Hello! I have a 3 year old dog who I adopted about a year ago. He’s a lab staffy mix and super sweet. I delt with a lot of separation anxiety at first with him, but was able to crate train him and start him on Prozac to help. He does great now and doesn’t even need to be in the crate when I leave him home alone. I work night shift and go out of town sometimes and am lucky enough that my apartment has its own dog daycare where he goes a few times a week, it’s only roughly 5-7 dogs, many days less than that and the girl who runs it is absolutely wonderful. I would say over the past 3-4 months he’s been having increasing instances of random aggression towards other dogs with no common denominator (no food, toys, dog wasn’t bugging him etc) He’s not leash reactive at all, most of the times he straight up ignores other dogs when he’s leashed. But he’s now had 3 strikes at the daycare and other instances I’ve been there for where he randomly goes for another dog. He had some resource guarding in the past when my roommate got a dog but that only happened when the other dog went near his food bag/bin or main source of his food. He does completely fine with treats/snacks etc. He had no issues with any type of dog prior to these past few months. I have a vet appointment booked to rule out any pain or medical causes and am going to start training next week. Has anyone had this occur with an already mature dog? If so do you guys have any tips for me or sources on helping train with him? I won’t be having him go back to daycare or any sort of park anymore until I am able to really nail the source of it or just help his training improve. I’m just so sad and fear I may have caused it somehow but I can’t think of how and I am so scared of him hurting another dog. Thank you

My 5 month old Doberman Pinscher puppy is showing frequent resource guarding behavior. He has bonded well with the family, plays well and listens to commands in general, but anytime he finds something (like a plastic packet, a sock) or is given something (eg. a toy or a food bowl) and is left with that for more than ~5 secs, he gets into resource guarding mode and would growl when approached. If it is something we need to take away, he would snap and bite (with bite inhibition). He also sometimes demonstrates mild aggressive behavior when he wants something like continuous hard nipping and/or biting our clothes.

We are looking for trainers, specifically someone who could do private classes, preferably at home. We are located in Fremont, Bay Area, California.
Any recommendations will be appreciated.

I knew he is reactive to new people and dogs. I always take precautions when introducing him, either putting him in a kennel or on a leash til he can calm down and realize the new thing isn't a threat.

Today my mom had a friend he didn't know come over for coffee. I knew he was coming but I was in the bathroom when he got here. My mom knew the dog was reactive, but thought that since he never bit anyone before she could just let him out to greet the new person. It obviously didn't go well. The guy needed 12 stitches in his arm.

I love my dog. He's my best friend, and I know he really is just trying to protect me. Now I'm scared he'll be taken away just for doing what he thought was right.

Hi guys!

It’s been a while since I posted here since the last few months been pretty good.

I have an olde english bulldog, for you who know, it is a pretty strong breed. She is 5 months, turning 6 months in a week. I am alone with her so my goal from the beginning was to train her from day one since I knew that being alone with this kind of breed will be a pain in the ass if not trained.

She’s been so good with training, a bit stubborn (typical bulldog) but she catches on to stuff that I learn her super quickly.

When it comes to socialization and getting her to get used to buses, trains, stations with alot of people it’s been going good also. I don’t have a car so our main transportation has been by bus or the metro. Never had a problem, until now.

Friday we were going to meet a daycare where she is starting at tomorrow. We went a 16:00 which is when most people are ending their work. I didn’t think much of it, we walked to the first station and took the metro, no problem. But here’s when the problems started. It was alot of people at the station where we hopped off, alot of shouting and alot of sounds. It went well until and a big dude started yelling with his back turned to us and he was waiving his hands. All shit broke loose. I’ve never seen her this panicked, I tried to talk to her I tried to make her focus on me by giving treats, nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. It got to a point where I started to freak out, I did my best to not show it but my hands were literally shaking (I am diagnosed with a panic disorder but I’ve been feeling good for a while). The reason I tried to make her stay was because we were waiting for my mom, who was late. When I couldn’t calm her down I felt like we had to go NOW for her safety. So we went around the building to calm down, which she did after a while.

We went to the daycare and when we were about to go back, when we started getting close to the metro station she started to panic again, to the point that I had to pick her up.
On the metro, no problem.

Since then these two days, she’s been like skittish, reacting to every sound. Even at home, she heard a bird that sounded weird outside, she started crying and came to me wanting to be picked up.

This is stressing me out, my anxiety is back. I know what one should do when their puppy gets scared for example a certain way during a walk, desensitize slowly. The only issue here is that we do not have the time, tomorrow she’ll be back there and we can’t take another way because it is literally when you come up from the station.

I mostly wrote this to vent but also to hear your thoughts. Is this her fear period that just coincidentally started on Friday? Or could it maybe be that she’s gonna have her first period? Or is she just traumatized from Friday?

Our reactive dog has been lonely since our cat passed away but we can’t have him play with other dogs. How can we help him fill that empty space?

After our cat died, he stopped playing with his toys. Even his favorite one he played with daily. He’s not necessarily depressed but you can tell he’s lonely. He will stand aimlessly in spots where my cat used to hang out, and one day he even went and grabbed one of her cat toys out of her bin even though he never messed with her toys. We plan on getting another cat after we get his vaccines updated next week. But I’m sure the introduction process will take a couple months.

We’ve been taking him on daily walks since he finally learned how to walk on a leash but that hasn’t seemed to help his loneliness. He will play with a ball outside but he stops after two throws.

(Fun tip if you’ve tried everything in terms of trying to teach your dog to walk but nothings worked try walking him while on a skateboard. It worked for him haha and now everything that didn’t work before now works. We don’t even need the skateboard now)

Last week I was on a hike when a woman with a large dog pulling at the end of her leash came around the corner towards me. I snuck off the trail to give her room and she ran after me yelling “wait wait! I’m so sorry, I need help!”
Turns out poor thing was super lost. She’d been wandering around the park for about an hour. Her dog was very adamant about meeting mine, and Punk - my dog - was also pulling towards her but I held her back and asked her to sit. And she did! No barking, now growling, no lunging, just sitting and wiggling with excitement. I was able to direct the other owner back where she needed to be and we went off on our merry way

Today, I ran into them again! Same trail. She stopped to thank me, and again our dogs were very frenetic about each other for the first few seconds, but after we got them settled so we could talk, they were fine. Punk kept kind of rapid cycling through her displacement behaviors: sniffing, peeing, looking at me like she can will me to move with her imaginary mind powers, and rolling around in the grass like a goober. But no barking. No negative reaction whatsoever. The other owner and I talked for a few minutes and then off we went in our separate directions.

Anyway just wanted to share a proud moment - picture of my goofy girl rolling in the grass for tax

hi there! I have a 7 year old great pyrenees mix who is reactive on leash when he sees german shepherds. We lived in apartments and went on multiple walks a day for the first 3 1/2 years of his life. He was known to react when seeing (some) german shepards. this included pulling, barking, lunging. we used a leash with two points of connection, one to his martingale collar and the other to a gentle lead head harness. For the last 3 1/2 years we have lived rural and he’s had plenty of fenced in property to run around in! He also became fence reactive during that time. We are moving back to town, and he will likely go on walks every day.

I need some advice on what/brands of harness, collar, gentle lead etc to buy for his walks. At the time, gentle lead was the only thing we could get to redirect him but I have since seen critique of them. He’s between 110-120 pounds!

I have a 2 year old and an almost 4 month old. When my baby was a few weeks old, my 12 lb, 6 yeae old chihuahua bit my 2 yeae old on the hand. I was in the NB stage full force and knew my husband wasn't going to take the dog to the vet for evaluation so I set the idea aside and we completly seperated them all. Flash forward to last week I took my dog to the vet (the vet knows my dog) and she recommended behavioral eutnasia.

For context, my dog has had aggression and biting problems from the start. I got him from a breeder (didn't know the problem with breeders at the time) and I had a friend who got a dog from the same one that was a great dog...big mistake. Within a month of having him he was biting my husband and father every single day. Throughout the years he never got used to them, despite living with them. he dislikes everyone, but especially men. In 2021 my dad reached to point at something and my sister was holding him and he bit her mouth enough to require stitches. We didn't put him down bc my sister was like no i feel bad i am fine and I of course love him. But i shouldve done it then and regret it so much. Now fast forward he never got used to anyone. He only likes me, my sisters and my mom. He hates strangers, hates other dogs, hates kids. His automatic reaction is to attack.

after he bit my son on the hand obviously that was the last straw for me but being freshly ppm and my husband not taking me seriously i was stuck with just placing our dog to a crated area 5x3ft. Now I made an appointment for the vet last week and she did rec BE after her assessment and discussion. We did try medication at one point also which made him worse. We tried outside time, he barks nonstop to go back in. At this point I'm questioning his and ours quality of life. He's a in a 5x3ft crate all day except 2 hours during kids nap time and at night though he is sleeping, and to be taken out to pee/poop. To me this is no quality of life.

My husband has been distraught and making bets and suggestions for us to keep him and mitigate the situation since I went to the vet. It doesn't help that hes from an anti-BE country, Brazil...most of his family who barely know our dog are thinking i am being exteme, with his grandma even recommending keeping him in the crate and muzzled which I find compeltly insane and inhumane. I'm struggling with putting a date on the situation because I have accepted my children and I cannot live like this. But he still seems to think this is up for debate. Keeps saying things like "I thought I was going to keep the dog for life, I am never going to recover from this" and that was our reality and I wish we thought about this before having kids. But sadly my dog has the worst temperament I have ever seen in any dog and the vet explained that she doesn't believe training would do anything as it's poor genetics. I don't know what to do because now time has gone by since the episode and while it is technically managed with the dog seperate...this isn't ideal and my husband does not understand that. In his head alive =better.

I know this has been asked before but I'd really like to share my story and get any advice possible. I've made a lot of mistakes but I am determined to make up for them.

I adopted my dog Lucy from a shelter when she was 10 weeks old. Had no idea what breed or size she would grow up to be, but I didn't have a strong opinion either way. She turned out to be a pit mix and was the calmest out of her litter. I immediately began training her, starting with a puppy class. The class went great, but there were no other puppies in it. I made a point to take her in public and over to friend's houses so she could be around other dogs. She's my first dog so I really was winging it, but it was pretty easy because she is so smart and food-motivated. I did start to notice her getting uncomfortable and hyper-focused on other dogs when she was 5-6 months old but it wasn't extreme, just some whining and pulling.

COVID hit when she was about 1, and my partner is immunocompromised so we were extremely careful for the first year. That meant she had little to no interact with new people, and basically zero with any new dogs. I take full responsibility here for lapsing on her training. We did the usual sit/shake/down routine, but that's it.

When we did go back out into the world, I realized that she was now a full-blown reactive dog. I didn't think it would happen because I monitored her every move - we didn't go to dog parks, she never had a fight with a dog, she did great with dogs she already knew. So how could she be so scared? If she saw another dog, even from a distance, she would lunge and growl and bark her head off.

I looked up reactive dog training tips, bought a clicker, and tried to lower her threshold by taking her out in public and easing our way into seeing other dogs. She gave absolutely zero shits about the treats in those moments, and admittedly I got frustrated and gave up. 100% I did not commit enough to the time and consistency necessary to make a difference. She also started reacting at people coming into our house, standing there and barking for hours or until they left.

For the next few years, I just ignored the problem. I walked her every day and if I saw another dog coming, we turned around before she could react. I brought her to friend's houses to play with their dogs, but if someone got a new dog, that was it. I rarely had friends over and if I did, I couldn't enjoy myself because I was in training mode and apologizing and stressing out about her behavior. Walks around the neighborhood were miserable - pulling, constant vigilance, and avoiding any triggers. It sounds ridiculous now but I was hoping she would just grow out of it.

I finally reached a breaking point two years ago and hired a highly-recommended trainer in my area. When we met up, I learned that his technique included prong and e-collars. I was really against it and I wish I'd followed my gut, but he gave a very convincing pitch and I decided to be open-minded about it. I don't even want to talk about this period but I'm sure you can imagine. I felt guilty every time I popped the collar or hit the button. I was ready to quit but then I did see her behavior start to change completely. After a few weeks, we could go out in public and walk by another dog and she would actually ignore it. I spent hours every day training her and was starting to see it pay off. It wasn't enjoyable because I felt embarrassed and guilty having the "tools" in public, but I realized I didn't mind the time commitment so much.

Then one day, I had taken her collar off and got curious. I put it on my wrist and gave myself the higher end of a shock that I would give her. Everyone says "oh, it doesn't hurt, it's like a tickle". THAT SHIT IS NOT TRUE. It actually fucking hurt and after that, I couldn't bring myself to do that to her anymore. I did keep the prong because it helped with her pulling and kind of put her into "training mode". She also got way better with having guests over because the trainer taught us about putting her in place. So now I can get her to calm down in a few minutes sitting in place, and release her once she's ready. I'm at least grateful for that and the ability to have friends over again.

That brings us to now - she is 7 years old. Recently, she has started pulling on the leash on walks, as if the prong isn't even there. I hate "correcting" her with it, especially when she is ignoring me completely. I know my corrections weren't strong enough but I was so sick of hurting her. We came back from an especially bad walk last week, and I was so frustrated I was sobbing. I realized I needed to do something, and really commit to it this time.

I got the clicker back out and spent hours researching dog training strategies. I switched her prong to a harness, and for the past week, we have been working on loose leash walking and "look at me" using only positive reinforcement. Sometimes it's only 5 minutes, sometimes it's a whole hour. We've only made it to the halfway point of our usual walk, but every day I see small improvements, like we'll get a house or two further. And I actually ENJOY training her this way - seeing her figure things out in real time, and how happy we both are when she does something perfectly and gets one of her favorite treats for it. It really feels like it has clicked for me this time, and I am okay with slowly working our way up.

My question is: is there hope here? So far we have avoided most triggers (except for ignoring a cat, which was a huge deal actually) and she does perfectly. But in my mind, I'm picturing the first time we encounter a dog, and I just can't picture her NOT reacting at this point. Especially after 7 years! I guess my thinking is that when she eventually nails loose leash walking and "look at me", we can slowly introduce more triggers and eventually she... won't care about other dogs? Is this really possible?

Thank you to anyone who read this far and has any advice to offer.

Hey friends. I'm having a problem with our 6-year-old Great Pyrenees/Maremma. We have had him for 5 years, and he was a rescue. When he was young and new to us, he exhibited some resource guarding behavior, but over time it seemed to largely diminish.

Unfortunately, in the last 2 years the behavior started to creep back in and now has become problematic whenever we have strangers in the house. He has even lunged at very familiar friends with whom he has had great relationships prior. Thankfully he has not actually bitten anyone, but he growls and snarls very suddenly and threateningly, then swiftly lunges at them. He sort of punches their hand or their thigh with his nose and head while snarling. It's over as fast as it starts but it is scary as hell. I cannot see a pattern to what triggers it.

It used to be just men, but yesterday he did it to a woman visiting who had been very affectionate with him and he with her. I don't know what to do.

We've been keeping people out of the space where his bowl is as that seemed to be the trigger-- getting near his (empty) bowl, but the range of where he gets protective is widening to the next room over. We're starting to have to put him in another part of the house whenever we have company.

I might be making stuff up, but it seems to have started increasing when we got a second house that we bounce back and forth to on weekends and stuff. He has dedicated bowls at each house. Is there something about being unsure of his territory that's riling him up? Beyond family and friends, I want to bring my clients to our Farm and he used to be such a welcoming friendly addition to that experience. But I can't have him lunging and scaring people. God forbid he ever bites someone. He's gotten more reactive with other dogs, too.

Help!!

I adopted a 2.5 year old hound-ish dog from the shelter. I was told by the shelter that he is very easily excitable, jumpy and mouthy, and that he'd require a lot of work. They never mentioned that he is reactive and at that stage I didn't even know what a reactive dog meant. It's been 3 months since I've gotten him, I definitely love him and I want to keep him forever but it's been so overwhelming.

The trainer has been coming in once a week for the last one month, and she has been very helpful. We've noticed improvements but it's very slow. My guy decides the day or time when he wants to respond to training vs when he doesn't. The trainer has asked me to practice new commands and games, but there's so much to tackle with my dog. There's reactivity, very poor leash manners, no impulse control, and as a hound he's very stubborn, like he tries to distract himself with whatever he can when he realizes it's time for training, and I feel I have so much training still to do. Sometimes it feels like positive reinforcement isn't suitable for him. He can go very rapid fire (sit, down, find it, touch) in situations and then sometimes he won't even follow sit.

I already spend so much time walking, exercising and playing with him that I have very little time to train or even chill out with him. I unfortunately am the single parent to my dog and I don't have any friends around me willing to help. Even though he picks up on training pretty quickly, he gets frustrated within 5 minutes and no progress can be made. All of this while my personal life has become very restricted, can't take him out everywhere because of his reactivity (he tries to jump out of the car even 😭) and I can't leave him home because he has separation anxiety and he'll find 10 things to chew. I was told that separation anxiety goes away after a few times of you going out and coming back in. I live in an apartment community and I already have to plan his walk and play timings to ensure that there isn't a lot of people/dog traffic around and even timing everything perfectly so that I can find an empty dog park.

Sometimes I feel rushed to see the change in my guy and then other times I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work he requires.

Is it okay to let the trainer know that I can't be teaching/training so many things at the same time. But then even I want him to be healed of his reactivity asap.

TLDR: older dog is a bully to new shy puppy but only outside? First day we've had new puppy. How to have older dog not be pushy?

We've had our dog Yuki for about 7 years, she's a pit boxer mix at 55 lbs but Yuki is a loud pushy dog. We just got a new puppy shiba inu named Kiki at 15 lbs, kiki is around 7 months. Kiki is very shy/skittish.

We let them both off leash outside (I told my family to put both on a leash but apparently it is ok because they'll "figure it out") but Yuki was pushing kiki into the fence and barking in her face. I stopped it but Yuki is also my childhood dog so I didn't train her the right way, yuki doesn't actually listen to us. it's completely my fault but my parents also weren't super strict about me training her. This also didn't happen the entire time outside, there were times where kiki went up to Yuki when she was calm.

Inside they are fine and are calmer but what happened outside was not ok. I didn't realize how much of a bully Yuki is.

How would I reduce this aggression? Dominance? Whatever behavior is was. I'm also realizing how bad yukis recall is so I will absolutely have to work on it. I'm just not sure where to start?

Now Kiki we've had her for only a day and it's understandable that she will need time to warm up to us. Her original owners didn't pay much attention to her and she escaped then was alone outside for 10 day.

Edit: to add Yuki has been barking at kiki inside as well but not as bad as outside. They are calm now but mostly ignoring each other. Right now my first goal is to have them tolerate each other, they can be friends later.

Background: mixed-breed street dog from Kuwait, adopted at roughly 6–12 months, now ~9 years old, 28 lbs. He’s never not been anxious. Not aggressive, no bite history, great with his walkers — it’s trigger-specific, not fear of the world.

Current picture:
Noise reactivity is the main problem. We’re in a shared-wall townhouse and he reacts to neighbors on both sides, kids bouncing basketballs, repetitive banging. Hypervigilance, pacing, staring, pawing at me for reassurance, then bolting to the third floor. Very slow to come back down — arousal just sticks.

Surface/threshold phobia — freezes at rug-to-hardwood or carpet-to-stairs transitions, works himself up, needs coaxing. Waxes and wanes.

Hind legs have trembled ~2 years. Full neuro workup came back clean, so we’re treating it as hind-end weakness.

Meds so far: fluoxetine started at 16mg daily in May, essentially no change, bumped to ~24mg in July. Since the increase he seems mildly slower overall — not stumbling, just muted. Still no real reduction in reactivity. We have a situational sedative for car trips. We’ve discussed adding gabapentin or trazodone situationally. ThunderShirt, environmental management, and coaching through transitions have all been tried.

We’ve just hired a CDBC behavior consultant and are considering a veterinary behaviorist (DACVB).

Questions:
1. How long did fluoxetine take to do anything for your dog, and at what mg/kg did you actually see change?

1. Is “no response at all after 3 months” a sign to switch drug classes rather than keep titrating?

2. Anyone had success layering situational trazodone or gabapentin on top of an SSRI for noise reactivity specifically?

3. Is the mild slowness a known side effect or a red flag?

4. For shared-wall living — what actually helped? White noise, soundproofing, room setup?

We’re considering fostering a calm second dog as a possible stabilizer. Did that help your anxious dog, or make it worse?

I feel like I’m going crazy over this situation and I need to know the truth from an objective point of view.

I have a 3.5 years old Pit mix (Bella) that is very sweet, but tends to be anxious around new people. She takes time to warm up. One of my friends has only met Bella a couple of times. Before meeting, I made it very clear that Bella needs space and time to warm up and not to make a sudden or intimidating movements towards her. The first time my friend was over, everything was great. Bella was nervous at first, but eventually got used to my friend being there and even let her pet her a couple times. Today, that same friend came over and things were great. Bella was even happy to see her. But at one point, my friend attempted to kiss her on the mouth a couple times in a fast, darting motion. Before I could react, Bella snapped at her and then backed away. She didn’t make contact with her face (thankfully), but she easily could have. This really shook me up and I’m so upset that this happened. I feel bad for my dog because she feels really guilty, but I think she acted appropriately given the circumstances. I’m more mad at my friend who should’ve known better. Now I’m questioning if I’ll even have her in my house again. What are your thoughts? Please call me out if I’m in the wrong. I want to talk to my friend about this, but I don’t even know where to begin.

continuing on the Internet trend “things that would send Europeans into a coma “and it’s showing insane American foods… what are the lifestyle changes/management things that you do for your dog that would send a normal dog owner into a coma?

ex. from us:

- I immediately close our front door quickly for fear of my dog outside and rushing out at them

- when we used to live in the city, if both of us could take our girl out for a walk at the same time, one person would act as the spotter like a sharp shooter “off leash golden approaching - 40 feet”

- our old family dog for some reason took issue to my parents passing each other things while watching TV, so they got into the nightly habit of tossing each other ice cream sandwiches 😂

what do you do for your pup?

I currently don’t have anyone I trust to watch my reactive/aggressive pitbull if I need to travel.

Ideally, I’d like to find an experienced trainer who could build a relationship with him over time through regular training/play sessions and who also offers private boarding in their home or another low-stress environment when needed.

Technically, I could board him at a facility where he was previously trained, but I don’t think a busy kennel/boarding environment is healthy for him because of how stressful and stimulating it is.

Does anyone use an individual trainer for this kind of arrangement? If so, what should I look for when finding this person?

For extra context: he has historically behaved extremely well with professional trainers- so that's why i think it's a viable option. he's 70lbs, has a small but real bite history, and needs experienced handling as a result. That’s why I’m specifically hoping to find one experienced person who can build a long-term relationship with him . i've been trying to do this alone for too long basically

I already made a post about my puppies reactivity, but today when I took her out, she acted out like she never has before. We were walking in a trail, and there was a small offleash dog running up to us. I picked her up and when the dog got closer she barked a couple times, and then did a very loud, threatening sounding growl. Whatever. We continued walking once the dog was gone, and started to head home. We have to walk by a dog park in order to get home which she is usually fine with unless a dog comes close to the fence. There were a few dogs heading into the dog park and she lost her absolute shit (growling, lunging, barking, hackles up) it did not just seem like fear to me, and this was the first ever time she exploded THAT severely. It did concern me considering she’s only around 6 months old and I have a feeling if she came in contact with any of those dogs she would’ve bit them. Even though we have made some progress, I don’t think she’s ever gonna get to the point where she can walk past another dog without reacting, especially considering what happened today. I’m so scared that this is aggression or that it’s turning into aggression, I have never dealt with an aggressive dog before. She’s worse than my german shepherd & her reactivity was severe. I don’t even know what to do anymore. Please tell me it gets better, please tell me what i’m dealing with.

Hi! I’m looking for some advice. For context, My dog is about 9 he is a lab mix, we’ve had him for about 4 years. The family that we got him from I think kept him outside as like a farm dog, so I don’t think he had any formal training or was really an inside dog until we got him.

Over the past year or so his behavior has been extremely bad. Not in an aggressive way, he just constantly whines and barks. It doesn’t stop. It’s to the point where I can’t even step away to take a shower because he goes insane. Even if I’m laying with him, he will still just look at me and whine and bark. If I leave the house he will bark until I come home. And he’s not left alone. He’s in the house with my family, but when he’s upstairs (I live in a basement apartment) he goes crazy and won’t settle and lay down. But he doesn’t show any other anxious behaviors other than barking he doesn’t destroy anything. He doesn’t go to the bathroom in the house. So I’m unsure if it’s separation anxiety.

I think he acts this way due to boredom, I try all I can he is extremely leash reactive. He will lunge and go crazy the second he’s on a leash. I have a giant backyard and I take him out to try to play, but he’s not interested in toys. He just wants to run around and dig and bark at neighbors. We’ve tried the dog park many times, he doesn’t dislike other dogs, but he’s not super interested in them and he prefers to runoff by himself and do his own thing. Which is ok! But i’m worried that if a dog approached him the wrong way he would get mad.

I know this is long, and hopefully it makes sense but I just don’t know what to do. It’s affecting me mentally really bad. I am in constant stress 24/7. I don’t know what to do/what’s wrong. He’s vet says he’s heathy.

And yes! I’ve tried professional training. The only way to get the barking to stop is when we provide him with some type of enrichment toy/treat. Then he’s quite until he’s done

​

Hi everyone. I’m really looking for some advice and support from anyone who has gone through this.

I have a dog who is an absolute sweetheart at home—extremely gentle, loving, and calm with everyone. The problem starts when we go out for walks. Whenever he spots another dog on the street (and most of them bark first), he completely transforms. He gets extremely nervous, reactive, and starts lunging, trying to get to the other dog at all costs.

This is turning our walks into a total nightmare. I feel an overwhelming amount of anxiety every time we leave the house, and I end up not enjoying the walks with my dog as much as I would like to. I am constantly terrified of running into other animals, scared he will lunge at them and a tragedy will happen.

I really need some advice on how to handle this and how to train him to overcome this behavior. Any tips, training techniques, or support would be greatly appreciated. Tysm ♡

I'm wondering what tips you all have for reducing stimulus on walks. I'm asking because my dog gets amped up when it is loud (cars driving in rain), along with the other regular triggers like dogs, bikes, kids that are too close for his comfort. We try to stick to trails, but sometimes we don't have the time so we will walk him around town. We're unfortunately on a busy road.

Hi all! I am newer to the boarding dog community and while I have my own dog, I will take on watching a couple for some extra money from time to time. With this small experience I have learned it may likely not be for me, and that is ok!
I however would love advice on how to go about the conversation of letting this owner know that their dogs reactivity does need to be addressed. This dog is reactive to any and all dogs on walks and will aggressively bark incessantly. In the times I have watched him, he is only provided a small thin collar and nothing else. I have personally gifted a smaller martingale collar that I no longer used because I was not comfortable with theirs provided. They accepted but I’m unsure you they it. This is an Italian greyhound mix that is probably 20lbs for reference.
There seems to be no training other than the owners avoiding other dogs on their walks, which in the city were in is nearly impossible and honestly quite stressful to deal with daily. I’ve already decided I will no longer be watching the dog as now after a couple close call incidents have happened, it is beyond something i feel comfortable handling. Especially along with my dog that is not reactive.

How would you broach the conversation? Would you at all?

Hi all. First of all, I’d like to say that I have all the sympathy in the world for reactive dog owners. I have a 25-lb ACD/chihuahua rescue (Mac, neutered male, 1yr old) who was very people reactive, and we’ve done literally thousands of dollars of training and have made so much progress. It has been a very tough journey and a long-time coming, but I finally felt like we got to a really good spot and he is people-neutral 80% of the time, and I couldn’t be more proud. We still have some issues, of course.

This just happened literally 1 hour ago and I’m still shaking. I am also partly to blame.

There was an on-leash, unmuzzled, probably 100-lb pitbull on an off-leash dog trail. Mac was off leash and he has pretty good recall, but not perfect. Mac LOVES other dogs, and we’ve never had a bad experience here. He plays with other pups beautifully.

Generally when I see a dog or person ahead, I quickly leash Mac and ask the owner whether the dog is friendly before letting them play. I did NOT see this dog coming, because the owners must have spotted us and stepped off trail to hold their dog back. When the two owners saw Mac approaching, they started fake growling / barking to scare Mac away (wtf????). Mac of course absolutely freaked out, started barking and growling back. The owners couldn’t keep their dog still- it was going absolutely berserk, totally unhinged. It nearly broke free, they had to body check it on the ground, both owners on top of the dog with all their strength. They had an e-collar that they kept firing but it did absolutely nothing but make the dog more crazy. Their prong collar was also totally ineffective. I finally caught Mac because he was running around all over the place freaking out, with absolutely zero recall in this situation. I really thought the dog would kill us both. I was screaming and crying thinking honestly that Mac was going to be totally maimed. He wasn’t- I was finally able to catch him and ran for my life. My sandals fell off, I lost my bag, and I literally went home barefoot. I am so, so traumatized. Mac seems fine but we will see.

My fault was that I had my dog off leash without perfect recall and still some reactivity. I appreciated that they stepped off the trail, but a) why the fuck would they make barking/growling noises, b) why wouldn’t they have their dog muzzled (it could easily break from their grasp on the leash), and c) is it really appropriate to bring such a dog to a dog trail or dog park?

Again I truly empathize with reactive dog owners and I totally understand the wish to have your fur baby have a larger world, beyond protecting and isolating them from triggers. But this was so, so traumatizing I have to vent.

Now I’m very worried we might be faced with many steps backwards and erasing months of progress.

Hello lovely people

I (38M) adopted a romanian rescue pup called ginger who is now 8 months old (I live in the UK). Shes been with me just under two months. I live in a little apartment with no garden.

I just want to share with you her behavior, positive signs and undesirable behaviors she's showing and get some encouragement more than anything. There's not a chance if give her up but I'm becoming a little disheartened to be honest.

So she arrived absolutely terrified as you can imagine. Frozen solid on arrival day. She didn't want to go in her crate and chose a safe space under my clothes rack in my bedroom. I let her stay there for a few weeks (around 3) she was having accidents on the carpet so I moved her into the living room where I made her a den under my breakfast bar as advised by a behaviorist I hired. The den was long and she was just hiding in the dark for days and weeks. I shortened the safe space and pulled it out more towards towards the living area and she decided it was safer to jump on the sofa next to me (I was fine with this). She is now glued to that spot. She goes to the toilet in a designated spot which is great as I've just lay puppy pads there for now. When something really scares her if I'm not in the room she's ran to me scared which encouraged me as she sees me as safe. That's the situation so far. Now here are some of the behaviours, positive and negative and her emotional state:

Positives/progress:

- she eats well. Full meals and treats and is happy to jump off the sofa to eat the food off a puppy pad.

- the last 5 days when I've come into the living room in the morning, I've been greeted with a wagging tail whilst she's lying down, her ears go back and she skuffles over on her belly and gives me a few face kisses which is lovely

- she doesn't bark at all

- she's happy to lie down and relax when I'm also sat on the sofa

Negatives/behavior issues

- she is terrified of everything, noises, furniture, the broom, her water bowl, me at times, I just moved the coffee table calmly and she jumped behind the tv and pooed everywhere.

- she won't let me touch her (pulls back, sits upright) clear signs she doesn't want to be touched. Because of this I haven't taken her outside or even put her collar on.

- she has been ripping/biting through the sofa throws during the night and tears up puppy pads. She doesn't really play with her toys.

I just need some encouragement, or advice on how I should help her progress. Im not in any rush but Its also my first dog and rescue. Any help and support would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Really unsure on how to go about this but my bf has a dog with a bite history (level 2 to best of my knowledge for all incidents). As far as I know there have been multiple incidents with people the dog is not familiar with, and last night with me. I’ve been living with my boyfriend for the past few months now that I’m pregnant and visited a lot prior. This dog is very familiar with me by now, and he will cuddle up and during thunderstorms will find comfort being near me. Well last night he was sleeping next to me and woke up and started licking his paws, after moving his nose away from his paws he went back to licking, so I tried again and he “bit” my hand (did not break skin). My bf immediately woke up from me saying wtf loudly and took him out of the room. There was another incident (no bite involved just a snap) months ago where again he was sleeping next to me and I tried feeling underneath him to see if he was laying on my phone.

It seems the trigger with me at least may be the bed. The issue I’m having is we are moving because our living situation with having roommates is not suitable for trying to introduce him to my dog (who lives at mine/ my brothers house down the street) and now a new baby. My dog is very friendly with other dogs and we have tried on multiple occasions to introduce them together. After a lot of research we figured the only way to make it work is to move them into a new environment together and keep them separated until they “lose interest” in each other. If all else fails then we would hire professionals.

The problem with this plan is now we have a baby on the way (fairly new pregnancy) and with house shopping, closing, moving, etc. eating up time I’m worried they won’t be acclimated with each other before the arrival of our new baby (April 2027). THEN the next hurdle is deciding what to do with his dog once the baby starts to crawl and walk around. One wrong move and he/she could be the next bite victim. We both agreed to keep the dogs (mine included) separated from the baby completely, but I’m worried how realistic it will be once the baby is a toddler.

Does anyone have any advice, suggestions, etc. please?? Also if the consensus is to rehome my boyfriend’s dog how do I have that conversation with him? I feel horrible he’s had his dog for 8+ years, has spent thousands on boarded aggression therapy, and has told me (prior to pregnancy, when we were trying to figure out my dog moving in) he will not get rid of his dog.