By Stephanie Bennett, CPDT-KSA, Owner Believe in Dog Training
If you have a leash reactive dog, you know the feeling when you see another dog approaching from
half a block away and your stomach drops. You probably wind the leash tightly around your hand,
making it very short and tight, your body tenses, and then it happens. The barking, the lunging, the
chaos, while everyone around you stares.
You love this dog with your whole heart, but somewhere along the way, walks started feeling like
something to survive rather than something to enjoy.
Here is the most important thing to understand, and it has nothing to do with training techniques or
behavior modification programs. Before any of that can work, something more fundamental must
shift first. Your mindset.
Your dog is not giving you a hard time. Your dog is having a hard time.
Leash reactivity is one of the most misunderstood behaviors in dogs, largely because it looks so
much like aggression. But a vast majority of reactive dogs are not dog aggressive. What you are
seeing is a dog in genuine emotional distress, overwhelmed, trapped by the leash, unable to escape a
situation that feels threatening or simply too intense to handle.
Think of it like a panic attack. When someone is in the middle of one, you cannot reason them out of
it, bribe them out of it, or punish them out of it. It’s almost like they have gone to another planet. In
my classes, we often say, “they have gone to Mars”. Many leash reactive dogs are experiencing an
emotional response very much like a panic attack, and they would not choose it any more than a
person would choose to have one on a busy sidewalk.
Your dog is not a bad dog. They are not misbehaving. Your dog is having a really hard time, and
somehow the Universe brought you together so you could help them.
Now give yourself the same grace.Dog parents of reactive dogs carry a tremendous amount of guilt, grief, and exhaustion that most
people around them simply do not understand. It’s embarrassing when people stare and the constant
vigilance is exhausting. A lot of parents get very emotional wondering what they’ve done wrong and
feel guilty that they’re frustrated with the dog they adore. It’s truly disheartening watching other
dogs trot calmly past while yours comes completely unhinged.
All of that is real, and all of it makes sense. But here is what is also true: you are not failing your
dog. If you are seeking help, asking questions, trying to understand, trying to help, that’s not failure.
That is love.
The same compassion you are learning to extend to your reactive dog, patience, understanding, a
willingness to meet them where they are, you deserve that too. Stop comparing yourself with the
person walking the perfectly calm dog across the street. Every dog has something. Every dog parent
is figuring something out.
Do not waste a single day.
If you are lucky, you will have twelve summers with this dog. Twelve. A dog’s life is
heartbreakingly short. The time you spend dreading walks, feeling ashamed, or wishing your dog
were different is time you are not spending loving the dog who is right in front of you. Concentrate
on the long list of things you love about your dog, instead of the short list of things you don’t like.
Find a trainer who understands that changing behavior means changing how your dog feels, not just
what they do. And between now and then, loosen your grip on the leash and on the idea that any of
this makes you a bad dog parent.
Your dog needs your empathy. And so do you.
