and slow to empty. Every dog is an individual and so how different events affect them will depend on their personality, history and genetics. Understanding your dogs body language is key to understanding how different things are affecting them and their stress bucket. But every dog views every interaction they have with the world as positive, negative or neutral. 

We want most of your dogs’ life experiences to be positive or neutral. The more things that your dog finds very exciting or stressful, the more likely you are to see your dog overreact to everyday events. If your dog is reactive to other dogs, it’s useful to think of every interaction they have with another dog as another drop in their bucket. Once your dog’s bucket has overflown, it can take 72 hours for it to empty it again (assuming they haven’t experienced any further stress in that time too). That’s because big reactions cause a huge spike of cortisol and adrenaline (the stress hormones) in your dog’s body. It takes time for them to recover to their normal levels. 

Managing your dog

The stress bucket is a useful concept. Using this, we can see why it makes good sense that we need to reduce our dogs’ exposure to things they find triggering in order to help them in the long term. If your dog is constantly over threshold, they are going to struggle to be able to learn the new skills they need to be able to cope with other dogs. If you want to help your reactive dog, you need to reduce how often they are encountering other dogs in the short term. Here’s some practical ways you can do that.

• Walk your dog earlier or later in the day when there are less likely to be others around
• Go to quieter areas 
• Hire private fields you can allow your dog some off lead time without worrying about other dogs (we have a whole list of these around the Folkestone area if you’re local, just pop us a message!)
• Go for fewer walks in total or walks shorter in length  

Looking for more help with your reactive dog?

• Contact us here to arrange in person or online dog training
• Read more of our blog posts here
• Perfect Recall: Teaching your dog to come back when called every time. Our guide is free to download when you join our email list- sign up here.