Dog reactivity - what actually is it?

This post was first published on positively.com and reprinted with permission 

Got a reactive dog? A fearful, anxious, or aggressive dog? A dog who barks and lunges at everything she sees? This is just for you!

My three books on Growly Dogs - Essential Skills for your Growly but Brilliant Family Dog - are full of strategies and techniques to help you with your difficult dog, and I thought I’d give you a chapter from Book 1: Why is my dog so growly? to get you started on the road to change.

Chapter 1: Reactivity - what is it

“What do we mean by this word “reactivity”? Basically, it means that your dog is reacting to his environment, but that instead of being able to assess the situation calmly, make good judgements, and move on, he’s stuck in “See dog: bark!”

You may think your dog is weird - that one moment he’s a happy dog inside the house, and as soon as you step outside he turns into a snarly monster. Imagine you’re enjoying tea and cake at a friend’s house. You’re happy and relaxed. Then your friend takes you to see his reptile collection (Oh no!! Exactly what makes your skin crawl!). In that room full of snakes and lizards, do you feel as comfortable as you were in the tea-and-cake room? And when he opens the cage and offers you one to hold ... that’s when you may panic and need to get out of the room.

Have you ever felt anxious and jittery for some reason? Worried about an interview, perhaps, or waiting for news from the hospital. Every bang or squeak makes you jump! Imagine living in that state all the time.

And at the bottom of this is usually FEAR. The reason your dog is making such a hullabaloo at the sight of another dog (or person, bike, jogger, car, plastic bag, you-name-it) is because she’s trying to keep it away from her. Putting on an Oscar-winning display of teeth, claws, and noise usually does the trick.

The other person or dog may think, “This is a nasty dog, I’m outa here,” or you - in your embarrassment and confusion - take the dog away, or dive into someone’s driveway till the other has passed. Either way, for your dog, the barking and lunging worked! The threat is no longer there!

Sometimes this response is totally misunderstood by the owner, who says, “He drags me towards every dog because he wants to play”.

In a later chapter we’ll be looking in detail at Dog Body Language. It’s possible you are not recognising some of the things your dog is telling you! It will be much clearer when you’ve learnt his sophisticated method of communication.

“Dogs do what works” 

I will be saying this over and over again. Your dog doesn’t have a secret agenda to terrify the neighbourhood; she has no wish to fight with every dog she sees. All she wants is for the thing that’s coming at her to go away. And she’s discovered that her fear reaction of barking and prancing often works. So that’s what she’ll keep doing.

Until ... we show her another way to get the same result! Without anxiety, distress, and disarray.

Your dog is not aggressive, nasty, vicious - any of the names that passers-by may give her. She’s just afraid.

If this comes as a surprise to you, have a look at other aspects of your dog - around the house for instance. Does she jump at loud bangs? Does she bark at visitors? Is she deeply suspicious of any new object in her environment, creeping up slowly to inspect it on tippy-toes with outstretched neck? Does she get distressed when she’s left alone? Is it hard to brush her, or trim her feet?

All these can also be indicators of an anxious dog who is more likely to react to strange dogs, people, or things, when out.

And keep in mind that your dog can be afraid of anything at all. While many reactive dogs are reactive to other dogs, there are plenty who are just fine with other dogs, but terrified of traffic, or tractors, or people, or children ...

But my dog’s friendly!   

Another reason some dogs become reactive is frustration. They may really want to meet every dog or person in the world and expect a good outcome. This may work when they’re off-lead and able to get away (more about that later on), but it may also come apart quite quickly when the other dog doesn’t welcome the intrusion, or is much bigger and bolder than your dog first thought.

Off-lead this can result in a panic response where your dog snaps and barks before running away. There is scope for this to go badly wrong, if the other dog joins in the fray. On-lead the frustration grows very quickly, as the dog does not have the freedom to do what he wants, and little impulse control to deal with these feelings. So he barks and lunges towards the other dog.

The symptoms are the same as for the fear-barker - though the underlying cause is slightly different. This dog’s actions are often misunderstood by his owner, who fears they have an aggressive dog.

The frustrated dog may have poor social skills, racing up to a strange dog and hurling himself in their face, or on top of them. Imagine someone doing that to you in the street: you’d have a thing or two to say, I’m sure!

He may be stuck in puppyhood, thinking that racing up to every dog is ok. This dog needs to learn manners, just as our children do. We wouldn’t accept behaviour from a teenager or adult that we’d accept from a three-year-old child. It would be most inappropriate. And yet many owners think it’s ok that their dog should jump up at every dog they see, just because they think he’s friendly.

Jekyll on-lead, hyde off-lead? 

I find a lot of people saying to me that their dog is only reactive on-lead, and that off-lead “he’s fine!”

I can only say that I’ve never seen a dog-reactive dog who is “fine” off-lead. 

A little study of dog body language will reveal a lot of signs of discomfort in this dog. The only advantage of being off-lead is that the dog can get away before things get out of hand. And because this is not possible when he’s on-lead, we get the “fight or flight” result: b-a-r-k-i-n-g.”

It’s hard to do this alone - but you don’t have to! You can choose to work directly with me and my team of highly-qualified trainers. Start with the free Masterclass for Growly Dogs here

To read more of this book, go to www.brilliantfamilydog.com/growly-books where you’ll find all three books, available on Amazon in ebook and paperback - and a box-set of all of them at once!

There’s never been a better time to train your dog!

You’re stuck at home, worried half to death, your kids driving you crazy. 

Or maybe you’re racing about - an essential worker - stressed, anxious, exhausted.

In either case - or in any other case at all! - you don’t need your dog adding to your woes.

And right now you feel too scattered to do anything about it. “When it’s all over …” you say to yourself.

In fact, this is a great time to move your focus from what’s happening “out there”, over which we have no control, to what’s happening within your home - over which you have plenty of control! It’s feeling in control of something that will help you cope with the uncertainty abroad at the moment. So pick something you absolutely can control!

Two minutes a day

And did you know that you can actually make some serious changes in your dog’s behaviour in just two minutes a day?

I’m busy, I’m pre-occupied, I have so many projects on the go. I envy folks who are single-minded and can devote hours to training their dog.

But that’s not me!

(And there’s a fair chance it’s not you either.)

So if my dogs are ever to get the attention they deserve, the mental stimulation essential for a happy and contented life, not to mention become the kind of companion dog we all want, I had to work out a different way of doing things.

Not for me hour-long classes and extended sessions with me losing the thread and the dog becoming increasingly confused, then bored, then totally switching off.

All Day Training!

So I developed All Day Training!

This simply means that whenever I notice my dogs I take the opportunity to interact with them and teach them something new, or cement in something they already know.

Example: my dogs know that when I put my hand on the door-handle they sit and wait while I open it till they hear their release cue, then they can shoot through the doorway.

B-u-u-u-t, there are occasions when

• It’s a new door

• They’re just too excited and forget themselves

• I’ve been letting them away with a poor response

and we need to brush this up! Because they already know what it is I want (they’re just finding it hard to give it to me) it’s very quick to bring them up to speed - or lack of speed in this case!

And usually all that’s needed is for me to pause. And wait. Wait for the furry brains to remember what they should be doing.

Then we have celebratory praise when they get it right!

What do I need for this type of training?

There’s really only three things you need:

1. Quick access to nice treats - pocket, conveniently-parked pots.

2. An idea of what it is you’d like your dog to do - not just what you don’t want him to do!

3. An idea of how to teach the thing.

Let’s look more closely at these.

1, Quick access to nice treats

What’s a “nice” treat? A small, non-crumbly, treat that your dog will sell his soul for. While I use strong stuff (cheese, sausage, etc) for teaching new things, my dogs are so attuned to the sequence ASK-DO-REWARD that they will actually work for anything. It’s the use of their brain to solve the puzzle, combined with the pleasure they know they will bring to me, that is the real reward.

So it’s easy enough to keep the good stuff in the fridge and keep some dry treats in your pocket and in pots strategically placed round the house.

I have one on my desk for not barking at delivery men; one near the front door for matwork for visitors (yeah - those people who used to be allowed into the house … 😢 ); and my pocket is always with me.

2. An idea of what it is you’d like your dog to do - not just what you don’t want him to do!

Dogs cannot NOT do things. Dogs are doers. They can’t exist in a vacuum. That’s why “NO” is pointless, and why I don’t use it at all. “My dog knows the meaning of NO,” people tell me proudly. Does he? My guess is that to him NO means his owner is unaccountably cross, and keeping low and quiet would now be a good move. He probably has no idea why you’re cross. Really.

So you need to know WHAT it is you want him to do, and teach that! This is so blindingly obvious when you think about it. But people are so used to being reactive instead of proactive, that knowing what they’d like their dog to do is usually pretty far down the list. After shouting, yelling, frustration, annoyance, telling off, NO, and so on.

You need a roadmap.

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re unlikely to ever arrive anywhere useful or desirable.

Decide what you want your baffled dog to do, instead of reprimanding him for having no idea what you want!

3. An idea of how to teach the thing

And this is where I can help you! Brilliant Family Dog is stuffed full of help to teach your dog, yourself, at home.

Most of this is not only force-free - and kind, and fun! - but also cost-free. I genuinely want to get this information into the hands of everyone who needs it so that their dog can benefit.

This is why Brilliant Family Dog is known as such a valuable resource for the dog-owner who wants to develop a stronger bond with their dog.

You can start by wandering round the site, or by using the Search function. You’re bound to find things that interest you,

- from teaching your dog to catch - to putting an end to window-barking;

- from housetraining your new puppy and getting some sleep at last - to how to socialise your puppy now in Lockdown. This last is really important for all you new puppy-owners out there.

- from developing a new relationship with your reactive, aggressive dog in our free Masterclass for Growly Dogs - to learning how to clip his shaggy feet!

- and how about now being the absolutely perfect time to teach your dog to watch dogs on tv calmly? (Coco Poodle used to bring the house down whenever he saw a quadruped - even a cartoon character! - on television.)

But I need someone to help me!

Want personal attention? Yes, even now when there are no “live” classes permitted in most of the world, you can get personal help and guidance, the massive support of like-minded people, and answers to all your “what-if” questions.

There’s nothing like feeling you have a friend when you don’t know what to do.

Thank you for your program and for all the follow up. I feel like I have someone in my corner all the time.

Kathryn and her Jack Russell x Poodle

Check out our full programs here!

Do it now!

So the fact is, whenever you want to work with your friend the dog -  it’s the right time. But none righter than now, when you need all the help you can get.

Email via the Contact box to let me know what you need. Right now.

Here are some “recipes” for you to work on - all safely done at home, in our free e-course

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Puppy Socialisation in Lockdown

You got yourself a new puppy and you want to be sure you’re doing everything right! And one of the things people tell you is to pay close attention to the mysterious Puppy Socialisation.

And I know from my inbox that some of you are concerned how all this social distancing and lockdown will affect your socialisation program with your puppy or your new rescue dog.

I’m going to take a look at this with you and give you some reassurances that your dog won’t be ruined for the rest of his life!

Right now, it seems we’ve stepped into a movie - of the kind I never like to watch!

We have no idea what’s going to happen next, and we aren’t even sure there’ll be a happily-ever-after, like in the movies.

But you know what?

We never know what’s going to happen next!

We never know what will happen tomorrow, next week, next month - next year.

No idea.

That’s how we are all the time!

It’s just that collectively everyone has this pushed to the front of their mind right now. There’s lots of potential to get stressed, overwhelmed, panicky.

But that’s not going to help you be your best self, your healthiest self. And it sure won’t help your family and . . . your dog!

So how about focussing on NOW and what you can do. Instead of a future which you can’t possibly predict, and what you can’t do?

You can take a leaf out of your dog’s book for this.

He is blissfully unaware of anything different - except that everybody’s now home!

See how he lives in the moment. He is confident that food will arrive at the proper time. That fun and games will happen even if you can’t take him on your normal walks.

He is content to take life as it comes and enjoy the moment. Let’s do that too!

Every cloud has a silver lining

And spend some time thinking about all the plus sides of this lockdown, and whatever social restrictions you’re experiencing.

Now I know this affects people differently - essential workers are still working, and regulations are different in different countries, depending on the strength and focus of our administrations.

But for most people, they’re beginning to enjoy daily living with their loved ones - perhaps for the first time in decades!

• They are spared the nightmare commute to their jobs - which many of them hate!

• They can take a hand in bringing their own children up without a carer or teacher taking their place.

• Employers are finding that relinquishing control and working with their staff from home actually works!

• Some people are learning to cook, some are learning to garden, to enjoy a new form of exercise, to read more, to learn a new skill.

• Many are taking this opportunity to sign up to a course on something they’ve wanted to do for ages - but never had the time.

• And self-employed workers are using their resilience and drive to adapt their services and offerings to a new world.

• And of course, it seems the environment is loving it!

I see the seeds here for huge social change if we can grab this opportunity!

But how will this isolation affect your young puppy?

In general you need to remember the purpose of "socialisation". It's actually a shorthand for “socialisation, familiarisation, and habituation”. That means getting used to absolutely everything they’re going to come across in our world, from carpets to cuckoo clocks, from collars to cars . . . sounds, voices, our body language, their body language . . . and not being bothered by it.

So seeing and meeting other dogs and people are only a part of this.

It’s the whole experience of the puppy’s life which feeds into this. All resulting in a rounded character with loads of GOOD experiences.

Look at the way some unfortunate children grow up. Think of abandoned street children, living from hand to mouth, uncared for, facing plenty of cruelty. They grow up with all manner of problems to work on to try and put their lives right.

These kids meet loads of other people! But unless the experience of meeting each person is a good one, it’s not contributing to a calm and confident child.

The same is true with dogs. The interactions with humans and dogs (horses, sheep, slippery floors, and those cuckoo clocks) need to be GOOD experiences.

There is one well-known trainer who advocates “pass the puppy”. That the puppy should be passed round a large group of strangers, and that this would be good for socialisation.

I would never want to inflict that ordeal on a puppy or a child!

A long time ago I had a collie pup called Tip. She was a naturally retiring dog, though a great worker. I’ll always remember the look on her face when a visitor grabbed this 8-week-old puppy and held her close.

Tip’s eyes were silently pleading “HELP” to me. I now know never to let this kind of thing happen. It certainly was a damaging experience for this sensitive young pup.

So be aware that it is the QUALITY of interactions rather than the QUANTITY which will form a confident outgoing character in your dog, without triggering any fears.

It’s about teaching your pup to accept novelty with curiosity, not fear.

If your family is home with you, they can help by acting differently, walking differently, adopting a different tone of voice.

If you’re alone, you can dress up to "become" new people. You may have safe friends with or without dogs you can meet up with while maintaining distance.

Remember that while dogs can’t contract this virus, they could transfer it on their coat from your hands to someone else. So social distancing for your dog too. Or latex gloves . . .

Puppy choice!

It won’t surprise those of you who know me to hear me say that it’s all about choice!

Your puppy has to CHOOSE to approach a person or dog, not be forced, grabbed, handled without their permission.

You need to do a lot of work providing this rounded experience:

• Puppy handling

• Different sounds

• Different surfaces

• Different locations

• Different weather!

These, along with Puppy Gym and Tricks will all help your pup feel comfortable in her own skin. This is what “socialisation” is really about. Making a confident, capable, curious, dog.

This is all here for you in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy - carefully illustrated with dozens of videos.

And walking in different places, even if you're limited right now, is important - as ever you can carry your pup till he's able to put his feet on the road.

One thing that will need careful attention while you’re at home is teaching him how to cope with your absence without distress. This is hugely important for any puppy - especially now, if you’re isolated. So short absences - even to the next room - must be built in from the start, and gradually extended. 

And what about my older dog?

If you’re unable to leave your home with your older dog, then now is the time to devise new and exciting games to entertain her. Think of scent games, Hide and Seek with the children, or with you. Find the named object out of three. You can bury toys and treats in a box full of smaller boxes, plastic bottles, and other safe objects, for your dog to rummage through.

Leave all those delivery cardboard boxes outside the house for three days to decontaminate, then you can bring them in to hide things in for scent games . . . and this will be part of your Puppy Gym for your young puppy.

Some of you already have a great repertoire of “rainy day fun” games. Do add them in the comments, and share your expertise and ingenuity!

Refresh your Retrieve and see just what a difference it makes in your daily life, when your dog can fetch your shoes, stack the dinner bowls, put her toys away . . .

No retrieve? Get Fetch it! and learn fast. It’s such fun and it will make a massive difference, turning your bored dog into a valuable assistance dog.

Will my dog get fat?

If you’re worried about your older dog getting her usual exercise, think of new ways to get her (and you!) moving.

There’s no need to worry with your puppy. Just bouncing about in the house Is plenty of exercise for a pup.

But for your older dog you’ll have to be inventive! And maybe cut her food back a little to ensure she doesn’t become tubby.

If you have a garden, you can play fetch, chase, and run about till her sides are heaving and her eyes gleaming!

You can make a mini agility course! With bamboo canes and clothes pegs to rest the cross bar on. Just ensure the jumps will collapse safely if your dog hits them. Start very small - just a step over - and slowly raise the jumps a little.

If you can’t get out at all apart from toilet breaks, what can you do inside?

• If you have a treadmill, you can adapt this for your dog. If money is not a problem, buy a special dog one!

• How about carefully going up and down stairs? No jumping steps allowed!

• How about fast hide and seek games, using the whole house?

• Can you use a corridor for recalls and retrieves?

• How about a step for your dog to step up and over?

• Balancing on books or cushions.

• Twisting, turning, going through an old hula hoop . . .

• Tricks! Dance moves!

Youtube is full of ideas - check out the Dancing with Dogs videos from Crufts. You’re sure to find something you can do with your dog and you can be sure too that the training is hard physical and mental work for him - just what you need if you’re restricted.

If you have the whole family at home, this is a time to involve them in your dog’s training. And if you’re alone at home - thank your lucky stars you have such a wonderful companion!

No feelings of isolation for you!

Our dogs can most certainly help us in these tricky times. Know that when we come out the other end, you’ll have used your time so wisely that you’ll have a new and wonderful relationship with your dog.

And don’t worry about him not seeing other dogs! As long as all his experiences are happy ones, where he gets to choose the level of interaction, and he’s experienced lots of different things - he’ll feel confident and ready to explore and accept novelty.

Here are some more ideas for you to work on -
especially within our present limits!

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Distancing - for dogs and us

We’re beginning to feel like our reactive dogs!

We feel beleaguered, trapped, attacked.

We’re learning to be afraid of other people …

Well, let’s keep things in proportion. We’re not afraid of other people per se, but of coming into close contact with them.

Personal space

Dogs are ahead of us here, because the dog’s personal space is so much larger than ours. Our natural comfortable distance is a metre or so away from the person we’re talking to, if we don’t know them well. There are global variations on this distance, of course - different cultures have different social norms.

And our own natural feelings have to some extent been over-ridden by what we have to put up with on a normal day. Think rush hour public transport!

There are many upsides in this crisis, and not having to squash into a bus or tube train at rush hour has got to be up there near the top!

So keeping two metres away from people entails making an effort and keeping it in your mind the whole time.

Help from your Growly Dog!

And here’s where your Growly Dog can help you: she is all too keen to keep her distance from other dogs and people - and maybe bikes, toddlers, and cars as well.

So work together on this, and keep your distance too!

Having a small understanding of how she views the world - as a dangerous, threat-filled, place - could make all the difference to how you protect her.

This is why I’ve made a free Masterclass for you: so that you can learn so much to help your dog!

Time off

Many of us are in enforced isolation right now. And this is just heaven for your Growly fella! One of the first things I ask new Growly Dog students to do is to give their dog a “cortisol holiday” - a complete break from all the things that terrify him on a daily basis, to allow the hormone levels to stabilise.

Usually five days of home confinement makes a considerable difference to the anxious, reactive, dog. A noticeable difference.

Now is an ideal opportunity to give your anxious dog that break. And while you find new ways to exercise and amuse him in the home, you can detach yourself from all these worries and anxieties too.

While you’re at home you don’t have to remember to avoid people. You don’t have to view others with fear. You can switch off the things that worry you (yes, I mean the constant news updates, social media, alarmists in general) and enjoy some peace with your now-calmer dog.

Teach him some tricks!

Teach him to fetch!

Have some fun!

I know that many of you with Growly Dogs suffer from feelings of isolation. But right now you’re exactly where you need to be!

I am sure that another upside from this crisis is that people have a space in which to reflect and look at their own life critically.

Instead of being bundled along in the daily grind, holding everything together - working hard not to drop a ball - many people are stepping off their treadmill for the first time in years!

So this is a wonderful opportunity to reassess exactly where you are in life:

• Is it exactly where you want to be?

•  Are there changes you’d love to make?

• What’s stopping you making those changes over the next few months?

Here’s a little exercise for you:

1. Write down the top three values you want to live your life by

   (e.g. adventure, integrity, connection, spirituality, nature, joy . . .)

2. Beside each of your three, write down how far you are now living your life by them. You can use a scale of 1-10 if that helps, with 1 being not at all, and 10 being totally.

3. Now look at what you’ve written!

Is this how you want it to be?

• Yes: fantastic!

• No: what are you going to do to change things?

Comment below or email me and tell me how this went for you!

Want to know how to start the change with your dog?

Join our free masterclass

See how calm your dog is?

Look at your dog.

Is he worrying about rampant viruses? Or is he just contentedly being a dog? Is he getting anxious about what just may happen in the future, or is he happy with where he is right now?

We can learn from our pets. For a start we can enjoy their world-view and consequent feelings of normality and continuity.

And we can observe that worrying about things changes nothing!

For more harmony with your dog, get our free email course!

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Security and safety

We all need a sense of security (as Maslow defined in his Hierarchy of Needs), and the panic and fears being whipped up by some parts of the media and social media are counter-productive!

Continually being in an anxious state lowers your immunity and maintains damaging stress.

Choose one or maybe two news sources that you trust, and check them just once a day. You do not need minute-by-minute reports and all the speculation and catastrophising that goes with them.

When you are talking, ask yourself “Am I making the situation better or worse?” 

We all need a sense of belonging, and isolation measures can make us feel alone and vulnerable.

Self-sufficiency

I’m no epidemiologist, but I have seen isolation work. When the UK slaughtered millions of farm animals in the last Foot and Mouth outbreak, Ireland was barely touched. Because it is largely a rural economy, there was a united effort from the whole country - instantly - to comply with the sweeping measures brought in to prevent the spread of the disease. The result was that only a couple of flocks in one area were affected. Ireland escaped Foot and Mouth virtually unscathed.

Once we have our safety and belonging needs sorted - by reframing them as virtues not calamities - we can look to being the best version of ourselves.

We manifest into our lives the things we most desire and the things we most fear. (This is physics, not woo-woo - ask Einstein …) Where is your focus?

These things will pass! Do what is recommended by your authorities, look at the upside of isolation (there’s always an upside to everything!)

.. and enjoy some quality time with your soothing, carefree, dog.

Your dog is not so soothing and carefree?
Get our free course here to help you change everything!

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Can keeping away from other dogs make my dog worse?

One of the joys of my work is that I see more and more people starting out on their dog-owning journey using only force-free methods. HOORAY!!

They have dismissed all those noisy “balanced” or shock trainers. They’ve seen through them for what they are: bullies.

They have no wish to treat their dog any differently from the other members of their family.

They’ve got rid of the aversive equipment they were persuaded to spend money on in order to keep their poor dog under ever tighter physical control. They’re ready to rock and roll!

Kudos to these dog-owners for wanting to treat their dog humanely! and not falling for the clever marketing of the tv personality “trainers”

Trouble is, some of the old methods die hard. While the spirit is willing, the new neural pathways have yet to be cut!

❓ “If I treat him when he barks, isn’t he going to think I’m rewarding him for barking?”

❓ “If I let him choose where he wants to sleep, won’t he take over the house and steal my bed?”

❓ “If I let my puppy sleep in my bedroom, will I never be able to get him out?”

❓ “Do I have to carry treats for the rest of my life? When can I get rid of them?” (I dunno - when does your boss stop paying you?) 

And here’s a good one:

❓ “I’ve done what you told me and we’ve kept our reactive dog away from other dogs. But won’t that make him more afraid of them?” 

It’s great that I frequently get queries from folk who are just starting out on their new force-free journey with their reactive, anxious, aggressive - Growly - dog.

This query comes up surprisingly often.

And it shows that - while they’re doing their best to follow a kinder way - they haven’t yet grasped the reason behind it.

Tell me: Let’s say you were afraid of spiders. I mean terrified. And I made sure to keep you away from them (or them away from you!) as much as possible, so that you didn’t continually get frights and panic attacks, always on full alert, ready to “fight or flee”. How would you feel if, after a few spider-free months, you saw one?

Would you feel exactly the same level of anxiety as you did when you came across spiders all day, every day?

OR

Would you feel less alarmed, having spent months not jumping out of your skin every few hours?

Might you, in fact, be able to look at this spider with curiosity rather than blind panic?

So it is for your dog!

Giving your dog distance from the thing he fears allows all his systems to return to normal levels. Hormones stabilise. Heart rate plummets. Stress levels are down. He is no longer scanning the horizon waiting for a dog to appear. You can actually enjoy a walk together! 

This image of Otto calmly watching another dog is from one of the many videos in my premium program From Growly Dog to Confident Dog

Once you’ve got to this point, you’ve got something you can work with, as opposed to the spinning, lurching, tense ball of fear and noise that you previously got on sight of another dog.

You’ve desensitised your dog from other dogs (at a great distance). Now you can start Phase II of the operation! You can start counterconditioning him to other dogs at a slightly closer distance.

This part requires some skill and a lot more understanding. I go into it in great detail in From Growly Dog to Confident Dog  I’m keen that you should learn this thoroughly so that you get it right from the start!

For now, suffice it to say that you need to associate those distant dogs with the appearance of something really good - turkey, sausage, cheese, liver cake are all winners here - changing the emotional response of your dog to the things he previously feared.

Your dog kicking off at other dogs is the result of how she feels about the sight of a dog approaching. This is how the sequence goes:

Dog appears

Your dog thinks OH NO!

Your dog feels afraid

Your dog barks and lunges and screams to get the other dog to go away

(And I could add - you feel embarrassed, wretched, and helpless.)

So this is where we honour the dog, honour her feelings, and change the actions which are a result of those feelings. 

✅ Yes. Your dog will gradually become more tolerant of dogs in her environment, simply because she no longer has that knee-jerk fear reaction when she sees one.

✅ And YES. Keeping your dog at a safe distance for as long as it takes will help this process.

❎ Nope. She’s not going to feel worse about strange dogs the less she sees them, any more than you’ll feel worse about spiders the less you see of them.

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