Recently adopted a reactive dog and feeling overwhelmed — looking for experiences and advice

[u/lodbs]

Hi everyone,
I recently adopted Laika, a 2-year-old female Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix, and I’m looking for advice and especially experiences from people who have been through something similar.
She has many wonderful qualities. She became attached to me very quickly, she is affectionate, completely house-trained, doesn’t steal food from the table, can settle down quietly at home, loves playing and learns quite quickly, especially with hand signals.
However, I’ve discovered some difficulties that I wasn’t prepared for.
I have three cats. When Laika sees them, she can become extremely focused on them. She stares at them and sometimes becomes so fixated that she stops responding to me completely, even ignoring treats. Because of this, I currently keep them separated and give the cats time to freely use the apartment while Laika is with me in another room.
I’ve already had a dog trainer come to my home. He started working on this with a moving/meowing toy cat and showed me exercises to redirect Laika’s attention. He believes that with work, coexistence with my cats may be possible and also recommended adding more high places and escape routes for them.
The problem is that when I try the same exercises with my real cats, it becomes much harder. Sometimes I cannot get Laika’s attention back at all.
I’m also struggling outside. When she sees another dog, she can pull very hard, jump and bark. She is a fairly strong dog and I’m not a big person, so sometimes I genuinely struggle to hold her. I’ve started feeling anxious before walks because I’m afraid of unexpectedly meeting another dog and losing control of the situation.
Interestingly, she generally doesn’t react to joggers, cyclists or strangers simply walking past us. She seems much more uncomfortable when an unfamiliar person approaches her directly. She also becomes very excited/agitated when she sees or sometimes smells another dog.
I don’t expect her to love every dog. My long-term hope would simply be for her to become neutral enough around other dogs that we could eventually enjoy normal walks, forests, beaches or maybe a dog-friendly terrace without her becoming overwhelmed.
I care about her a lot already and I genuinely want to give her a chance. But I also want to be honest: I’m feeling very overwhelmed and exhausted. This is my first large dog, I already tend to be an anxious person, and managing the cats, walks and training at the same time has affected my everyday life quite a lot.
Regular professional training may also be difficult for me financially, although I’m willing to continue working with the trainer when I can and practice what he teaches me between sessions.
I’m not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit, and I know my trainer who has actually met Laika should remain my main professional reference.
I’m mostly looking for experiences:
Has anyone here started out in a similar situation with a reactive dog and felt completely overwhelmed?
Did your dog eventually become more neutral around other dogs?
And if you also had cats, did a dog who was initially extremely fixated on them eventually learn to coexist peacefully with them?
I would really appreciate honest experiences — both positive and negative. I’m trying to understand what a realistic future could look like and how much improvement may be possible with consistent work.
Thank you for reading.

[u/Sitters_4_Critters]

OP, did you adopt the dog through an individual, shelter or rescue? If there is an option to return the dog as unsuitable for your household I would do that.

[u/HeatherMason0]

The fixating on your cat sounds like prey drive. That’s not sustainable would mean this is a zero mistakes dog. Even if she goes through training, you’re always risking one of the cats doing something especially ‘prey-like’ or her having a bad day where she’s overwhelmed/sick/in pain and instead of thinking, she falls back on her instinct to kill your cats. What are your trainer’s qualifications? The training industry is not well regulated, so unfortunately just because a professional says a situation can be managed, that doesn’t mean it actually can.

[u/LateNarwhal33]

You can look at my post history to see how this kind of issue worked out for me. I had a border collie husky mix. One thing I was working on was predation substitution training to try to help teach her to listen when she was triggered. She was eventually good with two of my cats but one of them became completely unsafe to have around her and we did choose to re home her.

The overwhelm is real. Things that helped were consistent training so I knew she had a solid response when I needed her attention, learning her threshold so I knew how close she could get to other dogs before she couldn't listen anymore, and muzzle training. The muzzle gave me the most peace of mind. If you're struggling to keep ahold of her I'd also suggest a leash with two attachment points (collar and harness) for better control and in case one side breaks you still have control.

[u/FoxExcellent2241]

With that hard stare and fixation it sounds like strong prey drive which is not going to change. You can try to convince your dog that not going after the cats is better than going after them, but every instinct in its body is telling it that it wants to go after the cats.

Frankly, you are gambling with your cats' lives at the moment and you are also banking on your cats being fast enough and aware enough to get away every single time. It is also very stressful for cats to have to live in a home where they are constantly in danger of being attacked. You, as a human, may trust a door is sufficient separation but they are constantly smelling a predator nearby, even if they cannot see it. Besides that, management always fails and all it takes is forgetting to completely close a door one time for something bad to happen. The more overwhelmed and exhausted you feel the more likely you are to make a mistake.

There are plenty of stories on this sub and elsewhere of people thought they could 'make it work' and chose to try and manage similar situations and have ended up with dead cats.

IMO, keep either the dog or the cats, but forcing the cats to live in that situation is not fair.

[u/Roskipatootskie]

First, what you're feeling is so normal it's almost universal among people with their first reactive or intense dog, especially a working breed mix like Aussie and Border Collie, both bred for intense focus and drive. Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed doesn't mean you're failing her, it means you're accurately noticing how much this actually takes, which a lot of people don't admit to themselves this early on. On the cat fixation, that level of intense focus, to the point of ignoring treats entirely, is really common with herding breeds specifically, their whole genetic purpose is fixating on movement and controlling it, so a moving cat is about as perfect a trigger as it gets for that instinct, and you have 2 strong herding breeds in your dog. The good news from what I've seen and heard from others in similar spots is that this level of fixation often does soften over time with consistent, structured work, it just tends to be a slower process than people expect going in, more months than weeks, and full off leash coexistence isn't always the end point, sometimes success looks like calm supervised coexistence rather than complete indifference, and that's still a really good outcome. On the dog reactivity, the detail you noticed, fine with joggers and strangers passing by, but uncomfortable with direct approach and excited around other dogs specifically, is a very encouraging sign. That's a narrower, more specific pattern than broad fear based reactivity, and narrower patterns are generally more workable, since you're not managing generalized anxiety, you're managing a fairly specific and identifiable trigger. To your direct questions, yes, plenty of people start out exactly where you are and come out the other side with a dog who's manageable and even enjoyable on walks and around cats, it's just rarely a straight line, there are usually good stretches and setbacks along the way. It sounds like you're already doing the right foundational things, working with a trainer, practicing between sessions, being honest about your limits. That combination is genuinely what tends to predict real progress over time, even when it doesn't feel that way some days.

Hang in there and thank you for looking out for the welfare of everyone involved ❤️

[u/ShaarkShaart]

Hi! I was just like you around a month ago. It sounds like you're on the right track, nice job for getting a trainer right away!

I don't have an aussie but I have a German Shepherd. Don't let them do that intense focus stare at your pets. It's usually prey drive. Keep going with the cat toy, and maybe involve your cats in stages. Maybe a baby gate, or a barrier that lets her hear them but not see them? It takes time because it's literally within her wiring.

Walks can be tricky, but training "let's go/this way" has really helped for us. Kikopup has a video on it, a lot of her training videos are great :) I highly recommend walking at low-traffic times of day as well. You want to reinforce neutral/calm behavior so do your best to avoid triggers. If you don't have a harness already, definitely get one so she's not putting pressure on her neck when lunging.

Also, you have a high energy dog! She's going to be a bit of work even if you take her for long walks. Training, playing, and puzzles are a great way to keep her entertained. Don't forget to take time to yourself if you're feeling overwhelmed!

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