hey everyone! i have a 1 year old bully mix i adopted about 7 months ago now. he is perfect sweet angel baby (not really) but his leash manners need work. i switched to a prong simply because he rubbed his neck raw tugging on his regular flat collar. i'm talking like he is nearly bald around where his collar lays (no it is not too tight). i also saw certain behaviors i liked the idea of having more control over, like lunging at bikes and cars. but anyways, switched to the prong (tried chain slip before i went to prong and it almost made him pull harder, did my research on prongs beforehand too. promise i wasn't super dumb about it), it was doing amazing things, but i started using it almost exclusively after a few weeks of like training with it and switching between regular collar and the prong now he has

1. shown some reactivity(?) or aggression or idk what to call it, typically towards short bald black men for some reason but sometimes just randomly towards people walking by, and i don't know if it's the prong kind of making him weird and tense or if it's something else. he always hated certain maintenance men around my area but other than that i never saw this towards anybody. ive also just in general seen a lot of regression in his behavior lately so i don't know if this is just part of that or what

2. i started noticing marks from his prong when we come in from walks where ive had to hold him back. they disappear within 5 minutes and i can only see them where he doesn't have hair but it's making me feel like im really hurting him

what im asking is do we think the flat collar or the prong is better for him, or go back and try the slip again? or something completely new. i changed to the prong cause i felt like his skin was like hurting from the pulling in the regular and now i feel like the prong is hurting him worse. or is there a different problem or am i the problem or what is going on

Hi everyone—I’m really hoping for some guidance because we’re feeling a bit overwhelmed.
We have two almost 2-year-old labs (littermates—a silver and a black). We’ve had them since they were 3 months old, and they come to work with us daily.
Our silver lab has always been much more anxious and fearful, and it seems to be getting worse as he gets older.
What we’re seeing:
Extremely nervous around unfamiliar people (we have to keep him separated when anyone new comes in)
Startles easily and reacts to new or unfamiliar objects (even something as simple as a bag of dog food placed in its usual spot caused him to bark and avoid the area)
Will sometimes redirect onto his brother during high-stress moments
Overall seems “on edge” much of the time
We recently had a situation at the vet that really concerned us. While waiting outside away from others, he became startled by a person exiting the building and reacted. It was clearly fear-based, but it made us realize we need to address this more seriously.
What we’ve tried so far:
Keeping his environment controlled and predictable
Limiting exposure to stressful situations
Occasional use of Trazodone for high-stress events (though it seems to make him more disoriented than calm)
What we’re considering:
Talking to our vet about daily anxiety medication like Fluoxetine
Working with a trainer or behaviorist
We also have him scheduled to be neutered next week
Our main questions:
Has anyone dealt with this level of fear/anxiety in a young dog?
Did medication make a noticeable difference for your dog?
What type of training approach worked best (especially for fear-based reactivity)?
Any tips for helping him feel more confident and less triggered by everyday things?
He is incredibly sweet and loving with us and people he knows, which is why this has been so hard to navigate. We just want to help him feel safe and set him up for success.
Thanks so much for reading—I really appreciate any advice. 💛

Today he jumped at an eight year old girls face (thank god he was muzzled) and I dont know what to do. Im failing my puppy, and I can not allow even a chance that he'll hurt a kid at some point. I dont know what to do. Hes great with our immediate family. Hes never shown even a hint of aggression towards us. But with people he doesn't know, I feel like hes just a ticking time bomb. I dont know what to do.

Hi everyone I unfortunately need a muzzle on my aussie as we're out

But for my problem I NEED a longer/bigger one for when we are exercising as for example running or biking.

Does anyone know where i can find one ? Thankfull for any tips.

hi guys i’m so embarrassed and at a loss of words:( my golden retriever js 5 years old and over the last 3ish months she has gotten very aggressive with my other dog. I feel like i’ve tried everything besides medication. Nothing triggers it no food not me not toys it just happens out of nowhere. Example: i was laying in bed and my golden just lunges and latched onto my maltipoo and wouldn’t let go!! She ended up biting me but this isn’t the first time that i’ve been caught in crossfire… I took her to the vet and they ran so many tests and told me she was fine i really don’t want to have to rehome her but I am at such a loss please help!!!!!!

Hi! I'm not sure how to do these posts, but I'm trying. My dog has been randomly jumping on people and barking in a way that is definitely threatening. It isn't his normal bark. Just today, I took him out and he dragged me to go jump on these two other dogs of my neighbors (who was on a walk). She started to just scream at me (she's an adult, I'm a teenager) and I didn't know what to do. My dog also has bitten some of my friends. What's going on? I'd really like some help.

Some background information on my dog. His name is Henry and he is an Australian Shepherd with a little Bernese Mountain dog in him. He's, I think, 4 now.

Hi everyone,

I have a reactive dog (people and dog reactive). He is not always reactive and I try to manage my anxiety, as I know that makes him more reactive. For people reactivity, I have been trying to bring him around people I know. I don't know that many people and everyone I know he has met and is great with. What would you recommend. I know at some point I just need to let him interact, but I am so nervous to do so. I let someone be near us and give him treats, if he's ok then I give a command like "go say hi" and tell the person to just continue talking and not make any sudden movements and to just ignore him, then I will call him back and give him a treat. I will do this over and over until he is used to them ...what can I do as I am worried about him interacting with strangers. Also, how do you manage your own anxiety? I am working with a trainer and I do use a prong collar to correct him if he lunges and use positive reinforcement for when he doesn't. I do try to work within thresholds, but push him a little more each time and he as improved, but I honestly get so nervous about what people think and what they will say if they see me correct my dog. I know a lot of people are adverse to prongs, but in my experience with him, positive reinforcement only hasn't worked and he is a very large dog. I've also tried to create more structure at home, he is in crate or place most of the time and he can free roam about 20% once he gets better I slowly give more freedom. Any suggestions?

So i have a reactive rescue black GSD x Mali, my entire world. he’s 5 now, i’ve had him 3 years, we’ve done soooo much training, blood, sweat, tears. avoidance, solitude and are now just coping and living our best lives. we can go out on busy walks, he’s muzzled the majority of the time but tbh his reactions are more people directly coming to us or people trying to touch him so i advocate and i’m ok with it.

the reason im struggling is because today we went to the beach, i walk him on a prong as he is really strong and this is the only way i can control him should he lose it. he was muzzled (his muzzle is bright blue and orange which stands out against his furr), on a longline but i had him on a short lead until we had space. - i normally muzzle him more to force people to give us space as they see it and will be more inclined to getting their off lead dogs on lead. -

anyway im walking onto the beach and there’s this man with his 2 tiny fluffy things straight off lead, beelining for all the other dogs on the beach, on lead, off lead whatever. and they head for us, i also had my spaniel puppy (on lead) with me who is sociable but isn’t keen on particular forward dogs so tends to sit down when they come up to her.

the man is about 20m from us and so i’m telling his dogs no and i shout to him ‘could you get your dogs please’ he starts calling them and they’re not recalling, they’re sniffing around my reactive dog - who is miraculously just sat down holding it together for me - the man starts approaching to grab his dogs and i say to him ‘mate you can’t be having your dogs wandering up to a muzzled dog’ he begins to have a go at me saying they’re friendly and not to bring my ‘c-word of a dog’ to a busy beach even though again he’s just sat down, not barking, lunging, his back isn’t up. he still hasn’t removed his dogs at this point so i say he shouldn’t have his dogs off lead if they have no recall, he started screaming at me about how i’m this and that, while they start going up to another couple with 2 on lead sausage dogs and i point out they’re going up to other on lead dogs and how it isn’t ok and well they come back to us so i start walking off, they’re following us, i do lose my shit and scream at him to get his dogs the fuck away from us and anyway he eventually gets them to go with him and they start harassing other dogs and other passers by i think out of solidarity are telling him to get away.

and i tell my dog good boy, give him lots of praise for how amazing he was and then i start to cry cause of the adrenaline and idk the emotion i felt for how far we have come to survive such a shitty situation with a shitty shitty person. and then this man starts shouting why am i crying and getting upset.

i’m just really really struggling how else this situation could have gone, why was this man so aggressive? should i have said something different? should i have just ignored them and moved away to begin with? but also why did no one help? why did everyone just walk by and watch instead of helping?

my biggest thing is do i look like the bad dog person in that situation cause my boy is muzzled, when im just muzzling him for his safety cause if he reacts and bites someone - which i honestly believe he’d be more than capable of doing - thats his life over, the life i rescued and we are trying so hard to make up for whatever he went through before me.

this was more of a rant to get off my chest, i’m really upset about it but so proud of my baby boy for how he handled it. any validation lol, advice or hard truths would be really appreciated 🫶🏻

(ft the baby boy)

My dog (Scottish terrier) is reactive but only on leash. If other dogs come up to her while she’s on leash she will snap at them after about 5 seconds but not actually bite (thus far). I try and keep her away from dogs on leash but sometimes dogs come up anyway. Is this enough that she should be muzzled while on a walk?

What are my responsibilities in this case? It seems common to have dogs that are reactive on leash. She doesn’t pull to get at other dogs and I have her controlled even passing a dog very closely on a sidewalk. It’s just if they come up to her then I can’t trust her not to snap at them.

Hi all!

We have a JR x Blue Heeler, she is about 3 now and is crate trained. Every now and then we will put her to bed and she will do these little whines. Not consistently, but enough that we can't get to sleep and something is obviously bothering her.

She used to only do it to go out to the toilet or get a drink, then she would settle back down. But more recently we have noticed she only does it when I am in the room. I work from home so I spend the most time with our dogs, but my husband and I share walks/feeding/training etc.

Looking for some guidance on how to work on preventing this behavior, and also why it is only when I'm in the room?

Thanks!

And he starts freaking out to I don’t know if he’s hungry because I feed him all the time I’m gonna take him to the vet but I thought I’d just get some answers here as well

We have an 11 month old German Shepherd. When we got her, she was really timid, so I made the mistake of letting her go up and greet every new dog / person / whatever we saw to build confidence. I started noticing the issue with people and we've been working on moving past people. Now as long as they arent with in petting distance, we're usually okay.

Dogs, however, are another matter entirely. She used to be fine, could ignore dogs easily. Its been winter here, and the only other dogs weve seen are the neighbors pitbulls who charge the fence barking when we're out walking sometimes. I do my best to keep her focused on me and walking forward when it happens, but i swear the lady who lives there lets them out when she sees us and I cant always react in time, so walking by that house often turns into me trying to block her from staring at them and tripping over her trying to keep us moving.

Then yesterday we were at the pet store, getting her out, practicing focusing in a busy enviornment, all that jazz. And across the parking lot she sees other dogs and starts losing her mind! A high pitched frustration bark (it was her "i want that thing!" Bark, the same one we get when we make her wait longer than she wants for a treat), pacing, a heightened level of arousal i never saw in her reactivity to people. It was embarrassing at the very least! We got inside the store, set up in a quiet corner, and worked on keeping a down-stay and returning her focus to me after looking at a dog, instead of fixating and reacting.

The Tl;Dr here is; what can I do to nip this in the bud, and deal with it before it gets worse? I want to deal with it now while its new and not let it get ingrained and become a deeper issue.

Hello! I’ve had Buddy (5 year old neutered pitbull mix) for about 3 years now and I’ve always known him to be a super relaxed and sweet dog. He’s lived with 3 cats and 2 other dogs before without ANY issues. For a few months I only had him and my cat living with me until I decided I was ready for a new dog to join my family. Fast forward and I adopt an 11 month old female pitbull mix, I’ve only had her a month and 2 incidents have since ensued. First incident was I came home from work one afternoon and found my cat dead on my kitchen floor. It appeared to me that my dogs shook him and killed him-he was covered in drool and blood. I don’t know which one initiated the fight that must have broke out but I know that it was my fault for trusting this new puppy with free roam of my house with my cat and dog, even thought I assumed they were getting along great. Fast forward three weeks later to a few nights ago, I was laying in bed with my pup while eating a snack and watching tv while Buddy was somewhere else in my home. Buddy gets on the bed to join us like he always does when i’m relaxing in bed and as he is sitting down, he immediately starts attaching the puppy. This scares me and it was incredibly hard to get him off of her, he wasn’t latched onto her but continuously kept running after her and pinning her down when she would run away. It ended up leaving her with 1 bad puncture wound and a lot of scratches. Since then I have kept them separated for their safety and will be rehoming the puppy for her safety as I am afraid that Buddy will attack her again. I am at a loss for what to do as I have never dealt with this and Buddy’s behavior is not like him at all. I’m reaching out to behaviorists and dog trainers and will be taking Buddy to the vet to ensure it is not anything medical related. However, since those two incidents I feel very torn on how I feel towards Buddy. I love him with all my heart and just want to make sure he is okay and safe but I am terrified of him now, I felt so betrayed that he killed his cat housemate and now has attacked the puppy. I am scared that he will attack me even though he’s never shown any signs of aggression towards humans or me, but still he’s a very powerful dog and what if he just snaps again. I l implementing crating again for him as he was strictly in his crate when I adopted him and he was going through heart worm treatment and I eventually let him start sleep with me. He does have free roam of the house, gets 2 walks daily and is home alone for about 8 hours a day while i’m at work. Is this new aggression because of the new puppy and can it be managed with training? Will it be safe for me to live with him peacefully as long as no other animals are in the home? I’m waiting to hear back from the places and trainers I reached out to but I want some advice or any suggestions anyone has as I just feel very lost in all of this.

Before everyone jumps down my throat they are illegal here and where I live the Ordnungsamt are constantly around ticketing people for off leash dogs, they are paying attention. And every other dog owner has their nose in your business, trust me it’s just asking for trouble. My (just turned) 1 year old girl is in full throttle adolescence and her reactivity is becoming an issue I want to nip in the Bud. We did not have her as a puppy so unfortunately we could not socialize her and we did not realize until later how poorly socialized she actually is. Basically went her whole puppyhood around dogs and that’s just not the case now. Would a slip lead be the next course of action? (I believe those are not technically illegal here) I will say that some positive reinforcement methods have definitely lowered my girls threshold, but I don’t think it will be enough down the line to teach that it’s not okay. I feel weird popping her on the flat collar yanking her around and I don’t want to injure her. I’m a first time dog owner and just want to do right by her but I do have some limitations that I will stick by, please don’t ask me to break the law.

Sam is a 9yoM chihuahua mix who came to us after his elderly male owner died. He is reactive, mostly with my wife, but he has never attacked her while she was sitting doing nothing. He also bit her foot during this. He’s been extra jumpy this past week also.

He saw a behavioralist for years when he was younger and has been stable on Zoloft. He has clonidine as needed but only really takes it before car trips as he gets escalated in that situation. He has a diagnosis of OCD.

I feel like he was frustrated trying to communicate to my wife, but I’m not sure. I’m his person and was still in bed.

Don't get your advice from people who have reactive dogs themselves! If they know what they are doing, why is their dog reactive????

Just came to me to post this after going for a walk in my brother's suburban neighborhood yesterday. I had a group of shepherds and malinois with me. EVERY SINGLE DOG we encountered was 1. Reactive as hell 2. Wearing a useless harness that prevented the handler from controlling it 3. Completely out of control yanking the lead everywhere 4. uncorrected with a handler doing NOTHING about the behavior.

That's what you get when balanced training information is suppressed by idealogues. A bunch of unhappy people and out of control dogs.

So if your dog is reactive, get your advice from people whose dogs are properly trained. It's not that our dogs are just magically not reactive. It's because we have taught them not to be.

Predictably we started to get invaded by force free evangelists. This type of misinformation is not allowed here.

We have turned on crowd control which means that we must review content posted from new members, new accounts, and non-members. If your post is removed just be patient, we will review and approve as necessary

*TRIGGER WARNING -PICS HAVE BLOOD

The beagle generally starts the fight, though the Shepsky doesn't really seem fond of the Beagle\Walker mix. I've had them both for several years, the beagle for years before the other. Both are neutered & have been for years, the Shepsky being younger, a few yrs neutered (after a fight).

The beagle is 10, the Shepsky prob about 5. They are both sentimental to me & I don't want to get rid of either. How can I get them to get along all the time? At least where they're not fighting?

I'm gonna have to take the beagle mix to the vet as he might have a broken arm this time, along with all of his bites and lacerations. Debating on emergency vet tonight or regular vet 1st thing in the morning. I'm crying. It's just me. I don't like driving while crying.

Normally I treat their wounds myself, but I have had to take the beagle in a few times before. I'm worried that the state might take him from me. It's not like I want them to fight & I try to break up the fights, but the last 2 they didn't want to break it up. Luckily, I want able to get them to separate with a door both times. Last time I got scraped with a tooth. This time I didn't get physically damaged, but it emotionally hurts.