How to Calm a Reactive Dog?

Is your dog exhibiting challenging reactive tendencies like excessive barking, lunging, or other displacement behaviors?

These actions might appear aggressive, leaving you uncertain when to be concerned and seek assistance. The good news is you can teach your pet to tolerate triggers better using dog training and behavioral conditioning. This guide will explore practical strategies to address and improve your dog’s reactivity.

What Makes a Dog Reactive?

Most reactive dogs are fearful and/or anxious. Those reactions toward the scary things in their environment are distance-increasing behaviors; they tell the trigger to go away because it makes them uncomfortable (scared, stressed).

Reactive dog behavior can have different causes. Some dogs may be genetically predisposed to react strongly, while others may lack socialization, i.e., exposure to various situations during their early development.

Health issues can also play a role in why your dog reacts to stimuli the way they do. The type of training a dog undergoes is crucial, and methods involving punishment may contribute to reactive behavior. Additionally, high stress levels, whether from the environment or past experiences, can influence a dog's tendency to react strongly.

Reactive tendencies in dogs are often a result of:

• Fearful response or frustration because of a particular stimulus
• Undersocialization
• Pain due to health conditions
• Hormonal changes in adolescent dogs
• History of abuse or traumatic events
• Anxiety disorders

A vet can confirm the reactivity based on your dog’s behavioral history and medical records.

Dog Reactivity vs. Aggression

Reactivity can lead to aggression, but it’s not aggression in the first place. While aggression can be defined as an attack or attempted attack by a dog against another dog, person, or animal, reactivity can be defined as more intense than usual responses (barking, whining, lunging, hypervigilance, panting, restlessness) to everyday things, animals, or people in the environment.

Aggressive dogs are generally prone to such behavior, while reactivity is a response to a specific trigger. Understanding the context when the behavior is present allows us to identify its trigger and differentiate between aggression and reactivity.

What to Do with a Reactive Dog: Body Language Awareness

A dog’s body language is key to understanding their emotional state and predicting their behavior in response to specific stimuli. Though aggressive body language looks similar to reactivity, it’s important to distinguish between them. Since reactivity stems from fear or overexcitement, your dog needs a different kind of support from you.

Contextual body language typical for a reactive dog is:

• Growling
• Barking
• Tense body posture
• Tail tucked down
• Lack of focus
• Showing the teeth
• Lip licking
• Displacement behaviors

Learning to decode your dog’s body signals is vital for recognizing the signs of distress and avoiding triggering situations. It keeps your dog and others safe, establishes a stronger bond between you and your furry friend, and makes you a better caregiver. These steps are essential for training reactive dogs.

How to Help Reactive Dogs Manage Behaviors

First of all, avoid punishing the dog. Yelling, putting pressure on the leash, or using force will only make your dog's reactions more intense, as they'll be even more anxious when the trigger appears because they'll associate it with your aggressive reactions.

Dogs with a such behavior need to rest and be in safe environments without triggers to be able to lower their cortisol levels and cope with stress. They might seem calm during walks and react "out of nowhere" to a pet that has suddenly appeared, but they're always hypervigilant with higher cortisol levels than a non-reactive dog.

So, to start, you should assess which stimuli trigger your canine companion and avoid them by choosing the right environment to take them or changing the environment at home.

Dog Training for Leash-Reactive Dogs

Many dog parents wonder how to calm a reactive dog on a walk. Training a reactive dog is about changing the emotional response to the trigger, from scary to neutral, through behavior modification and counter-conditioning.

Dogs are often leash-reactive because they can't escape the scary things they find on walks. So, we must encourage our furry pal to build confidence and coping mechanisms and understand that the triggers aren’t real threats. At the same time, we must eliminate the habit of putting tension on the leash.

Training an alternative behavior, such as "sniffing the ground," is super important. The dog will perceive that it doesn't need to bark or lunge to get its point across ("go away").

This cue should be trained in safe environments and used in real situations only when the dog reliably performs it whenever requested.

When counter-conditioning a dog to triggers, it's essential to take it slow. Control the distance from the trigger, adjust the intensity of the trigger (for example, use stuffed dogs or calm companions if the puppy is reactive to other dogs), and manage the duration of exposure.

The aim of the behavior modification plan is for the dog to gradually encounter triggers and form a positive and lasting association with their presence through rewards like high-value treats.

How to Socialize a Reactive Dog

Depending on what your dog is reactive to, socialization is super important to rebuild their confidence, encourage the production of neurotransmitters, and ensure your puppy can effectively communicate with other dogs by playing and interacting with them.

You must introduce the proper dog/person/object to socialize a reactive dog. If your dog is reactive to other dogs, you can find a calm environment where it’s safe to unleash your dog (or use a long line) and arrange a playdate with a dog more likely to be their best friend.

Suppose your dog isn’t comfortable with it. In that case, you can go to a place like a dog park where you usually see calm dogs walking and let your dog see them from a distance (more than 65 feet), which will teach them to read the other dog's body language and to let them know they don't have to interact with every dog they see.

The answer to socializing your dog is to go slowly, one stimulus at a time, and to choose the right one for your little friend.

How to Get a Reactive Dog to Calm Down with the LAT Protocol

LAT (Look-at-That) is a popular protocol in the dog training world, which results in the following chain: dog owner says the cue – the dog looks at the trigger – clicks/marker – the dog looks at the owner – treat

LAT allows the pet to get information about the environment while classically conditioning them to understand that good things happen when they see the trigger. It creates confidence and teaches the dog to be focused on the owner.

To train it, you should start with a neutral object (something your dog doesn’t usually play with or get afraid of, such as a cone or a stuffed toy) in a low-distraction environment.

To follow the LAT protocol:

• Sit quietly, holding the object behind your back, and present it without scaring your dog. When they look at it, click/say "Yes," treat, and hide it again. (Repeat 5-10 times, three sessions.)
• When your dog reliably looks at the object when you present it, you can put it somewhere else in the room, and you should click/say "Yes" and treat them whenever the dog looks at the object, no longer hiding it after each repetition. (5-10 times, two sessions.)
• When your dog rapidly looks at the object to get the treats, it's time to add a cue. Start by saying the cue after your dog looks at the object, and then click/say "Yes" and treat. Repeat the cue, wait for your dog to look at the object, and click/say "Yes" and treat them. (5-10 times, several sessions.)
• Repeat the game but with different objects, still in a low-distraction environment, so your dog can generalize the cue for various objects.
• Repeat the game in different environments, safe environments (no triggers around, low distraction level) with the same objects you've used before.
• Start working on triggers and ensure you can manage your dog's behavior and the environment. For example, if your dog is reactive to dogs, you can ask a friend to be in that place with a stuffed dog, pretending they're walking it. This way, you can control the "dog" and the "owner" behavior.
• Gradually go to more demanding environments, always returning to training if your dog needs to.

More Tips on How to Help a Reactive Dog

Here are a few extra tips on tackling the problem of reactivity in a dog. They can help improve your dog’s socialization and calm them down when exposed to triggering environmental factors.

• Practice the heel command:

The heel command can be practical during your daily walks and when a dog reacts aggressively or reactively. It helps return the dog to their position next to you and shift their focus back on the owner. Start practicing it calmly and gradually introduce your dog to their triggers.

• Cooperate with other dog owners:

If your dog is reactive toward other dogs, you can join your efforts with another dog parent and arrange training sessions during which your dog can practice safe cooperation with other canines.

• Ask for expert help:

Certified dog trainers are helpful in situations when you face difficulties working on your dog’s reactivity. They can create a customized training plan meeting your dog’s individual needs.

To calm a reactive dog, a dog owner should identify their dog’s triggers, understand their fear and anxiety when reacting, and train alternative behaviors such as the LAT while counter-conditioning their emotional response. Your dog just needs to know that those scary things don’t hurt them; they don’t have to interact with them, and even good things will happen when the triggers are around.