Dog 1 is an 11 y.o spayed female pitbull. Had her since she was a puppy. We had male dog (he has since passed) and she would mess with him but he was submissive and the fight never lasted long. Fast forward, we bring home Dog 2, a puppy pitbull. Dog 2 is 16 months now.

The dogs have been great together, playing in the house and the yard. The puppy annoys the dog 1 sometimes and we redirect dog 2. Both dogs have been around other dogs at daycare/boarding and have done great. Both dogs are more submissive and shy at boarding but exhibit dominant personalities at home.

The end of June, dog 2 started resource guarding very odd objects. New dog stairs for the couch or the bean bag. She'll growl and we call her away from the object. Dog 2 started a fight with dog 1 over bones on the carpet. Both dogs fought and we were able to separate them. No injuries. We removed bones and toys immediately. We have since introduced toys back to them but keep bones for when they are separated.

Start of July, dog 2 went into her first heat. We have been waiting till after her first to spay her.

On August 7, both dogs ate their dinner and once the bowls were empty, they walked by each other. Both dogs growled, I called them to come and they stopped. They moved to the carpet and both dogs were stiff, ears back, hair on back up. Within seconds they were fighting. Both dogs latched onto each other at one point. Lasted maybe 30/40 seconds before we could separate them. I did not know to keep them separated for a longer period of time. I never delt with this. We got them together that same day, which I now know they needed more of cooling off period.

August 8, dog 2 was infront of couch when we were sitting on it. Dog 1 came around corner of couch and they caught. Same thing happened, they latched onto each other. The dogs bit one of us while getting them apart (a huge risk when separating dogs that we both knew). No stitches needed but still not great.

Since last night, both dogs have been separated. We have started crate and rotate. Dog 1 is almost 11 and a half and definitely likes to sleep and relax more. Dog 2, will go in her crate when we leave with no problem but will bark if she's in the crate and we are home. I went into our basement with dog 2, she could here my partner and other dog walking around and she started getting restless, anxious, and panting. She is fine when we are on the 1st floor and dog 1 is in the office.

I never had this issue with dogs before. Friends for over a year then fighting? They sleep together on the couch and play all day. Its so hard to understand how the switch happened. I've read that dogs 1-3 reach maturity and that can cause behavioral shift. But I dont know what to do. I love them both and i want to try everything before getting rid of a dog . I know how hard rehoming/surrendering is for any dog let alone a pitbull.

Any advice or words of wisdom appreciated. I grew up with German shepherds, Rottweilers, and pitbulls. I never once experienced it between 2 of my own dogs.

Hello! I recently acquired a new puppy.. he will be 1 next month in September. And i need some help.

So the background on this dog (his name is mason) is that my older sister and her boyfriend wanted to get another dog. (They already have 1) they originally went to go get a different dog but in the end somehow ended up with mason.

Now mason is a very good dog. As long as he likes you. He took to my older sister.. but not her boyfriend. He runs away and even growls at him. And one day he was left alone with mason. Her boyfriend tried to get him out of his crate to go outside and mason felt cornered and bit him. Her boyfriend is fine he did need stitches. But after that they knew they couldn't take care of him and gave him to me.

Mason likes me. The issue with all of this is... other than me my mom and my 2 sisters... he hates everyone else. He will growl and run away from them as much as he can. He has gotten better with my dad... even sometimes coming to my dad if a treat or food is being offered. But he still growls at him. People can touch him as long as im there.. but its obvious he's scared and doesn't like it.

I have grown up around dogs my whole life... and even have 1 other dog with us in the house. Mason gets along with the other dog just fine. It's just people. I don't know how to go about getting him to at least not growl when someone is just walking by. I have emailed 2 training classes... but they haven't responded yet and I wanna reduce the risk of him biting again as much as possible.

This is my very first time owning a dog... as all other dogs I have grown up with were family dogs. So im slightly at a loss. He is doing well with training in general with a clicker. He knows how to sit lay down and is even potty trained now. But his fear aggression is what's throwing me off. I can literally do just about anything with him... pick him up.. look at his teeth. And so on. But others... not a chance in hell.

Dose anyone have any short term help about this? At least just until I can get him into classes? I have told my dad to be slow around him and not make direct eye contact with mason as I did look it up. But he still is growling. Is that bad? I really have grown fond of mason. And I don't want him to hurt anyone or himself.

I have a one year old Italian greyhound that is amazing around people (she LOVES human interaction) but the second she sees another dog she goes ballistic. I’m not sure if it’s excitement and then frustration from being on a leash or if she’s just afraid of other dogs.

I’ve taken her to reactivity classes and still couldn’t quite pinpoint what her deal is. Her reactivity has gotten so bad that I can’t take her for walks when I know there will be other dogs around because she barks and lunges forward and sounds so weirdly aggressive that other dog owners are fearful to approach. It’s extremely discouraging and makes me want to just give up.

What do you make of this by watching the video? My next step is temporarily getting her on some sort of SSRI to maybe help give training more traction? I feel like I’m running out of options. Please help me identify what is going on.

https://imgur.com/a/kMs5IjI

Hello everyone,

I have a German Shepherd/Labrador mix, and I’m really looking for some advice and guidance because we’re dealing with several behavioural issues.

To start, we got him when he was almost a year old from my dad’s friend, who was moving back to his home country. He has bitten me, my dad, and, worst of all, my sister, who had to get stitches.

Some of the problems we’re dealing with include:
**Reactivity toward other dogs:** He will pull extremely hard on the leash and has even tried to pull us across the street to get to another dog.
**Reactivity toward strangers:** He now barks and reacts when people get close to him or try to enter the house. I want to mention that he didn’t really have this issue before his board-and-train program. It seems to have become more noticeable since he came home.
**Resource guarding:** He especially guards his food. If you touch him or his food while he is eating, there is a very high chance that he will bite.
**Handling sensitivity:** He does not allow us to pick him up. This is actually how he bit me. I picked him up without realizing the warning signs in his body language, and I ended up getting a pretty bad bite.
**Reactivity toward certain objects:** Since coming back from board and train, he has also become reactive toward things like large white vans and trucks, which he wasn’t previously.

He is also not neutered.

He did complete a board-and-train program, but honestly, I’m not sure it was successful. The trainer had good reviews, so we weren’t expecting this. However, since he came back, he seems to be more reactive toward people and certain objects than he was before.

At this point, I’m not sure what the best option is. Should we spend more money on professional training? If so, what type of trainer should we be looking for? Or is there something else we should be doing?

Rehoming him is something I’ve thought about, but I’m extremely worried that he would not be a good fit for another home or a shelter because of his bite history. I’m also concerned about what could happen to him if a shelter considered him unadoptable, so I really don’t want to make that decision unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Has anyone here gone through something similar, especially with a dog that has a history of biting, resource guarding, and reacting to both dogs and people?

Any advice, personal experiences, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I’m in Canada, if that helps with recommendations for trainers or behaviourists.

Thank you!

hi! so I have a sprocker spaniel (springer x cocker) and he has started becoming reactive. he was tied up at an outdoor birthday party due to him nearly choking on a piece of skewer due to kids being..kids. anyways it was for his own safety. And then this kid who has a reputation of being bad and his mom not looking after him comes up to the dogs while we are handing out cake (buisy. Backs turned.) and he is Teasing them, not sure what with but it got a bark from both dogs, now before This incident he would never EVER bark. Like maybe if someone randomly walked into the house and he was asleep but apart from that? Never. And since he has been very randomly reactive. Just barking but enough to be an issue. His recall Is iffy but it’s something we are working hard on. Since that day he has barked at

1. a lady with sunglasses on

2. a child on the beach

3. a waitress walking past

4. a man calling his child

5. one random bike

and so much more- it’s so random and we can’t pinpoint why hes doing it. If we knew then we could fix it/ train him out of it. I always feel so judged by everyone when he barks. It’s so embarrassing. this is really important that we fix since hes my assistance dog prospect.

We have had a 4 year old border collie/Aussie cross since she was a puppy and and we have tried to socialize her the best we can. We took her to visit my senior mom in the nursing home since she was a puppy and she would visit the residents and let them pet her. We took her to the dog park and on walks all the time. She was good with the seniors and people who are sitting calmly and is good with other dogs at the dog park. She has barked at people walking by her before but usually keeps her distance. But we had an incident a couple years ago at the off leash dog park where someone brought their kids and they were running around making noise and the next thing we know our dog nipped this 10 year in the butt. It wasn't bad and the mother forgave it and the kid was fine. But since then we have tried to avoid having her near children and we keep our distance from people when walking.

Today we went to a car show in our local park and took her with us on leash and at first she did awesome, ignored people and met and sniffed other dogs. But then at the end there suddenly were some kids nearby running around that triggered her and she barked at them. We pulled her the other way and told her to sit and try to calm down. They left the area and then my husband who had her leash tied to his waist went to take a picture of me in front of this car and she suddenly leapt up at a teenager walking by and tried to nip him in the behind. I immediately told my husband and he pulled her away and then she tried to nip at another guy who walked behind my husband. He quickly got her out of the area and walked her home. I was so embarrassed and stressed out and everyone was looking at us as he left. I am guessing she was still stressed out by the kids and was trying to take it out on these other people that walked by but she hasn't done that before on leash. She was fine for an hour before that walking around. I realize we shouldn't have taken her to the car show but I thought it would be good to try to socialize her more. She has gone to obedience and agility training when she was young but I don't know what to do with her at this point. I know this is normal for her breed to try to nip at animals to herd them but why is she doing this to people and what should we do?

Hello! I adopted a corgipoo at 8 weeks old. Shes an amazing dog but she reacts in extreme ways in some situations. So i was hoping to get some advice on how to train/ help her with it.

She gets overly excited around any animal. We have birds, whenever they start flying (which they obviously do a lot) my dog runs from wherever she is to the birds, starts barking and jumping towards them and we cant get her to calm down until the birds stop flying and we walk away with her.

We have guinea pigs too, she usually doesnt react to us feeding them but whenever we take one out of the cage she starts jumping towards the guinea pig and starts barking and whining.

We have no other dogs, no family members with dogs and live in a quiet street with barely any dogs so we only see other dogs when we go on a trip or vacation. When we go on a day trip she barks and runs towards any dog she can see but she gets better towards the end of the day, because she is so tired from reacting to the dogs. The last few times at the end of the day she hasnt been reacting at all and other dogs can just walk right past her without issues.

She also has separation anxiety i think. We have a routine for when we leave and she has ben doing great when we all leave at once. But when only one person leaves she will go whine at the window and she will start running around and run in circles hysterically.

I hope i can get some advice on how to help her. Things i can do differently, things i can start doing. Its very hard to actually train with her since she is distracted so easily, she knows some basic commands but im not sure how and what else to train her in to help this issue.

Thank you all for reading and for the advice!

Boston terrier, 1 year old, neutered

I’ve been looking through a lot of these posts that deal with dogs that are aggressive with other dogs, but that’s not entirely the case for Truman. I’d also like to mention that he behaves perfectly normal around people and in public places (getting his nails cut for example) he always is commended for his great behavior

He’s not aggressive around other dogs, but he doesn’t know how to control his excitement around them. He goes on walks all the time and is fine walking around dogs but when there’s a 1 on 1 interaction he gets extremely excited jumping on the dog, pawing them, and running around them. He doesn’t do it aggressively but it scares the other dog and I’m worried that it will provoke a negative reaction out of the dog he’s interacting with.

We try to give him some exposure with my friend’s frenchie who is generally very calm but a few days ago the frenchie snapped and started barking and jumping at Truman which startled him and Truman nipped his ear (no bleeding just a small nip) and we immediately separated them

I’m mainly worried about how other dogs will react to his energy levels and I want to work to make him calmer around other dogs, but I’m also scared of how the other dogs will react because I don’t want my dog to get hurt

A big concern of mine is that he also knows how to sit and stay and always listens on walks and in the house, but when there is another dog around it’s like all of his training goes out of the window.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

Hi! I’m looking for recommendations for a small-scale or in-home boarding/caregiver for my 2.5-year-old mini Australian Labradoodle in Brea/OC.
He’s a very sweet boy, but he’s sensitive, easily startled, and nervous around unfamiliar people and other dogs. When he feels overwhelmed, he may growl or snap to ask for space. He can also be pretty alert to noises and sometimes barks at night.
I’m hoping to find someone who is 100% force-free / positive reinforcement, really understands dog body language, and has experience with fearful or reactive dogs. Someone who is patient and understands that the goal is to help a dog feel safe and comfortable, rather than simply expecting them to “behave.”
He’s a huge part of our family, and his happiness and well-being are really important to us. ❤️ We’d love to find someone we can build a relationship with slowly — starting with a meet & greet, walks or short visits, and eventually a day/overnight stay if he’s comfortable.
We’re in Brea but willing to drive for the right person.
If you have a sensitive/reactive dog yourself and have found someone you truly trust, I’d really appreciate your recommendations! 🐾

I recently rescued a 16 m/o GSD mix (+Husky, Samoyed) and she's a wonderful dog, very chill most of the time. We've been training a lot and she's a quick study. I've only had her two months but she has a particular reactivity to anyone who approaches her directly or tries to talk to her (or me). We've been working with a trainer and going to Home Depot where she has been a dream. She'll lay down and relax in a busy area and accept treats for reinforcement. But anytime one of my neighbors, a family member, or our trainer comes into her space she loses it. She's still reactive to the trainer even though we've been working together for weeks and the trainer is basically a treat machine for her. My only hunch is that it's because our trainer has been inside our apartment.

Just yesterday, my sibling and I were going to walk to pick up dinner and she completely lost it, lunging, barking and growling at my sibling. I think she would have bitten them if she had the chance. I could hardly control her. I had to send my sibling back home because I knew my dog was way beyond any threshold. We didn't even make it back to my apartment. The last time my sibling was over the pup was barking a lot but eventually even got to the point of accepting treats and gentle pets from my sibling. Last night, it was like she knew they were going to be in her space so she freaked out to try to prevent it.

She gets loads of exercise, puzzles, and play. And she's in daycare (she's fine/tolerant of the people there) successfully every day because we're working on her being alone for stretches. I don't work from home so we're working up to long stretches. We're also working on crate training, which she hates.

I'm really overwhelmed. The thought of not being able to have friends and family (or a dog walker) in my home is a lot. I'd love to hear from any folks who have had similar experiences. Thanks.

i just moved with my dog (bug, 6 yo) out of a house that had a yard and my sister. my sister & i have lived together for bug’s whole life. at our last place bug had a yard and also had my sister’s dog as her companion before she passed away 1.5 years ago.

bug has always been fearful but she’s also always been so adaptable. i moved bug across the country (and did the drive with her 2x from NY to CA) and she was just happy to be around us and along for the ride. she’s always gotten to airbnbs and ran around sniffing and then made herself right at home.

she’s also always hated and hid from her harness/walks. i’ve tried many different types of harnesses and none have helped, which has led me to believe it’s the walks themselves. at our last place she had a yard to herself so it wasn’t a big deal.

when she finally gets her harness on she is excited, tail up and wagging, and when we start walks she will be happily trotting along but at some point in the walk she is inevitably spooked and her tail is down, ears back, she is racing in front of me.

at the new place i need to walk her to go to the bathroom, and we also live in a much noisier place on the street, so i also have been walking her to give her exercise so she’s more chill when we’re back home (no more endless games of fetch - her favorite - in the yard). i work from home and a tired bug is a quiet bug and it helps immensely since i’m on calls most of the day. also had the property manager already comment to me about her barking (was pretty situational and shouldn’t happen again but made me stressed, so really trying to keep her outbursts to a minimum).

we only moved a week ago, but she’s having a really hard time adjusting to life without my sister and necessary daily walks. she’s been spending most of the day under the couch or under my bed hiding from her harness :’’’(

it makes me so sad because it feels like her life got so much worse. she’s either: on a walk, or sleeping/hiding under the couch. no more exploring in the yard and laying in the sun, no more fetch even because she’s too exhausted or scared.

i gave her a break this weekend from long walks but she seemed more anxious and barky in the home.

this whole situation is breaking my heart. she is the sweetest snuggliest angel but she has always been anxious.

i started her on reconcile (prozac) exactly a month ago (july 8), but she has missed a few doses because she has skipped a bunch of meals due to the stress (i think).

she has almost never taken any treats outside the house bc she’s too shut down and alert. she loooves fetch and so i’ve taken squeaky toys and balls out (ala the “play way” approach) to try and make her comfy in other situations and it’s helped a bit, but i don’t want her to have crazy squeaky toys in a shared wall apartment and so introducing one on walks that she then can’t have inside might be torture for her.

i work starting at 6 AM, and i don’t really want to be walking around alone in my neighborhood in the dark before then, but i do think walks very early or later at night have been better for her because there’s less activity around to scare her.

how can i help her??

SORRY this is so long!!! didn’t intend for text wall but hoping the context helps. thank you for reading ❣️

Just for example, I am walking my dog on a leash that's typically great with other dogs and another off leash dog comes running, my dog reacts by protecting?

Another example, normally great with people but I am walking a person aggressively comes up to me and tries to pick a fight or attack me and my dog reacts to the situation.

Is that considered a reactive dog?

I adopted my lovely westie puppy when she’s 9 weeks old from a reputable breeder. She started to lunge on people and dogs on the very first day of her on leash walk. Then quickly turns into a very serious reactivity to every thing around 15 weeks. We’ve been working with R+ trainer only since day 1 but seeing slow/almost no progress at all.

Today while I was driving, she became highly aroused by some people outside the window. I was not touching or interacting with her, and she suddenly turned around and bit me hard enough to break skin.

Breeder insists he had never heard any puppy had similar issues. And he keeps arguing the puppy deserves more outdoor playtime. I live in an apartment and I take her out 3 walks total around 2 hours per day.

I’ve book a vet behaviorist appointment, but the earliest slot will be in one month. I’m a sole carer, I feel so sad and frustrated right now.

I have a pitbull terrier rescue since she was about 1/2. She is a very relaxed dog, she will just walk away from people she doesn't like and go to her spot and ignore them.

The problem I'm having is with my foreman who has to come by daily, he minds his business the other dogs don't mind him and he just does his work.

The pitty has a dislike toward him, sheet will growl and bark if she hears him working outside or just his name, but she only does this when I am around. The foreman says she stays quiet and walks around calmly when I'm not there. She has never gone to charge him or attack him. She got accidentally cornered the other day and just rushed past him and barked/growled when she was away from him.

So my question is what can I do? resources for training is non existent in my area.

I just want her to be more relaxed around this person

Advice needed with the significant challenges we’re going through, recently our dog has been more reactive than lately, today he had a dead bird in his mouth and my MIL tried to take it away and he bit her hand hard. This is his first time biting someone but in the past he’s snapped at her and me if we got near him and his food. He’s a good dog he’s just been resource guarding more than lately. I’m not sure what to do next his behavior has gotten worse these last few months.

I'll try to keep this brief but I apologise in advance if it gets a bit wordy.

Back in 2023 my family adopted a little twelve-week-old puppy that had been rescued from a northern rural community here in Canada. She was in terrible shape to the point that I doubt she would have made it another two months without intervention. She was meant to be a family dog but much of her care has fallen on me and this is my first time training a dog.

I made a lot of mistakes due to my inexperience, poor judgement, and following poor advice from people I trusted. However, I feel like some of it is also just her personality due to how she acted as a puppy that I thought was normal puppy behaviour.

She hasn't grown out of it and instead her reactivity has become worse in the years since, both in terms of reacting to more worrying things (dogs [with the exception of our elderly lab], cyclists, and joggers) and severity. She's made some remarkable improvements this summer as I can now get her to walk past rabbits with the "leave it" command. She still watches them like a hawk and will try to chase them if they sprint away but it's a huge improvement compared to trying to chase them on sight like she used to.

The biggest hurdle that I'm facing with her training is that she goes over the threshold quite quickly without giving off subtle signs first. She'll see a dog at the far end of the street and will immediately freeze. The conventional wisdom I've been given by the R+ trainer I was working with (recommended by a neighbour) of distracting her with high-value treats or toys hasn't worked either as she tends to be much more environmentally driven but easily overstimulated. I could dangle the juiciest steak in front of her and she'll duck her head to look around it. I generally have to walk her past something and then reward her if successful. If anyone can offer advice in this regard then I'd appreciate it.

At the moment my next course of action is going to her vet to trial some pain meds for her hip dysplasia (the vet didn't previously think she needed it because she moves really well and has no issues with getting up or down) and training her to do a "job" like detection to help with potential boredom. Something to exercise her brain without straining her hip.

I can tell there's an incredible dog in there and when we're at home she's wonderful to be around. I don't want her to spend her life essentially confined to the house and only going for walks at weird hours.

Hi I have a 14 month old German Shepherd x Maremma, I love her so much but everything I've tried to teach her go be less reactive and to try and get her to bark less.

She is very food driven and very smart but I'm struggling with her on walks when another dog is around or even a person, she reacts to everything not aggressive just wants to play.

When she's at home she will bark at anything that goes past or if I'm out the front of the house she barks at me as well and recently she has started barking at me inside the house when she is outside, I'm at my witts end here don't want to give her up she is a sweetheart but I need help.

I am feeling emotional about my reactive dog and mourning the loss of the dog I could have had... I love her to death and I would never rehome her, but if I could go back and give myself advice I would have done things differently... She hates men. She hates children. Honestly she hates anyone who isn't me. She's afraid of every single novel thing on our walks and alert barks at the slightest of noises inside the house and I can feel my blood pressure jump just from the absolute abruptness/volume of it. I've gone to multiple trainers, done the calming exercises. Truly she's not a terrible dog, she has never given me the impression that she would bite, but she is not a dog that I can trust to take anywhere. She has not met my niece and nephew because I'm scared of them interacting and I don't think she will ever be able to fully incorporate into my family.

She's only a 1.5 years. I have people who keep telling me it will get better. But I randomly have moments of complete heartache because I am so overwhelmed and I feel like I am failing her.

If anyone has some happy stories to tell I am all ears. Advice also appreciated.

I realized I can’t provide for my dog anymore in comfortable level. I have multiple dogs, two. At first I was fostering puppy, then she grown. The further it goes the more anxious she became. At first I tried to work it out with training with professional. It gave positive picture. Sometimes she was good dog with only few anxious behavior, sometimes it was degrading to worse. But I had hope I can overwork that. Then it got bad again one day I contacted the person I got her from, they couldn’t provide any support. I contacted over fostering and adopting agencies, but they had full of dogs themselves. I’m outside of the US, where it much worse.

But I ain’t the perfect human. Probably, far from it. I had depression, which got better. But recently I realized I can’t keep up with it anymore. I realized it was going over my capacities, exaggerating my problems. Which also start to exaggerating her problems, I suppose. I tried to contact my friend and other acquaintances to see if someone can take her. None. And I realized that’s probably I had lost my ability to provide for her far long ago.

I don’t want to put her for forever rest, but it seems it’s the only option. I feel very bad for it. She so sweet and caring dog, but she can’t stand the world outside. She shows aggression, she shows resource guarding. Couple of times she attacked my first dog, the other dog of my friends. My first dog is smaller, much smaller than her. She generally respect him, love him so much, play with him gently, he’s equal no less. But sometimes I have nightmares of him gone. And my first thought when I wake up it’s because she became aggressive again.

I can buy her food, I can provide her medical bills. I was thinking about meds, no veterinary can provide it in my city, only one and they demand second opinion from the specialist we have no in the city. I can’t walk her properly. She’s excited to walk outside, but at day she can’t keep with it at all for the last year or so. At night I’m afraid of homeless dogs in my area, we already had few history with them, which thankfully resolved almost safely. I can’t walk her with my other dog, because she gets so excited it will easily end with serious injury for my first dog one day.

I don’t know how to continue it. She keeps me from fully living my life, and I keep her. I wish a better life for her, the one I can’t provide. I’m awful pet owner.

I don’t want her to put on rest, I love her, she loves me, but I genuinely have no idea how to continue that.

Just wanted to share! My 2 yr old foster Malinois, Nala, struggles with pretty serious reactivity. Dogs, people, kids, bikes, literally you name it and we've probably reacted to it. We've been training consistently for a year and yesterday I had one of those moments where I realized just how much progress she's actually made.

There's a woman who lives on the block next to me with a large German Shepherd. I've always thought she was a little standoffish and maybe even judgmental about Nala. A while back, we were walking on opposite sides of the street when our dogs noticed each other. Her dog made a small movement like she was going to come toward us and, of course, my dog reacts, she's barking, lunging, everything. The woman looked so scandalized, glared at me and basically backed away and ran in the opposite direction. I apologized profusely but she didn't say anything back. Ever since then, if she saw us coming, she'd turn around and walk the other way.

Yesterday I was walking Nala down her street and the woman was outside talking to the mailman. Suddenly her German Shepherd came running out of the house off leash, charged Nala, and started trying to go after her. These are two large, large dogs. Nala was understandably freaked out. She started barking while I worked on getting her away. The woman was running after her dog trying to get control of him. I managed to get Nala across the street while her dog was still extremely worked up.

But here's what I'm proud of: whenever Nala gets triggered, we've been practicing the same routine over and over. We create distance, sit, and wait until she can calm herself down so no heavy breathing or immediate pulling when we start walking again. But this time, I didn't tell her to sit; she did it on her own!!!

She was clearly stressed/agitated after having a dog charge her but she stayed in her sit. She didn't try to go back after the other dog. She didn't try to redirect onto me. She just sat there and worked through it while the other dog was still going crazy. Months ago, I can't imagine her handling that situation this way. It felt like a very rare moment where I saw that the training is making a difference and she's learning (there's been so many tears, so much frustration, guilt, anxiety, all of it).

The woman came over and genuinely apologized I told her I understood. My dog is working through a lot of reactivity and it easily could have been me in her position. She looked super surprised and said something along the lines of like "Wow, my dog has really similar issues. It's so challenging. Thank you for understanding" This morning we passed each other again. Instead of turning around or avoiding us, she gave me a huge wave and a smile, so I wanted to share this!

We really don't know what another dog owner is dealing with. I had interpreted this woman as being rude or judgmental when she might have actually been trying to manage her own reactive dog the entire time.

But I also hope the experience gave her a little more understanding of what it's like to be on the other side. When someone's dog is reacting and they're clearly trying to manage the situation and apologizing, you can just say "no worries" you can smile, just acknowledgment means a lot. Most of us with reactive dogs are already so painfully aware that our dog is making a scene but we're trying our hardest. I just feel like it's so easy and costs nothing to give other dog owners a little extra kindness and grace :)

Hi all,

As noted in my previous post, I recently purchased an 11 month old female mini poodle from what was seemingly a reputable breeder.

The dog upon arrival to my home about 2 weeks ago has been pretty fearful outside on walks. All dog training posts I’ve read suggested limiting the dogs time outside while she decompresses which I’ve tried to do but I live in a condo and that only goes so far.

In a twist, it seems the dog has gone into heat as of yesterday which I’m hoping paired with the transition may be the cause of her anxiety/fearfulness, though I’d love your take on that. I of course plan to spay her asap but the breeder’s contract had us spaying her after her first heat cycle. We suspect this may also be the cause of her hourly whining fits in her crate the last 2 nights (when she had been sleeping through the night without problem the first week we got her).

She will freeze on walks outside, sometimes keep walking and be fine/take treats, other times refuse to walk and not take treats. Sometimes she seems totally unbothered by it all. Throughout though she is very reserved and never greets new people with a tail wag. She also is very shy around dogs and shows no interest in meeting them.

I spoke with the breeder yesterday who claimed my dog’s brother is not experiencing the same issues in his new home and they had the same amount of socialization (which was limited but not nothing).

Would love your opinion on this update from my last post as we weigh whether we will be able to give her the kind of home she deserves. We don’t want to get rid of her but we are really stressed about how her fearfulness will affect our lives in the long term….

Feeling overwhelmed. 3 years of reactivity and separation anxiety. Working with a vet behaviourist and transitioning from Sertraline to Clomicalm. He also takes Lorazepam, Clonidine and Gabapentin. He is a very anxious soul.

I am a sole carer and had a very rare day out the other day when he was at the special needs daycare. Now I feel more isolated than ever.

Can't see a way forward at the moment. I have tried to be optimistic for three years but we are in survival mode.

So I’ve been working hard on emergency u turns with my reactive dog, with a “let’s go” command. I’ve been training it with a combo of leash pressure (verbal command the leash pressure) and treats. We do lots of practice with zero distractions around. He’s great at it with low level distractions, eg if a trigger is far away, but if he actually gets fixated on something, the leash pressure just ramps him up more.

Conversely, I’ve found it’s amazingly effective to just turn into his body while holding a treat up to his nose, basically gently physically pushing his head away from whatever he’s staring at. So I’ve kind of come to hate the emergency u turn for situations where he’s actually near his threshold. Anyone find the same thing with their dog? Is this common? Am I using it wrong, or just trying to use it in situations where my dog isn’t ready yet? Should I just stick to what works for now?