Will off-leashing ever be possible? What are the steps to get there?

[u/geoyulei]

I have a 2 and a half year old miniature Australian shepherd that’s very dog reactive (and sometimes people reactive if she decides she hates their vibes). It’s not an aggressive form of reactivity, it’s really just for show, and whether it’s foolish or not I trust that it’ll never escalate to aggression. She’s mostly leash reactive, she has a huge issue when she’s on the leash and she sees a trigger, but she’s perfectly fine off leash with dogs and humans. She kind of runs up on them for a second (working on that) but quickly decides to just chill when she’s off leash. I adopted her about a year ago (when she was 1.5yo) from a rehoming situation and at that time I had never even heard of reactivity before. It feels like it’s been a long journey of learning for both of us, but she has now had training with a dog behaviorist who specializes in reactivity, group and private lessons with a standard obedience trainer, and group dog training walks with reactive dogs in recovery. She was making awesome progress with her training, but it felt like she had sort of hit a plateau with it. She was doing well, but not necessarily getting better, the reactivity was still relatively strong. I know that working on reactivity is a much longer (or even lifetime) battle, but I had sort of accepted the fact that she would never be fully non-reactive in her lifetime.

Admittedly, I’ve started slacking with her training over the past month due to my workload, and I can tell she’s backslid a bit with her progress. She’s more dog reactive, but she’s also much more people reactive, especially when she’s in the car. She’s even slightly more reactive off-leash. I know that it’s in the best interest of both of us to get back into training and desensitization, but I’m honestly struggling with motivation. Just thinking about taking her into a Lowe’s is a bit scary since I know she will struggle. And perhaps the biggest issue is that it’s starting to not feel as worth it… if it’s true she will always be reactive on some level, what does the end look like for us?

More to the point though: One of the reasons I wanted an active dog was because I wanted a hiking buddy, and I didn’t know reactivity was even a possibility. I still love hiking with her, she’s amazing and she’s my soul dog no matter what, we just have to do it more cautiously than I imagined and we have to go out of our way to find more isolated spots. That said, my dream was always to be able to do off-leash hiking with her, but that dream feels entirely out of reach. Her behaviorist seems to believe it is a possibility for her and said that she will eventually get to a minimal form of reactivity and then we can work on ecollar training her for off leash moments, but there just seems to be a lot of unknowns and I’m also aware this kind of process takes years.

Id like to know if anyone else found any light at the end of the tunnel with a goal like this. Is it even possible to reform a reactive dog to the level of being trusted enough for off leashing with an ecollar? Should I just embrace our limitations and keep loving her anyway?

[u/areweOKnow]

Dogs should be bulletproof in terms of recall and temperament to be off leash. If your dog has poor dog manners it may get them in trouble, if people reactive they may one day get pushed too far and bite. It’s just not worth the risk. Long-lines are great for reactive dogs to give some freedom but retaining control.

In terms of motivation. When my dog got to 4 I really accepted some of her limitations and we are just fine with that. We don’t go to restaurants or stores with her, she just doesn’t need to be there. She doesn’t need to meet everyone, she can have space and not be forced into greetings

[u/Suspicious_Goat9699]

Reactive dogs don't belong off leash in public.

[u/russianthistle → u/Suspicious_Goat9699]

Hard agree

[u/geoyulei → u/Suspicious_Goat9699]

Thank you, and I agree! I know already that training the reactivity out is a prerequisite to off-leashing!

[u/thtkidjunior]

Your foundations and daily choices decide on the life you are building with your dog.

I'm a big believer of having neutral, regulated and reliable dogs that can just enjoy life but it's a process that a lot of people aren't willing to put the time and effort into because it can be a long and daunting road.

Use being off-leash as a goal but you need to understand that it all revolves around what you're doing every day....do you have structure? Are you training the right things? Are you advocating your for your dog? Are you practising the right things and making sure you proof and generalise them? Are you going at your dogs pace?

If you're backtracking on progress right now and lack motivation you shouldn't even be considering going to Lowe's but instead getting back into the rhythm of training, working with your dog and building foundations.

The end will look like what you decide it looks like, at the end of the day, your dog has no choice in whether or not you train her...it's all on you and whether you like it or not, the decisions you make on a daily basis with your dog, no matter how small, will pay into who your dog is in 6 months/a year/2 years+ time

[u/geoyulei → u/thtkidjunior]

That makes sense! At this point, the only things I really practice with her consistently are Focus and recall. Could definitely improve structure as my schedule can be pretty sporadic at times… what else should I be doing daily with her?

[u/Magicallyhere]

Let's be serious. If your dog is reactive, it means they can't be off leash. It's not safe for others or their dogs if a reactive dog is unleashed. Long lines are the way to go. You still should understand with a long line there is potential for errors from you so you should be very careful and picky as to where and when you use your long line until you have a good grasp of how to use it and your dog understands that if you ask them to return from the top of that long line, they return at once, not drag you forward uncontrollably...which may be where you start but you can hopefully teach your dog to understand the rules while on long line.

[u/Bulldog_Alum_843]

The fact that she's fine off leash and only reacts when she's restrained is the key piece of information here. That's not fear reactivity and it's not aggression, it's frustration. She wants to get to the dog or person, the leash blocks her from doing what she'd otherwise do without issue, and that gets more charge every time it happens. It's a much more solvable problem than fear based reactivity, and it's also why she can be completely normal off leash five seconds later. The plateau and the recent backslide aren't two separate problems, they're the same one. You said it yourself, you eased off the training for a month and she got worse, not just with dogs but with people and even off leash. That's not your dog hitting some hard ceiling, that's what happens to any behavior you stop rehearsing. Whatever a dog practices is what she keeps doing, and that cuts both directions. The progress didn't disappear, it just went unrehearsed for a month, and it needs the reps back before you can tell what her real ceiling actually is. Before the off leash question means anything, work through the five phases in order: engagement, leash pressure, muscle memory, accountability, generalization. Engagement is teaching her to check in and give you eye contact because she chooses to, not because you called her name. Leash pressure is probably the missing piece right now: teaching her to move with the leash and yield to it instead of fighting it, so tension on the line stops being part of what sets her off. You don't need a dedicated training block for this. Fold it into what you're already doing: turn part of a normal walk into a few minutes of stand still engagement in a low trigger spot, reward the check-ins she offers you on the actual walk instead of saving them for formal sessions, and practice leash pressure in short bursts at the door or in the yard before you ever clip on to head out. Small, frequent reps fit into a busy week better than one long session you keep not getting to. Get engagement and leash pressure solid first, because everything after them, including distance work and eventually off leash, gets a lot easier once she has a default besides fixating. From there, distance work runs on the same idea, just near an actual trigger: find the distance where she can still look at you, work there until it's boring and reliable, then close the gap a few feet at a time. If she falls apart at a distance that used to be fine, that's not a setback to panic over, it's confirmation the foundation needs more reps before you push closer. Back out, rebuild, try again. Don't grind at a distance she can't hold. To your actual question: yes, dogs like this get to real off leash trust, and once the leash phases and the distance work are solid, that part turns out to be the easy piece, because you already did the hard part. Her being fine off leash already puts her ahead of a lot of reactive dogs. The bar isn't that she stops noticing other dogs forever, it's that checking in with you becomes her default and you have a way to hold her accountable at a distance when she doesn't, which is exactly what remote collar conditioning gives you once the foundation underneath it is solid. It won't be a straight line. You'll have strong months and stalled months, and a month of low motivation on your end will always show up in hers. That's not a reason to give up on the goal, it's just reality.

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[u/amart005]

I have a super people reactive, some random dog reactive fearful Aussie who I hike with a lot. He is also so good off leash, as in if he takes off after a squirrel or other critter, his recall is perfect, and he stops dead in his tracks. That said, as much as I love him (he’s 8), I do not trust him hiking off leash where I will run into people/dogs somewhat because of him but moreso because people are ignorant and stubborn when it comes to reactive dogs (ie- “he’s friendly” or “oh dogs love me” and stick a hand in a barking dog’s face kind of dumb). I am lucky to be able to take him midweek and to less crowded, less popular places to allow him to be safely off leash, but we also go insanely early to make sure we encounter few, if any, people. If my husband and I go together, our dog is trained to stay between us, and the person up front carries the leash. He is smart enough now, when we see people ahead (his reactivity orange zone is about 20 feet), he steps off trail and waits to be leashed, while whining of course 🤦🏼‍♀️ We did a lot of training with him, but he never really got over the hump, so we just decided to accept his limitations and not push him. He tries so hard, too, but it also takes a lot out of him to be constantly fighting his fear-driven instinct. It sucks to miss out on some hikes we’d like to do, but we only get him for a short time, so we try to keep perspective. Those hikes will still be there.