# How to stop reactivity to dogs



## fgshepherd (Sep 1, 2010)

My dog is a sweet heart. He loves everyone. He loves to play with other dogs at day care. Loves to run and chase. I am working with him a LOT to make sure he knows I AM the boss of him. I'm in charge and he must obey me. He does very well at home. While out on walks, he is always on a leash, and I work with him on commands at random (wait, sit, etc). Well, he does great, until certain dogs come along. As soon as I see his ears go up and he sees the other dog, I tell him to LEAVE IT. But, it's like he gets selective hearing and will not obey me. I've tried everything from snacks, to making him sit and getting in front of him so he focuses on me, but he refuses. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and I am open to any an all ideas for help. He has come such a long way from when we rescued him, and I want him to know that he doesn't have to be in charge. Thanks in advance for your kind responses and experienced advice. 

He's seven years old and 70 lbs, great health. No physical problems.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

You have to be more observant and give the leave it command BEFORE he sees the other dog. You have to catch him BEFORE he focuses on the other dog.


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## boomer11 (Jun 9, 2013)

If he's just being a brat I'd correct him hard. If it's coming from fear I'd get a trainer. Reactivity is a tricky thing depending on why he's being reactive

Btw scanning around and trying to see another dog before he does is great in theory but who wants to go for a walk with their head on a swivel and can't even relax?


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## Harry and Lola (Oct 26, 2013)

He is not a young bratty immature male waiting to grow up thinking he is all that and more, he is 7 years old which makes me think this behaviour is now a learned behaviour.

If he were mine, I would not put him in a sit and give commands to leave it while another dog walks by, I would keep moving and distract him. Sometimes you need to find a different way to help your dog unlearn inappropriate behaviours rather than barking commands at him or severely yanking on his check chain or prong collar! If you see another dog approaching - keep walking, pick up your pace, put more space between yourselves and learn to have him focus on you by teaching him the look or watch command. Or change directions and continue your walk in another direction - try to set him up with more successes than failures to increase his confidence.

Keep distance between him and other dogs, have him learn to focus on you and keep moving.


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## Chip18 (Jan 11, 2014)

Try this:





Just teach him to ignore other dogs,, just keep moving no corrections needed, Move along dog nothing to see here. No dog to dog intros or "I thought my dog was friendly folks" or dog parks. 

I step aside or cross the street my dogs have only been near other dogs at the vet office or in lines. 

And the park is just a heads up:
Leerburg | Dog Parks: Why They Are A Bad Idea


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## David Taggart (Nov 25, 2012)

You see, what you have done - by telling him to sit you stopped him at the object of irritation, by telling "No" you indicated that there's something special about that dog besides his own reactivity. A macho reacts mainly on adrenaline regardless of the other dog's size. Fear is of one nature with agression, and differs only in amount of adrenaline - that is what he gets as a scent from other dogs (some dogs react on people selectively for the same reason). At the age of seven dog's behaviour would be crystallized already. Any forbidding commands or attempts to overpower him will lead to disintegration of the bond between you and your dog, I'd advice to stop saying "Leave it", jolting him, or anything, it wouldn't work. Instead, consentrate on "Heel" command and change stentorian tone of your voice. When you noticed that he's preparing to do his usual trick - tell him to heel in a very low scotto voce "*Fuss*" ( pronounced as "fooss" - "walk close to my *foot*", it will help you psychologically, your dog wouldn't bother because dogs react mainly on intonations), walk slowly and don't look in the direction of that dog yourself, let him bark as much as he wants, as long as he's heeling perfectly his barking is not important.


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## belladonnalily (May 24, 2013)

David, what? I read your post twice...

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

boomer11 said:


> If he's just being a brat I'd correct him hard. If it's coming from fear I'd get a trainer. Reactivity is a tricky thing depending on why he's being reactive
> 
> Btw scanning around and trying to see another dog before he does is great in theory but who wants to go for a walk with their head on a swivel and can't even relax?


The OP's question was how to train the dog not to do this. Once he is trained then the walks are relaxing. It's part of the process. It's not always about correcting the dog and I'm so tired of people thinking it is.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Harry and Lola said:


> He is not a young bratty immature male waiting to grow up thinking he is all that and more, he is 7 years old which makes me think this behaviour is now a learned behaviour.
> 
> If he were mine, I would not put him in a sit and give commands to leave it while another dog walks by, I would keep moving and distract him. Sometimes you need to find a different way to help your dog unlearn inappropriate behaviours rather than barking commands at him or severely yanking on his check chain or prong collar! If you see another dog approaching - keep walking, pick up your pace, put more space between yourselves and learn to have him focus on you by teaching him the look or watch command. Or change directions and continue your walk in another direction - try to set him up with more successes than failures to increase his confidence.
> 
> Keep distance between him and other dogs, have him learn to focus on you and keep moving.


Exactly.


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## maxdog630 (Feb 22, 2014)

Harry and Lola said:


> He is not a young bratty immature male waiting to grow up thinking he is all that and more, he is 7 years old which makes me think this behaviour is now a learned behaviour.
> 
> If he were mine, I would not put him in a sit and give commands to leave it while another dog walks by, I would keep moving and distract him. Sometimes you need to find a different way to help your dog unlearn inappropriate behaviours rather than barking commands at him or severely yanking on his check chain or prong collar! If you see another dog approaching - keep walking, pick up your pace, put more space between yourselves and learn to have him focus on you by teaching him the look or watch command. Or change directions and continue your walk in another direction - try to set him up with more successes than failures to increase his confidence.
> 
> Keep distance between him and other dogs, have him learn to focus on you and keep moving.


 This is very helpful for me -_ try to set him up with more successes than failures to increase his confidence._

I just wonder if damage has already been done in my situation. The opposite was taught to me in training.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

maxdog630 said:


> This is very helpful for me -_ try to set him up with more successes than failures to increase his confidence._
> 
> I just wonder if damage has already been done in my situation. The opposite was taught to me in training.


You should be able to do it no problem. Make it fun...for example when your turning the other way, say in a happy voice lets go and jog for a few steps. Bring high value treats(I used venison) and throw it(lots of pieces) in the opposite direction of on coming dog and tell your dog go hunt. He'll be do busy looking for his treats that the dog will pass and he won't even know it. Start about 50 ft away or whatever distance he doesn't react, then move close. Your conditioning him not to care about other dogs.


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## maxdog630 (Feb 22, 2014)

llombardo said:


> You should be able to do it no problem. Make it fun...for example when your turning the other way, say in a happy voice lets go and jog for a few steps. Bring high value treats(I used venison) and throw it(lots of pieces) in the opposite direction of on coming dog and tell your dog go hunt. He'll be do busy looking for his treats that the dog will pass and he won't even know it. Start about 50 ft away or whatever distance he doesn't react, then move close. Your conditioning him not to care about other dogs.


We just took a walk (its freezing here), pushing my little one in the stroller, all around town. We did encounter several dogs and I turned the corner when able to - with a happy animated "let's go". She did a low grumble but came along and I offered a lot of praise with treats. It really worked!! It was that easy. I'm so happy. ) I have to say that she is such a gentle girl apart from not caring for dogs. Amazing around my children, their friends and even our cat. I'm going to keep practicing this. I don't understand the technique the trainer had me do at training. Don't get me wrong for some dogs that may very well work but knowing my dog for as long as she has been in her class why not pull other solutions out of the bag than just choking her. I'm not against the choke collar but this changes the experience of meeting another dog from a negative to a positive. sorry for the babble.... I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions when we welcome our new pup in the summer. 
Thanks again.


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## matthewm11 (Oct 18, 2011)

Sounds just like my post from this morning about my new rescue. Great dog until he is on leash and sees another dog and then he turns into a maniac. I am familiar with the different techniques to work on it but when it happens sometimes just trying to contain him is enough to take all my focus and effort so it can be hard to implement some of the recommended techniques. Anyway, nothing to add since im having the same issue curious to see and read all the replies and suggestions


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## matthewm11 (Oct 18, 2011)

llombardo said:


> You should be able to do it no problem. Make it fun...for example when your turning the other way, say in a happy voice lets go and jog for a few steps. Bring high value treats(I used venison) and throw it(lots of pieces) in the opposite direction of on coming dog and tell your dog go hunt. He'll be do busy looking for his treats that the dog will pass and he won't even know it. Start about 50 ft away or whatever distance he doesn't react, then move close. Your conditioning him not to care about other dogs.


This sounds like a brilliant and creative way to redirect and distract going to try it myself with my leash reactive dog


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## fgshepherd (Sep 1, 2010)

Thank you all. I will try the treats hunt distraction. I will try to see the other dog first, but I think he can smell it before either of us see it. I don't really want to avoid the other dog, I want to get my dog to not care about it. Maybe associate oncoming dog with a treat. I never ever take him to dog park because I don't want him to get hurt, and who knows if the other dogs even have been vaccinated. If something goes wrong, blame the GSD.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

fgshepherd said:


> Thank you all. I will try the treats hunt distraction. I will try to see the other dog first, but I think he can smell it before either of us see it. I don't really want to avoid the other dog, I want to get my dog to not care about it. Maybe associate oncoming dog with a treat. I never ever take him to dog park because I don't want him to get hurt, and who knows if the other dogs even have been vaccinated. If something goes wrong, blame the GSD.


The point of all these exercises is to condition or train the dog not to care about other dogs. It's important to set up the dog to succeed because moving to fast can set the dog up to fail and set you back to the beginning. You have go start at a point where other dogs do not cause a reaction, whether that is 20, 50, of 100 ft and move closer as the dog starts to not react. You also start with watch me and leave it commands at this time. I spent hours and days 20 ft away from the entrance at the pet store or at the park. I would set a goal of how many dogs we would work through and call it a day.


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## Suburbandiva (Jun 9, 2013)

Hi llombardo - your advice is great. Thanks very much.

I am curious how long it took your dog to not react and to be able to pass by another dog? We've been working with our dog (11 months old now) for maybe 2 months, and we have seen some improvements (especially with dogs barking inside houses or through fences), but it just seems so SLOW. We can maybe get within 40 ft of another dog, we do the loot at the dog, look at me, treat and you get your Bumi for 10 seconds and then run away. I am looking forward to the day when we can just have a normal walk and be able to make a straight line home!

I guess it would go a lot faster if we weren't just training during regular walks when we can't predict if/when we will see another dog. How often would you sit outside a pet store? I think I would be solo in this endeavour - doesn't sound like something my husband would be willing to do!


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## KathrynApril (Oct 3, 2013)

I just got back from Petsmart working on this very issue. My boy went from eating treats out of my hand to starting to bark at a few dogs that were going into the store. We had no reaction on previous days with that distance/method. There was one last dog and instead I just kept jogging back and forth with him not allowing him to fixate and that seemed to work better. I am going to probably try doing it this way again tomorrow. It really is a frustrating problem to have to work on. :/


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Suburbandiva said:


> Hi llombardo - your advice is great. Thanks very much.
> 
> I am curious how long it took your dog to not react and to be able to pass by another dog? We've been working with our dog (11 months old now) for maybe 2 months, and we have seen some improvements (especially with dogs barking inside houses or through fences), but it just seems so SLOW. We can maybe get within 40 ft of another dog, we do the loot at the dog, look at me, treat and you get your Bumi for 10 seconds and then run away. I am looking forward to the day when we can just have a normal walk and be able to make a straight line home!
> 
> I guess it would go a lot faster if we weren't just training during regular walks when we can't predict if/when we will see another dog. How often would you sit outside a pet store? I think I would be solo in this endeavour - doesn't sound like something my husband would be willing to do!


I got my dog from the animal shelter in May, we estimated him to be about 10 months at the time. As soon as I signed the papers he reacted to a dog. I had no clue how bad it was, but I found out shortly. When we went for a 10 day checkup they had to remove us from the main waiting area and put us in a room by ourselves, then they escorted us back through the area with the dogs while several people cleared a path for us, it was bad. He even reacted to my other dogs if they were on leash. This made me think it was not aggression but real bad reactivity. He didn't only bark, he growled , lunged, hackles up and he looked and sounded vicious. He was not allowed in classes and I had him evaluated in June, July , and August by different trainers . The first trainer determined it was not aggression, as did the second and third trainer. They all had different training methods, so I combined everything. In the beginning a prong did nothing for him. From June to August I spent time at the park and pet stores daily with him. He was put behind barricades in a class in July and he was miserable and bored. I felt like nothing I did had worked. In August we met with another trainer and he ripped her arm open trying to get to another dog. She offered private training and I refused. By this time I found one person with a stable dog that was ok with mine meeting theirs. It was tough going the first 10 minutes, but after that he was fine and the next thing I knew the guy was jogging with both dogs behaving nicely down the street . I knew then he could do it. I contacted a GSD club and the day after the disaster with him ripping up the lady's arm we were at the club. The guy brought his senior GSD's about five feet away from Midnite and Midnite did nothing . He has never reacted again like he used to. Every now and then he will answer another dog that starts with him , but dogs walk right past him, even brushing against him and he is fine. They have used him for other reactive dogs to walk past. In mid September he got his CGC and became a certified therapy dog. He is a completely different dog now. It was a lot of work and he was taking in everything the whole time, he just needed it to click. I have never used a correction on him. It was all focus and redirection. I use a prong on him in class but I never correct him, he corrects himself. So in short it took 4.5 months


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

I used treats like venison , beef heart and hamburger. Not stuff he normally got but stuff that got his attention.


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## SunCzarina (Nov 24, 2000)

fgshepherd said:


> Thank you all. I will try the treats hunt distraction. I will try to see the other dog first, but I think he can smell it before either of us see it. I don't really want to avoid the other dog, I want to get my dog to not care about it.


Your dog will have a subtle change in posture between when they see IT and the seconds it takes the dog to react to IT. Could be a prick of the ears, a stiffening of the hind legs, or lowering of the back (you'll see this with squirrels and cats too). Learn to see the warning and get in that very narrow window to say leave it - this is you getting in your dogs head while he's thinking about reacting.


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## KathrynApril (Oct 3, 2013)

llombardo said:


> I got my dog from the animal shelter in May, we estimated him to be about 10 months at the time. As soon as I signed the papers he reacted to a dog. I had no clue how bad it was, but I found out shortly. When we went for a 10 day checkup they had to remove us from the main waiting area and put us in a room by ourselves, then they escorted us back through the area with the dogs while several people cleared a path for us, it was bad. He even reacted to my other dogs if they were on leash. This made me think it was not aggression but real bad reactivity. He didn't only bark, he growled , lunged, hackles up and he looked and sounded vicious. He was not allowed in classes and I had him evaluated in June, July , and August by different trainers . The first trainer determined it was not aggression, as did the second and third trainer. They all had different training methods, so I combined everything. In the beginning a prong did nothing for him. From June to August I spent time at the park and pet stores daily with him. He was put behind barricades in a class in July and he was miserable and bored. I felt like nothing I did had worked. In August we met with another trainer and he ripped her arm open trying to get to another dog. She offered private training and I refused. By this time I found one person with a stable dog that was ok with mine meeting theirs. It was tough going the first 10 minutes, but after that he was fine and the next thing I knew the guy was jogging with both dogs behaving nicely down the street . I knew then he could do it. I contacted a GSD club and the day after the disaster with him ripping up the lady's arm we were at the club. The guy brought his senior GSD's about five feet away from Midnite and Midnite did nothing . He has never reacted again like he used to. Every now and then he will answer another dog that starts with him , but dogs walk right past him, even brushing against him and he is fine. They have used him for other reactive dogs to walk past. In mid September he got his CGC and became a certified therapy dog. He is a completely different dog now. It was a lot of work and he was taking in everything the whole time, he just needed it to click. I have never used a correction on him. It was all focus and redirection. I use a prong on him in class but I never correct him, he corrects himself. So in short it took 4.5 months


Inspiring story!!


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## Suburbandiva (Jun 9, 2013)

Thank you so much, llombardo. This is really helpful. It's great to hear that leash reactive dogs can turn out to be CGC and therapy dogs! We'll keep working with Revy and try the PetSmart parking lot this weekend! We'll pull out the big gun treats (liver treats and dehydrated chicken feet).


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Suburbandiva said:


> Thank you so much, llombardo. This is really helpful. It's great to hear that leash reactive dogs can turn out to be CGC and therapy dogs! We'll keep working with Revy and try the PetSmart parking lot this weekend! We'll pull out the big gun treats (liver treats and dehydrated chicken feet).


Just remember to go slow. Stand away from the door and work on focus a lot. Set goals each day, maybe start with two dogs and go home. Try not to set the dog up yo fail, example would be moving next to entrance when you know that the focus isn't there and there will be a reaction. If it's one dog at a time per day so be it. If you have to dance and make noises and look like a fool until other dog passes so be it


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