Reactivity Relief
Walk Your Dog Without the Overwhelm
Immediate Relief
If walks feel more like tactical missions than relaxing outings, or if you find yourself constantly bracing for your dog’s next big reaction—you’re not alone. Regardless of whether your dog’s big reaction looks like lunging, barking, fleeing, or growling, it may leave you dreading your dog’s walks. Learning how to effectively manage reactivity will give both you and your dog immediate relief.
Not only does management provide immediate relief, but it also creates the opportunity for effective training. If your dog is constantly having big reactions, those responses will continue to occur—what gets rehearsed gets repeated. Meaningful progress happens when your dog is calm and comfortable enough to learn, so it’s essential to train in lower distraction environments or at a manageable level of exposure. Once your dog is already overreacting, their ability to learn and retain information is greatly reduced.
Look at The Details
I am sure at this point you are entirely too familiar with what causes your dog to over react (their triggers). However, there are a few key details we can spend more time considering to make management easier. Let’s look at the details!
Questions to Ask Yourself:
- Distance: How far away does the trigger have to be for my dog not to react? A football field? 5 football fields?
- Intensity: Can my dog handle the trigger better if it is still instead of moving? Can they handle the trigger better if it is not acknowledging them? How about if it is moving in the opposite direction?
- Trigger Stacking: If my dog has already had a stressor in their day (e.g. loud noises or a visitor), is it more challenging when they see a trigger? If they have already spotted two triggers on a walk, is the third more challenging? Has my dog recently had a vet check up to rule out any underlying health issues that could exacerbate their reactivity?
- Duration: Does my dog immediately react when they see the distraction or does it take the trigger being present for an amount of time?
Tailor Your Walks
Now that you’ve looked at the details, adjust your walking routine based on that information. Adjusting your routine will help you prevent rehearsal of unwanted behaviors. It will also leave you with a level of distractions that your dog is capable of learning around. Let’s look at example adjustments!
- Distance: Pick a location where getting distance is easy! Parks with wide open grassy areas allow you to spot triggers ahead of time and maintain an appropriate distance. This will give your dog great practice with triggers without overwhelming them.
- Intensity: If movement is more challenging, avoid walking at a park where there are frequently off leash dogs or runners. If fast cars are more challenging, start in a location with slow moving cars.
- Trigger Stacking: If you’re noticing trigger stacking, walk at a slower time of day or at a less frequented location. You can also spend more time on decompression activities that involve sniffing, licking, and chewing (more on this under Enrichment at Home)
- Duration: If duration is an issue, try picking a location where there are visual blockers such as foliage or buildings to step behind. Advocate for your dog to prevent people from approaching. It is helpful to come up with a quick script to tell people approaching. For example, “Do not approach, we’re in training”. You could even consider a jacket or harness patch that tells people to give your dog space.
Home and Car Management
If your dog is reacting inside your home or car, consider these management strategies. They will help prevent trigger stacking and alleviate your stress at home.
- Visual Blockage: Window film, curtains, keeping furniture away from windows, fence privacy screens, a crate in the car with a cover, window tint
- Sound Mitigation: “Through a Dogs Ear” music, classical music, white noise, a box fan directed towards the sounds
- Safety: Utilize baby gates or exercise pens. Park far away from the most trafficked areas to avoid your dog reacting from the car
- Calm Zones: Set up cozy, trigger-free spots with decompression activities that involve sniffing, licking, and chewing
Enrichment at Home
Enrichment is important for every dog, but it will be essential for your dog. When your dog is struggling with reactivity, they may not be getting the enrichment they need out of their walks. Whether walks need to be shortened or they’re simply too overwhelmed to get the typical benefits from walks, enrichment will be important. Consider adding activities that involve sniffing, licking, chewing, and shredding to their day. You can view some of our favorite enrichment activities in our blog post on enrichment (puppotential.com/enrichment)
Takeaways
While your dog is working through reactivity, it is important to prevent overwhelming yourself or your dog. Management does that job. Use management to give your dog the breathing room to learn and decompress. You’re doing the best you can—and that’s exactly what your dog needs.
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What Maverick’s Family says…
“Marie is a fantastic dog trainer and helped us tremendously with all kinds of behaviors we were trying to work on with our pup! She has been incredibly kind, patient, and understanding with me and our pup! She is a true expert and a wonderful person to work with as we navigated different training goals! We have come so far with her help! Thank you Marie!”
-Jess P.
