Reactive Dogs: Why It Happens and How to start to Fix It

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, a podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout. It's okay, it's friendly. My name's Jack Lawrence, Max O'Neill, the Down Under Dog Trainer, and Max, we're proudly brought to you by Nose Pet Insurance. So big shout out to the team at Knowse. Check out more about them at knowse.com.au. That's spelled K-N-O-S-E dot com dot au, issued by Pacific International Insurance. Pumped to have the team on board. But Max, now you have just recently released a new training program, Reactivity Rewire, through Down Under Dog Trainer. So I thought, why not let us talk about the topic of reactivity? Because fair to say, probably the biggest one that people face when it comes to dog issues is reactivity to something, whatever that might be, whether Whether it's things out in the world, other dogs, people, et cetera.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, we launched it last week. It's going really well so far. And we just wanted to create basically a one-stop shop for reactive dog owners rather than going and seeing this person for this, that person for that, you know, buying this online course, this equipment. It's just basically go, hey, like, come to us, we'll sort it all for you. It's a start-to-finish program. And yeah, so far the results and everything we're getting out of it are really, really good. It's not just for people on the Gold Coast. We're open Australia-wide and internationally. We just signed up someone from Melbourne who's completing the program remotely, and I've actually got a call with someone from the US, funnily enough, with a dachshund.

A dachshund being reactive? I will never hear such a thing.

Exactly. Exactly.

Are they quite possibly the most reactive breed on the planet?

By far and away. I wouldn't even have to run our numbers on it. It's, it's like dachshunds, herding breeds, chihuahuas. Sorry to the dachshund

owners out there, but

I think they know, they know. They're great dogs. They're cool. But man, they're—

I mean, as we know, they're hunting dogs, basically. They're bred to go down holes and kill things and then people put them in their handbags or they go, oh, they're so cute because they're so tiny.

And then they just become reactive. Yeah. And then they make them reactive and then decide, you know what the world needs? 10 more of these. I'm going to breed with my neighbors. Yeah.

So, so talking about reactivity, right? So say I've got a reactive dog. What, what's, what, what should I be doing? Like step 1, what's step 1 when I go, okay, well, my dog's reacting. Uh, why, how do I stop this? You know, where do I start other than coming to you for the program?

Yeah, cool. So the way we approach reactivity, like, we, we actually treat the reactivity last. That for us is like the, you know, the final piece of the puzzle. There's way more things we have to do in the background first before we even get to that, get to that point. So we like to kind of give owners a bit of a checklist to go through, and once we go through that checklist and get our dogs in the best frame of mind possible That's where we go, okay, now we can start to do exposure work, because exposure work to the triggers is the toughest part for us as handlers and for our dogs. So one of the first things we look at is health. We like to see, is that dog, you know, actually got a clean bill of health, or is there something affecting them that's maybe causing this behaviour? And it might sound silly, and I think one, you know, one thing we don't do well as a dog world is we sometimes take things too literally or too far. So a lot of people say, oh, don't humanize the dog or don't anthropomorphize, whatever that, you know, that word, your dog. But the problem is sometimes you go too far down that route and like, think of it this way, right? Like, let's just say you've had the worst day ever. You've been out and, you know, you've recorded a whole episode that didn't properly record. Your mic was broken, your soundboard stuffed up. And then just before you leave, you leave to go to the studio, you tell one of the kids, hey, can you please put your bike away? Right. And then you come back and you, you know, had a shitty day and then you stub your toe on that bike and you like flip your lid. You're like, oh, we wouldn't go, whoa, Jack's got a serious reactivity problem to bikes on the ground. What I'm going to do is let's take him 20 meters away from it, show him that bike for a second, give him a chocolate, and then hide the bike. And let's do that until Jack can handle looking at it again. We'd be like—

It probably would work with me, to be honest.

Well, we can try. Um, we'd say, all right, no, like, all good. Jack's got some other stuff going on. And our dogs are no different. So You know, same, like I can be, you know, grouchy if I bite my lip and I've got a sore lip. I am so short for the rest of the day. Like it completely throws my day out. If I've got like a bad back, like, yeah, I'm grumpy as shit too. And, and so can our dogs be. They, they can be living with pain. They could be living with gut issues. They can also have things like hyperthyroidism that bloody triggers their hormones into overdrive. And then they're just, you know, living in a very, very elevated state. So we first look at the dog's, you know, clean bill of health, go get them vet checked, get them looked at and see if there's anything going on, especially if you assume something.

So every time someone comes to you and says, Max, I've got a reactive dog, I need help, you say, right, first things first, go to the vet.

Yeah. In our consult form, we go, yeah, absolutely. Go, go get them looked at. Like, well, when was the last time you went? And sometimes, like, if, if I'm speaking to this person, I can tell this person's got a good diet, they're genuinely attentive to their dog, then, then no. But a lot of times if I see a dachshund, I go, okay, your dog's 3 kilos overweight, their belly's dragging on the ground, you haven't clipped their nails in a year. And that, you know, I think everything's probably sore and this is partially the contributing factor.

Right.

So yeah, it's definitely, definitely one starting place. From there, we'll start to look at the dog's everyday life and look at stress factors that could be influencing this. So it could be that your dog's leaving every walk just in a pissed off state of mind because of things that are going on throughout the day. So think of you with the bike, right? If you had had the best day ever, if you'd just gone for a massage, had the best brekkie, and then you kick your toe on the bike, you'd be like, Oh, well, I better move that. And it wouldn't rattle you so much. And our dogs again are no different. And if anything, can be worse. They live in a very confusing world and life because they don't understand what's going on half the time. And number 2, they have the emotional capacity and regulation abilities of a 2-year-old at best. So, you know, expecting them to flip out at stuff and get stressed is, I think, pretty reasonable. So we like to look at the dog's life and go, okay, like, are there things that are affecting them? Are they having their outlets and needs met? Do they actually understand what's going on, or is the owner giving them lots of conflicting signals half the time? Uh, things like that. You know, we go pretty in-depth with our owners that join our program, uh, through there and look at like, does this dog actually have a lifestyle that's, you know, constantly aggravating it?

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So, so how much do you reckon of the percentage-wise of the reactivity you see is down to a dog just not getting the mental stimulation that it requires as breed-specific?

Yeah. So then, so that's like our third piece. We start to look at like, is this dog just got a supercharged battery? Maybe it lives the, you know, a great life and it's happy, but it's not fully content because its needs aren't being met. I would say like maybe like a quarter of dogs, it's purely from that alone, that are, that are just too charged up. Yeah. But in every reactivity case, it's almost always a common denominator. So like pretty much everyone coming on the program at the moment that we onboard and we have a chat with, we go, oh, you're not doing enough of this, this, or this for your Doberman, Dachshund, Shepherd, Retriever, whatever you've got. There's always something that's not being met. And, um, yeah, they're just riled up. They've got a full battery. Um, you know, go back and listen to that episode. We talk about our dog's breed, mind, uh, and body batteries. And typically most of the dogs that are active in the program have got too much energy in that breed battery. They're just turbocharged, coiled up, and just frustrated as shit. And, um, it actually, you know, they develop an addiction to their reactivity. They, they might get a release. It just becomes a release. And whether it's a conscious addiction because they enjoy it, like a shepherd barking at another dog, and that other dog and owner running away, they might consciously enjoy that. Um, but, you know, subconsciously at least, even a dog who's somewhat scared, their body can still get addicted to the adrenaline and they go out and almost seek that conflict. And it, it might seem weird, as in like, why would a dog want to feel fear? But I mean, it's why we do skydiving and roller coasters and shit like that. Like, it's that thrill of it. And they kind of put themselves in just enough of a danger zone where they get a bit freaked out, but they're like, oh, like Damn, that made me feel so alive. So we like to replace that addiction and give them something else. That's why we're so big on play and making play properly intense and not just, you know, you sitting on your phone while you throw a ball down the hallway. It's properly giving your dog an outlet where they can get adrenalized and really drain that side of themselves so they don't go seeking it elsewhere. So those are the first few things we, we start with before we even, before we even head out. Okay. Once we've got our dog, we're like, all right, our dog's clean bill of health. They're not stressed. They've got their outlets met. From there, we start to move in some training foundations. Again, we won't bother going near a dog unless your dog is food motivated and you've gone through that process or toy motivated or both. You've got to mark a charge and you've got the right equipment. So same if we have someone go, hey, my dog's reactive, can you meet me down at the park and let's have a look at it? We go, okay, you've got a shitty bungee lead from Bunnings. You've got a harness that's falling apart. You brought, you know, you're going to rock up with a handful of food your dog doesn't give a shit about because they're overstimulated and all these other things are not being dealt with. Like, that is never going to go anywhere. So that's a big part of the program, is it's making sure by the time we see you for session 1— and in fact, like, we don't even— we won't even allow you to book your private session until you tick these boxes off, because there's no point. It'll just be a waste of our time and yours if we go there and your dog's not motivated, not looking at you, nothing. Yeah. So it means by the time our owners rock up at session 1, they've ticked a few of these foundations. And they're rearing and ready to go. And then all of a sudden, exposure work is easy. When you've got a dog who's, you know, we know in a clean bill of health, they can think clearly, they're not stressed, their needs are being met, they're motivated to work with you, they— you can clearly communicate to them through a marker system. You've got the right, you know, relevant equipment, not anything that's making it worse. Then exposure work's actually pretty easy. That's not the tricky part at all. So, uh, 2 Malinois just walked past the window.

Yeah, I know. I've seen them before. I've seen them before. Was

it an older lady? Um, didn't actually look at the lady, just looked at the dogs.

Yeah, no, there's 2, the older lady with 2 Malinois. I'm like, oh my Lord, like you've got, yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. She looked like she's doing a good job of it. They were chilling. Nelson enjoyed looking at those.

Um, so with the, I mean, cause I think obviously it's like with everything. I mean, I suppose people with reactive dogs, they want a quick fix, like with everything with dogs, people want a quick fix. And I think unfortunately a lot of, you know, internet and TV stuff, we've spoken about this before. Um, really does a disservice to the situation because I think a lot of people see online, you just get, you know, so many trainers, really, there's some amazing ones, don't get me wrong. But there's also obviously like with everything, there's bad ones with everything, but you see a lot of these videos where they turn up and the dog's super reactive and they have one session and then all of a sudden the dog is not reacting to other dogs.

Yeah. So that, that can be a tricky one. Like it can, it can sometimes just be editing. And I think whether we consciously or subconsciously don't fully understand that. So a lot of people, you know, maybe grew up watching Cesar Millan episodes and like, wow. But it's like, what you're not getting is that 30-minute episode was filmed across 3 months. Or, you know, people see a reel of here's a before and after, and people go, wow. Like, because you— your brain consumes all that in under 90 seconds, you assume that it's a really short process. But again, sometimes the space between the before and after can be 6 months. But the other side of things is you do say, people, hey, hey, here's what was achieved in one session. And to that, I'd say like 2 things, right? Is one, maybe that dog wasn't genuinely as reactive as you would like to think. So we'll have some people come for a consult who, you know, even in the last week who've said, hey, we really want to do your new reactivity program. And the business owner in me goes, fuck yeah, let's get you onboarded. But the dog trainer in me goes, your dog's actually not that reactive. Like, if a couple of little handling tweaks all of a sudden settles them right back down, they go, I don't feel like doing that anymore. It shows like you didn't have as severe issues. So When we see these crazy before and afters in a single session, either maybe they captured some footage of a dog at its absolute worst, but that's not really indicative of how big the issue was. It was maybe much smaller, or they've just suppressed the shit out of that dog and the behaviour.

That— and that's my thing. There's one— I won't name names, but there's one in particular. I'll tell you off air which one I'm talking about, but there's, there's one in particular that I, I see a fair bit of, and it's always the one session fix.

Yeah.

And I, I always think—

Can you, can you say— we can beep it because I want to know who you're talking about. Is it this guy?

Yep. That's him. That's him.

Yeah. And I just, I look at that and I go, you know, they seem to work these miracles and you're just like, I just know it doesn't work like that. It doesn't. It's not that you're just, it's not that simple. Like these things, it takes time. You can't just instantly, I mean, and you look at it and go, well, you know, it looks like it's fixed, but I'm going, when they go home and they go back out walking tomorrow, Yeah, I guarantee the dog's going to react.

Oh, 100%. That's it. Like, we compare it to yo-yo dieting. Like, anything that can, you know, that you can lose that quickly, you can regain just as quick, right?

Yeah.

Um, and it's the same with those reactive dogs in those videos. Again, it's like, if I, if I met a client at the start of a day and it was flipping out at Nelson, if we spent long enough with just the one dog in just the one area, eventually that dog will get tired enough, it would figure out Nelson's no threat.

Yep.

And it would settle down. That's one dog in one environment when the dog's absolutely shattered and it's gone, okay, I've learned to trust one dog. What's gonna happen the next day when it's, like Jack said, back in routine is like, okay, cool, I'm back on my normal walk. That's not that dog I met yesterday. I'm now fully charged again. And a lot of things that happen in our dog's body are involuntary. When our dogs are reacting, they can't help but have this big shot of adrenaline in the arm. They can't help but have this big— Dump of cortisol and feel super stressed. Like, all this is involuntary, and all this is like really heavily conditioned processes for our dogs, and that doesn't just undo like that. That takes a lot of work to properly rewire our dogs so that that's not happening anymore. It's, uh, so yeah, a lot of those single session things, like, either the dog's nowhere near that bad, um, or it's just, yeah, the dog's just been heavily suppressed as well. Like, they might just be like, hey, I know you're terrified of that dog, but you need to be more terrified of me. And then your dog's like, now I'm terrified of 2 things. But if you can't beat them, join them, I'm just going to hold it in. And I'm sitting here shitting my pants, but I'd rather not piss off the trainer. All

right. Well, any issues with reactivity, make sure you obviously jump on the Dog People Podcast Facebook group and Instagram and ask any questions that you've got.

Cool.

The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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