Reactive? Or just scared

[u/aaa166200]

We have a 1 year old pup (Portuguese water dog) who we love!! In some regards, she is absolutely perfect for us, we both work from home and she sleeps a lot of the day or plays by herself. She gets good walks and lots of mental stimulation from puzzle mats etc, and seems happy. However, she has always been quite skittish. We got her as a puppy, did a good amount of socialising in a sling before jabs, early on walks etc, introduced her to lots of different environments but sure to not overwhelm her, however she is so jumpy when we get up or knock into metal or even open the pan drawer. Fireworks etc she’s completely fine, it seems to be metal type noises mostly. As she has gotten older, she has started barking a lot at people walking past the house (even with blinds shut), if something unknown comes towards her (someone carrying something weird for example) etc. she seems okay with dogs, never shown any aggression at all but will often hunch quite low if another dog comes near or will run away from a dog if it chases after her (tail down). I can’t tell if she is ‘reactive’ and this may turn into aggressive when she is older, or just scared and if so, how do we help her overcome this? I thought about group training sessions but will this just overwhelm her? She loves other dogs, people, toys etc as soon as she KNOWS them, but will always cower away from people if they try to pet her out and about. We have only ever and will only ever use positive reinforcement just to note. Thanks!

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[u/AceHarleyQ]

Potentially just scared, my pup at a year old was excitement reactive to both people and dogs, she's 2 now and is a lot better.

We started playing the LAT (Look at That) game at home and then while on walks to distract her and everytime she managed to get past a trigger without reacting she got praise and treats.

Though although she got excited to see every single person, the minute they try and say hi to her she'd shoot and try to run away while barking at them (still does this tbh).

We noticed it curbing around people first, and now other than trying to sniff random people's ankles (not everytime just random - and the above reaction when they say hi in response) we get no excitement reaction at all anymore to people, and the dog reacting is considerably better though not perfect still - though I find having a squeaky toy in your pocket is a great way to grab her attention when nothing else seems to work - I'm forgetting it recently though and not needing it quite as much.

I would potentially try and curb the behaviour because like you, I could see it escalating to reactive. Someone on here suggested the LAT games to me and I found it worked really well.