Reactivity - What does it really mean?

Reactivity, a word a lot of dog owners will know. A label thrown around a lot. A label that you could probably apply to most dogs.

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!” - Victoria Stilwell

Most people associtate reactivity with agression or with fear but a dog can be reactive because they are overexcited, overfriendly or frustrated. A common form of reactivity is leash reactivity. When a dog is fine off lead but on lead if they see another dog they freak out, they pull and bark wanting to say hello to the other dog. This happens because they are unable to do what they want causing frustration.

A reactive dog will have triggers, things that they react to. It could be dogs, people, cars, the postman, noises or something very novel like they hate traffic cones! This is why most dogs could be labelled reactive as you will be hard pushed to find a dog that doesn't react to something in their environment.

The signs of reactivity include:

• pulling

• lunging

• barking

• spinning on the end of the lead

• growling

• crying

• fixation (stopping and staring) - This is typically the first sign of loading in a reactive dog

The most common causes of reactivity are:

• Fear and anxiety

• Frustration

• Overstimulation

• Aggression

For Roo, it is the top three, fear and anxiety, frustration and overstimulation. For your dog however it might just be one thing.

The triggers for your dog will also be very different from someone elses. It might be that your dog is only reactive out on walks, or they are only reactive in the house. They might only have leash reactivity and be triggered by men or big black dogs.

The signs of reactivity listed are all ones Roo displays. On a lead she pulls excessively, if she sees a person, she will fixate. If they get closer, she will lunge and bark eventually spinning on the end of the lead. When we used to have people come over, she would bark, if she knew them, this would turn into crying as she wanted to get to them to say hello. Off lead if someone was walking near us, she would run up to them barking and try and chase them off. If there is a noise outside our house, she will bark.

Roo's reactivity stems from anxiety and fear. It is difficult to tell if this genetic (does she have a family history of anxiety), poor socalisation (did we oversocialise her? we don't think so but who knows if Roo thought it was too much), lack of training (this one probably not) or a medical cause (this is a potential due to her brain cyst).

Unfortunately for us, Roo has generalised anxiety which means that she is anxious all the time and because of what triggers her, it is almost impossible to reduce them to zero. We have no control over whether someone slams their car door shut outside our house, or that the binmen are going to come and collect our bins once a week. Reducing their exposure to triggers is the first step to help tackle their reactivity in most cases.

Threshold training is a common way of approaching reactivity as well as teaching your dog impulse control, counter conditioning and loose leash walking. The cause of your dogs reactivity will dictate the most appropriate training method. A dog that gets overexcited and needs to say hello to every dog will have a different approach to one who is fearful. A fearful dog needs to learn to ignore other dogs just like an overexcited dog but they also need to learn that other dogs are not a threat.

Find out more about threshold training here.

The signs of reactivity are self rewarding for the dog, meaning they will most likely repeat the behaviour. Your dog reacts to a noise outside. They bark, the noise stops. Not because they barked but because the noise was over anyway - your dog doesn't understand this though and thinks I barked and it went away, yay! When it happens again if I bark, it will go away. The same is true for reacting to people on walks, they react either you or the other person moves away. The dog is rewarded. The overexcited dog pulls towards another dog, you go with it as you know they just want to say hello, dog is rewarded or the other dog owner walks over to you so the dogs can say hello, reacting dog got what it wanted. Rinse and repeat.

It is super important to break these patterns.

If you have a reactive dog, there is hope. With proper management and training a lot of these issues can be overcome. Don't be afraid if you have a dog that has been labelled as reactive, a lot of us have one. There are 100 different routes to go down when dealing with reactivity but the most important thing is that you are on one of them. Not dealing with reactivity and hoping they grow out of it is unlikely to change anything. We always hoped Roo would grow out of her issues but alas she didn't. Just a pipedream to allow us not to have to address things.

Our instagram DM's are always open as are our emails if you need to vent about your reactive dog.

Sources:

https://www.k9events.com/ReactivityEbook2.pdf

https://www.pawgress.dog/post/facing-fear-a-guide-to-reactivity-and-aggression

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/training/reactivity-vs-aggression/#:~:text=Reactivity%3A%20Reactivity%20is%20commonly%20confused,is%20typically%20the%20driving%20force.

https://positively.com/contributors/dog-reactivity-what-actually-is-it/