How to fix your dog’s leash reactivity!

One of the most common concerns I get from pet parents about their dog is leash reactivity. This is when the dog sees another person or animal or even car while they are on the leash and they have an over reaction to that stimuli. This reaction can be barking, lunging, hiding, trying to run away, etc. 

Understandably, this can be embarrassing and frightening for the owner, depending on how severe the dog’s reaction is. The owner naturally begins to tense up when they see another person/dog/etc approaching because they are anticipating their dog’s behavior. This tension only compounds the behavior, making it increasingly worse. Some owners will yell and scold the dog, which again, reinforces to the dog that their over reaction was warranted. 

The biggest mistake that I see people make when trying to correct this problem is that they only try to work on the behavior when their dog has just had a big reaction, is overstimulated, and incapable of having a productive training session while they are in that mindframe. 

Before you can begin addressing the issue of leash reactivity, some groundwork needs to be done at home. 

1. Build a strong command to reinforce your dog checking in with you while out on a leash. I like to use the focus or touch command for this. The focus command consists of rewarding your dog when he gives you eye contact and the touch command rewards your dog for touching their nose to your hand. Both of these commands bring your dog’s attention back to you, so they accomplish the same thing but in different methods, I will choose one or the other based on the dog’s behavior. 
2. Practice and reward calmness on the leash. If your dog gets overly excited when he gets his leash on, pulls you out the door and drags you on the walk, leash reactivity should not come as a shock to you. A dog that is overstimulated is more likely to be reactive. The Behavioral Down exercise is a game changer for these dogs! (More on that to come in a later article.)
3. Don’t allow your dog to practice negative behavior. This can be a challenging task but it is extremely important that while you are making the corrective training steps, you don’t take steps backward in your training by allowing your dog to be in a situation where the bad behavior is occurring. This may mean avoiding walks at times of the day that are popular or avoiding walks in public spaces until more training can occur. 

Once you have completed the ground work, you are ready to start putting your training to work addressing the actual leash reactivity. 

First you need to determine what your dog’s reactivity threshold is. Meaning, how close can the trigger be before your dog shows any signs of a reaction. You need to be very aware of your dog’s body language and pick up on the first subtle clues that your dog’s behavior is shifting. This can be freezing in place, staring, raising hair on hackles, etc. If you wait for the barking and lunging, you have missed all of the first clues. Let’s say your dog begins to show a reaction when the trigger is 20 feet away, then we know we need to begin working on the behavior at a farther distance away than 20 feet. In this scenario, I would begin about 40 feet away from the trigger and begin asking the dog to practice the focus or touch command that we had been training earlier in addition to any other obedience commands the dog knows to keep the focus on me and to keep the dog’s mind busy. Make sure to use high value treats during these sessions to further incentivize your dog to ignore the trigger. Slowly and gradually move closer to the trigger while still keeping your dog’s focus on you. In the first few sessions, you will not go closer than their established threshold. 

It can be challenging to get the repetitions you need while practicing these training sessions, so look for opportunities to create the scenario that works for your dog. If your dog is reactive to people, find a parking lot near a busy area where people will be walking to their cars and position yourself away from the store so that you can control your distance to your dog’s trigger. If your dog reacts to other dogs, try practicing behind a dog park so that you can control how close you approach the fence, making sure that you are not in a traffic area where dogs will be coming out of the park and may come closer to you than you can control. 

Once your dog is successful at farther distances with no issues, it is time to start slowly working toward shortening their threshold. Continue to practice the same way, being very aware of your dog’s body language and work back away from the trigger if you notice any changes in your dog’s behavior that indicate you are moving too quickly. Repetition is key here. If your dog has practiced the negative behavior for a long time, it will take a lot of repetitions before they default to the new behavior. 

After you have put in the training in a controlled environment, it’s time to put it all together in real life scenarios. When you are on a walk with your dog, and you see a person or dog approaching, remain calm, ask your dog for a focus or touch command before you notice any sort of reaction from your dog. The key here is to change your dog’s focus before they have a chance to react. Continue to ask for a focus or touch and reward with high value treats as the person or dog walks past. Once they are gone, the food stops and you continue your walk. Through this process, your dog will begin to learn that the former negative stimulus actually equals rewards and they will begin to look to you for the reward rather than offering the negative behavior.  A few things to note here, the focus or touch command should be done while you are still walking. Keep moving forward to prevent your dog from focusing too much on the approaching person/dog. If you need to give your dog more space, it is ok to step off the sidewalk or take a wider path around the trigger, just do so while still moving forward. 

Setbacks will happen. It is inevitable that there will be a time that it doesn’t go like it did in training practice. Maybe the other dog will bark or growl and that will be enough to derail your progress. If at any point, your dog becomes overwhelmed and overreacts, the best thing to do is get the dog out of the situation. Your dog can not learn in that state of mind, so this is not the time to practice the commands. Turn your dog away from the trigger and walk away. Let it go and focus on the next opportunity to try again. 

Every dog learns at a different pace. Make sure you are practicing at a pace where your dog is having success and you aren’t trying to rush the steps. Keep the training sessions upbeat and fun for your dog. Reserve a special high value reward only for these sessions so that your dog looks forward to training. Remember that behavior that is rewarded is repeated.