When I adopted Lady I had never heard of dog reactivity, and it took me a few months to figure out what was going on. If you’ve been living with a reactive dog for a while now this will likely be old news for you, but it is information I wish I had known at the beginning of our journey.

Reactivity refers to an overreaction to a stimulus that is not equivalent to the level of threat or excitement that is presented.

Reactivity in dogs often looks like lunging, barking, growling, cowering, retreating, or even biting. Many dogs are reactive to other dogs or animals, people, or unfamiliar things such as cars, bikes, or sudden movement or environmental changes. Reactivity is an emotional response, and is often rooted in fear, excitement, or frustration.

Reactivity is similar to panic attacks in humans. Panic attacks may be caused by experiencing high levels of stress or fear, being reminded of a past traumatic experience, or being exposed to a phobia. Our nervous systems can send fight or flight signals even if the physical body is safe and not in imminent danger.

Reactivity can be caused by a myriad of reasons; fear, history, genetics, frustration, health, and more. While reactivity can serve many different functions, I’ll be sharing about it in general terms based on my experience. This is because I am not a professional and not qualified to do so! See my upcoming blog post full of resources for more information.

Reactivity is communication.

Dogs don’t just act out for no reason, (there is no such thing as a “bad” dog!) they are communicating their feelings; that they are afraid, uncomfortable, stressed, bored, or that a boundary has been crossed. Body language is their primary method of communication, and it is our responsibility to understand their language. The better we understand how our dogs are feeling, the better we can prevent reactions, keep them out of situations that are unpleasant, avoid causing them chronic stress, and keep everyone safe. Because reactivity is an emotional response, it is important that we address the behavior’s underlying emotion in training.

Your dog is not giving you a hard time, they are having a hard time.

Positive reinforcement training focuses on two key principles:

Counter Conditioning: creating positive associations with the trigger to change the way the dog feels about it.

Dog sees a cat, dog gets treats. Over time, the dog will see a cat and experience the positive emotions associated with the treats. The cat will become a neutral or even good thing (a conditioned emotional response). One way to do this is through an exercise called “Engage/Disengage.” (see below)

Desensitization: gradual exposure to the trigger while under threshold so over time the dog becomes less sensitive to the stimulus.

Small under threshold exposures to triggers will help the dog get used to seeing the triggers while remaining calm which builds confidence.

Keeping your dog under threshold

My core values bring me to another important factor to R+ training: thresholds. Keeping your dog under threshold refers to the dog remaining calm, safe, and in a learning mindset. Increased levels of fear and stress push dogs over threshold, resulting in a fight or flight response. When our amygdala is firing these fight or flight signals, it is impossible for us to use our frontal lobe and make decisions. So, teaching a dog new tricks while they are reacting or in a heightened state of stress is nearly impossible. It is important to keep your dog at a distance where they can be aware of the trigger's presence, but remain under threshold enough to use their frontal lobe. Imagine trying to teach someone coping skills and breathing exercises mid panic attack! We can’t make rational choices when we feel our safety is at risk, whether it actually is or not. Being aware of threshold is also important because reacting is self reinforcing; dog barks at scary dog, scary dog goes away. The more our dogs react to their triggers, the more ingrained the behavior becomes, and the harder it becomes to teach alternate behaviors. This is where management comes in, blog coming soon!

So, why R+ versus other training methods?

Communication is crucial to a strong relationship with your dog, so why punish it?

For example, if you reach your hand towards a dog to pet them and they growl, they are communicating their discomfort. If this growl is punished and suppressed, there would be no way to know how the dog is feeling, and this could result in a bite.
Instead of punishing the growl, we can remove the dog from the uncomfortable situation, work on creating positive associations with new people.

What gets rewarded gets repeated. Positive rewards are motivating and make the training experience fun, safe, and enjoyable.
Every dog is different! Only the learner can decide what is reinforcing and what is punishing. More reasons to get to know your dog's individual needs and body language.
Positive reinforcement enforces creative problem solving, boosts confidence, and sets dogs up for success.
I don’t want to inflict pain or discomfort on my dog, especially in situations that are already stressful and scary. Sure, a properly used prong collar is not meant to be extremely painful, but it is designed to be uncomfortable in order to get the dog's attention. I would personally rather do that with cookies!

By using these key principles I am able to align with some of my core values of dog ownership:

Lady feels safe
Lady has positive emotional experiences
Lady learns new behaviors and does not suppress emotions
Lady and I are communicating and understanding each other

Reactivity 101