Don't Judge Reactive Dog Owners

Do you judge reactive dog owners? Lots of people do.

We don't.

Understanding what reactivity is and why it is happening is key to helping reactive dogs and their owners to live a more pleasant life together. Blaming owners for reactivity is neither useful nor accurate for many reasons.

What is Reactivity?

To describe reactivity in simple terms, it's an emotionally-charged over-reaction to some sort of trigger. The trigger could be strangers, other dogs, birds, squirrels, noises, cars and many other things. The emotion could be fear, worry, excitement, overwhelm, frustration etc...

What Does Reactivity Look Like

This is different from one dog to the next, but common factors including barking, lunging, pulling towards the trigger, swinging around on the end of a lead, tense facial expressions and posture, chattering teeth, wide eyes, hard staring, redirected biting of the handler, biting leads, whining or other vocalisations, frantic movements to name a few.

What Causes Reactivity

These 'over-reactions' are an outward display of underlying emotions that have been pushed to the extreme by the current conditions. The dog might be so excited about the trigger that they are no longer 'thinking' and are just 'doing', probably driven by a lot of frustration about not being able to do what they want. The dog may also be having a fear-related reaction, sometimes caused by something new at the wrong time in their life or by a past traumatic event. Some dogs have been bred to react in a certain way to certain triggers (think guard dogs guarding, and herding breeds chasing and herding) so there is a genetic component. Some dogs also experience pain-related reactivity.

Why We Shouldn't Be Judgemental

You don't know the reason that a dog is reacting. They may have some health condition that causes pain, meaning that they don't want anyone else to come near them - a boisterous dog could really hurt a dog like this, so it makes sense that high energy dogs tend to trigger a lot of reactive dogs more than quieter dogs do. The dog may be a rescue who is just settling in with a new family and learning that they can trust their new owners to keep them safe. The reactive dog might have been fine until they were jumped on by a dog that wasn't being kept under control by its owners. If none of this changes your mind, consider that your next dog might be reactive too - how would you want others to treat you?

It takes a lot of time to change a reactive dog's view of the world and their triggers, as well as understanding and compassion. Reactive dogs are not 'aggressive' and they're not trying to give their owners a hard time, they're HAVING a hard time and trying to deal with their emotions the only way they know how. We can teach them alternatives and support them along the way to see real, long lasting results.

Emotions and Punishment

We never punish a dog for their emotional responses (barking, lunging etc) to things that overstimulate, scare or worry them. Punishing the responses only teaches the dog to suppress that outward expression of the emotion, but does nothing to change the underlying issue, which will later express itself in a different and potentially more dangerous way. Instead we train them so that they feel differently about the triggers and make different choices and feel safer in life. So don't judge owners - they may not yet know that they can change things, or might be in the process of making changes - nothing happens overnight. It costs us nothing to be compassionate.