22/01/2025
🐾 Understanding the Layers of Reactive Behaviour in Dogs: Why Slowing Down is Key for Both You and Your Dog 🐾
When it comes to reactive behaviour in dogs, it’s never just about what you see on the surface. Underneath those moments of barking, lunging, or growling, there are layers of emotional and physiological responses that contribute to how your dog behaves. These layers are often complex, and understanding them is essential to truly helping your dog, and yourself make progress.
The Layers of Reactive Behaviour: What’s Going On Under the Surface?🤔❓
Reactive behaviour in dogs can stem from a variety of sources, such as bad experience (trauma), genetics, diet, health, undiagnosed pain, learning history, breed traits, and environmental factors to name just a few. I must stress too, that we often find dogs have several contributing factors, it rarely, if never comes down to one element.
Let’s have a look at the most common driving forces behind reactive behaviour.🧐
1. Fear & Anxiety
Many reactive behaviours are rooted in fear or anxiety. Your dog may react aggressively to a person, another dog, or a new environment because they feel threatened or overwhelmed. This fear isn’t always obvious, but it’s often the underlying trigger for barking, growling, or lunging.
2. Frustration & Overstimulation
Dogs who have trouble managing their emotions may act out of frustration. For example, a dog who wants to play with another dog but can’t get close enough might react by barking or pulling on the lead. Overstimulation when too much is happening at once can also trigger reactivity.
3. Past Experiences & Trauma
A dog’s history plays a major role in reactive behaviour. Dogs who have had negative or traumatic experiences, such as abuse or poor socialization, may react out of fear or a learned defensive response. These past experiences can create a pattern of reactivity that takes time to unravel.
4. Lack of Confidence
Dogs who lack confidence or social skills often react out of uncertainty. They may not know how to respond appropriately to new situations, people, or other animals, and their way of coping can manifest as reactive behaviour.
5. Overwhelming Sensory Input
Some dogs are more sensitive to their environment than others. Loud noises, unfamiliar scents, or even visual stimuli can overload a dog’s senses and cause a reactive outburst.
Why It’s So Important to Slow Things Down for Both You and Your Dog?🙏
When managing reactive behaviour, slowing down is one of the most effective strategies for both you and your dog. In fact, it’s often the key to making meaningful progress. Here’s why:
1. Reacting Too Quickly Can Escalate Stress
If you push your dog too hard, too fast, or expect them to “just get over it,” it can cause their stress levels to spike even higher. Reactivity can quickly turn into a cycle of heightened anxiety, and your dog might become even more reactive the next time they encounter a trigger.
Slowing things down gives both you and your dog the space to process the situation. This can help reduce stress and prevent the behaviour from escalating.
2. Time to Observe and Understand Your Dog’s Needs
By slowing down, you can take the time to observe your dog’s body language and behaviour more carefully. You might notice subtle signs of stress or fear, like a stiff body, wide eyes, or lip licking that indicate your dog is feeling overwhelmed before they react. Understanding these early warning signs helps you intervene earlier, preventing a full-blown reactive episode.
Look for early signals; Is your dog stiffening their body, looking away, or yawning? These can be signs they’re becoming uncomfortable and may need to be removed from the situation before it escalates.
3. Building Confidence Takes Time
It’s easy to get caught up in the need for “quick fixes,” but confidence-building is a gradual process. By slowing things down, you allow your dog to learn at their own pace, building their coping skills and resilience. This ensures that progress is sustainable and doesn’t overwhelm them.
4. Creating Positive Associations
When you slow things down, you create more positive experiences for your dog. Instead of rushing through stressful situations, you can use desensitization and counter-conditioning techniques to pair triggers with rewards in a way that doesn’t overwhelm your dog. Over time, this can help change your dog’s emotional response to triggers, making them less reactive.
5. Less Pressure on You as the Owner
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed as an owner when your dog is reactive, but when you slow down, you give yourself the opportunity to stay calm and in control. You can focus on your dog’s needs without feeling rushed, which helps you to be more effective in your responses and ensures you’re teaching your dog with patience and empathy.
How to Slow Things Down Effectively🤩
Slowing things down doesn’t mean stopping altogether, it’s about finding the right pace for your dog’s needs. Here are a few practical tips:
1) Work at your dog’s pace: Gradually expose your dog to triggers at a level where they feel comfortable. For example, if your dog is reactive around other dogs, start by keeping a large distance between them and the other dog and reward calm behaviour.
2) Break down training sessions: Keep training sessions short and positive. Focus on one small goal at a time, whether it’s teaching your dog to look at you instead of a trigger or rewarding them for staying calm in a stressful situation.
3) Allow time for recovery: After a stressful encounter or training session, allow your dog to recover in a calm, quiet space. Don’t rush them back into another challenging situation too soon. This is extremely important, as every time a dog goes into fight or flight mode it triggers the sympathetic nervous system to fire up certain chemicals and physiological changes in the body to get ready for ‘fight or flight’, it can take several days for the dog’s system to recover. Trying to train your dog when he is in this state will be extremely challenging and non-beneficial. You will also find your dog is more reactive, and more sensitive in the presence of the stimulus the following day.
4) Be mindful of your own emotions: Dogs are incredibly sensitive to their owner’s emotions. If you’re feeling stressed or anxious, your dog will pick up on that and may react more intensely. Take a deep breath, stay calm, and take breaks when needed.
Final Thoughts
Reactivity is layered, nuanced, and deeply connected to your dog’s emotional and mental state. Understanding these layers is essential to offering the right kind of support. By slowing things down, you not only help your dog process their feelings but also create a more positive, rewarding experience for both of you.
Remember, progress takes time, and managing reactivity is a journey that requires patience and compassion, both for your dog and yourself. Take it one step at a time, and trust that with understanding, support, and consistency, you and your dog will move forward together.🙌
🐾 How have you found slowing down to be helpful in your journey with your reactive dog? Share your experience in the comments! ⬇️
🐾Are you ready to get professional help for you and your reactive dog? Would you like to work with me?
For more information you can book a FREE discovery call with me using this link: https://calendly.com/canine-reactive/discovery-call
Alternatively head over to the website at www.caninereactive.com
