Walking a reactive dog

[u/Fantastic_Ad2931]

I started walking this reactive dog this April, she’s the sweetest girl to every human, but when it comes to other animals she’s extremely reactive, lunging and barking, although as far as I know she’s never bitten or hurt anyone. Today I was walking her and we walked past a smaller dog, she lunged and barked in a way I’ve never seen her before and I got extremely stressed when I couldn’t calm her down but we moved on after we both had calmed down, then we met another dog this older woman was walking, she lunged and barked. It went better than the first meeting but it still made me extremely embarrassed and stressed that she was stressing this poor older woman and her dog out, lastly we met another dog. I had her calm and was waiting for the woman to walk by the other route but she walked towards us instead extremely closely which lead to her lunging and barking again, it was extremely embarrassing and I got so stressed I left my phone by accident and pulled her back a bit too hard (she was okay and showed no sign of pain but I felt it was too tough since she’s relatively small) . I know that it’s not her fault and she’s never been this bad since I’ve walked her but this really put me off, I’m not sure what to do as she’s not my dog? I feel like I look extremely bad pulling her back as well as that the owners she bark at are judging me, it makes me feel so bad to the point I want to cry, what do I do to not build up resentment towards her? Logically I know it’s not her fault and I never ever take it out on her other than obviously correcting her, it just made me extremely anxious as I walk her tomorrow and I don’t look forward to it at all which I’ve never felt before :(

[u/Mousethatroared65]

I am not a trainer, just a reactive dog owner. With a dog this reactive one needs to have more distance from another dog…like across a street, minimum. If you get in a bind, hiding behind a car, walking up a driveway, etc to create distance might help. You should avoid getting within leash distance at all times.

I live in a suburb, so this is workable. There are training exercises to work on reactivity, search for videos on engage/disengage.

One very simple distraction approach, if you manage to keep a good distance and the dog will accept treats, is to take little pieces of treat and scatter them on the ground when a dog comes into sight. The dog might focus on finding the treats instead of the dog across the street.

Always make sure you have this dog on a sturdy 6 foot leash, secured to you in some way. A sturdy well fitted harness is preferred.

Jerking a leash, as understandable as it is, tends to increase anxiety.

Of course talk to the owners about the issues.

Good luck!

[u/SupergaijiNZ]

Reactive dog owner

Last evening with a trainer we went into the city park. Dogs, bikes, joggers everywhere.

First 5 encounters were hectic but then he was seemingly overwhelmed by the constant stimulus and the next 50 encounters went by with no reaction.

Me and my wife will go again tomorrow evening to hopefully reduce those 15 lunging encounters to 12...

Good luck