What is dog reactivity, and why aren't some of the methods you might be using working?

           Dog reactivity is an exaggerated response to environmental stimuli, such as people or other dogs. It involves being overly fearful, anxious, or frustrated. Although it may look like aggression—since your dog might growl, bark, snap, lunge, and pull—it isn’t actual aggression. Instead, your dog is in a state where rational thought is absent. You might notice they ignore commands or treats. You can't effectively train your dog when it's over its threshold. Keeping a dog below its threshold means maintaining a situation where it still has rational thinking. You can test this by giving a command it already knows or waving a treat in front of its nose. If it doesn’t respond, it has crossed its threshold. Common training methods include distracting the dog, flooding it with stimuli to desensitize it, or using shock collars or prong collars. I will explain why these methods may not work well for you and your dog.

                Distracting your dog past stimuli may not be working because you are not solving the problem; you’re only hoping your dog doesn’t see their trigger so they don’t react. This also keeps you in a state of alertness, which keeps your dog in a state of alertness, which leads to everyone staying alert and never calm. This can make for a long 10-15 years with your dog, where you're both stressed during walks. It’s not a solution.

                Flooding your dog with its triggers may not be working either. It’s rehearsing the behavior you don’t want from your dog and making that behavior become more ingrained. It’s also keeping your dog full of the stress hormone cortisol, and most likely you as well. Your dog is in a state where rational thinking isn’t possible, and neither is positive association with its triggers. In the end, this can often make things worse.

                Using prong collars or shock collars may make things worse in the long run as well. If your dog's reaction comes from a place of fear or anxiety, being shocked or pinched is going to make this worse. With some dogs, it may seem like this is working, but what is often happening is that their fear or anxiety has reached a level where they are scared stiff or freezing, which is why you may not see a reaction anymore. Once they get past the freeze phase of their fear or anxiety, they will go back to being reactive or even more so. It’s also impossible to positively associate with these methods or learn anything when they're in the freeze state.

                Understanding why your dog is acting like this and why the methods you might be using aren’t working can be helpful to gain empathy for where your dog is at. They’re not trying to be difficult; they are having a difficult time. I use a behaviorist method called integrated victory management, where we practice the behavior we want at a pace that keeps your dog below their threshold so they can use rational thought to learn and positively associate their triggers.