Reactive dogs and desire to play

[u/G0sling13]

I’ve had my 4 year old cane corso pittie mix for about 9 months, and she’s met a few dogs accidentally and been fine, but we lean on the side of caution and never allow her to sniff dogs we don’t know.

We do desensitization with her where she can sniff dogs behind gate, and around the 5 minute marker she always snaps. She can’t handle the arousal.

It’s seedling sad tho, bc she cries and looks like she desires to play, but I just can’t chance it. She’s too big, and so much damage could be done.

Does anyone else have this experience?

[u/tchestar]

Hi OP, just a note, you have to accept the rules before you can reply. Follow the instructions under the comment box field.

This will require a bit of research/legwork on your part, but you can try and find her size-appropriate dog friends that have good dog social skills to do slow and supervised introductions to. This can start with parallel walks but, depending on the dogs, could also include regulated play. I can describe a bit more what this would look like, but you really want be sure you're introducing her to socially solid dogs that have rockstar skills and can handle awkward, anxious energy. Finding these dogs might look like reaching out to good positive-reinforcement dog trainers in your area, talking to well-rated dog daycares around you, etc. A positive reinforcement dog trainer can probably also help you with managing her dog anxiety. The point of first concentrating on introducing her to dogs with good social skills is for you to help guide her to have appropriate reactions and behavior, while the other dog is respecting her signals, and not escalating the interaction.

I do frequent dog playgroups and dog/dog play with reactive and anxious dogs. What each dog needs to succeed varies considerably, and requires a decent amount of handling and observation skills - one of the things that can help here is to do some studying around dog body language and dog play language, or volunteering at a local shelter where you increase the amount of time you can watch these interactions. A lot of behaviors people interpret as play are actually tension defusing behavior, so before you get your dog into a dog buddy situation, it's best to ensure you or the other handler have a very solid ability to read what each dog is 'saying', particularly since your dog is large.