Reactive, Not Aggressive: Understanding Why Your Dog Reacts

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence.

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 they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck?

I don't know.

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'd go, Had you met one before?

They go, no.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the 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 is Jack Lawrence, Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer, of course, brought to you by the legends at Knowse, the multi-award-winning Australian pet insurance. If you're looking for a partner in caring for your dog or cat, Knowse is worth checking out, spelt knose.com.au, issued by Pacific International Insurance. Max, we are talking more about reactivity. In our previous episode, we spoke about basically how you handle reactivity with your clients and how people can go about dealing with reactivity. But we're going to talk today about the different types of reactivity because there's plenty of those.

Yeah, that's it. It's definitely an issue that can present pretty similarly. But when you really boil it down, you can see there's quite a few different sources of reactivity or different driving forces behind it. And I always think it's really important for people to understand their dog because it does somewhat dictate how we approach the training plan. And, um, just when we can empathize with our dog a little bit too and be like, oh, that's what you're feeling, you're not just being a dick, or you're not this sociopath, like you're feeling this, or I'm doing this that's causing this, etc. So today I'd like to just break it down. You could definitely argue there's, you know, if you wanted to get really, really nitty-gritty, you could argue there's maybe more types, but then we're kind of just getting bogged down in language for the sake of it. I think most trainers would agree there's kind of 3 main types of reactivity, and we'll go through them now.

Sure.

So the first type is what we call your defensive or fear-based reactivity. That's when a dog is genuinely just scared of dogs and is pretty freaked out and is doing so purely— or reacting, sorry— purely just out of self-preservation. They think if they don't react that they're going to get hurt. And this can stem from one of 2 things: either a lack of exposure or really negative exposure. So a lot of You know, reactive dogs I see are 5 or 6 years old that were bought during COVID got no exposure early on, and still to this day, that's just a bit of a deep-rooted thing where they didn't grow up around something, so they don't feel super comfortable and relaxed. I'll give you an example, right? I didn't grow up around horses. At some point in my life, someone I was seeing was, you know, big into horses, and I never truly felt comfortable when we'd go there and be around them and stand in the paddock.

I don't trust this animal.

Yeah, I don't trust it. Be watching over my shoulder. What's it doing? Like, and I was low-level reactive to horses. Not because I'd ever had anything happen, just because I didn't trust those things because I just never grew up around them. So it was a lack of exposure. The other side of things is negative exposure, and that can be, you know, from a dog attack. That can even just be taking a puppy to a puppy preschool at a pet shop where they stick all 10 dogs in the middle and let them all wrestle, and your dog can get reactive off the back of that.

Mm-hmm.

So in terms of what constitutes a negative experience is is really different dog to dog. For example, Nelson gets dogs flip out at him every day, just from a metre from his face at work. But he's a really resilient dog and can handle it. And then other dogs' origin stories for their reactivity is, oh, this dog one day sniffed him for too long between the legs and now he hates all dogs and wants to kill them. So it can be—

Some dogs are just easier triggered than others. Just like people, I suppose.

Yeah, that's it. I think some, some dogs are definitely more predisposed to it than others because they're sensitive. So that's your first type of reactivity where dogs are, you know, defensive or fear-based. They're purely doing this because they don't want the dog to come near them. This can look confusing because sometimes they're lunging at the end of the leash and they're looking like they're really wanting to bite someone.

Yeah, it looks like they're aggressive, but they're actually more of a just, yeah, all bark and no bite.

That's it. And what we're generally seeing is that dog is doing this big display and the, and you know, that display subsides the further away the dog moves and they're, oh cool, it worked. And then they become convinced, hey, I don't trust dogs. That one was going to come and get me. It wasn't. I did this big bark and the dog went away. Problem solved. But you can also get some dogs who are, you know, reactive and will act aggressively. They've gone from fearful to fearless at some point. They've gone, all right, there's a dog. It's miles away. I'm going to bark and tell it to go away. But at some point, the closer it gets, if we keep overexposing our dog, your dog's going to go, okay. I thought flight was my best option. Now fight is my best option. And that can be confusing because people go, oh, I, you know, I think he's just a real bad dog. I think he wants to fight. No, no, no. He's just, he's just doing this. And, or people can say, I also get people say he's just scared. He would never actually bite. But yeah, some of them will.

Like any animal, you back it into a corner, it's terrified. It's going to lash out.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's it. So, yeah. Definitely what we see there is, um, is your fear-based bark or your defensive reactivity. Generally, we'll see like that much deeper bark to try and warn them off. They'll try and posture themselves up and make them look a bit tough. You can either see really coward language, like slunking head, curled under tail, and sort of barking like over their shoulder a bit more, or you can see more like really posturing themselves, making them look as big as possible. And, um, yeah, both kind of stem from the same source. That's type 1. I'd say Nearly half of dogs fall into this category.

Yeah.

Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance.

Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends.

You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, More availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as 2 days, not the national 48-day average.

See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com/startnow.

That's growtherapy.com/startnow. growtherapy.com/startnow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

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The second type is what we call barrier frustration or frustration-based reactivity. And what this is, is a dog wants to get to the other dog so bad, and they're so used to getting their own way that they actually just lose their shit over it and have a full-on meltdown.

Like throw a tantrum.

Yeah, have a full-on tantrum. And it can— the thing is with it is some dogs you can just drop the lead. Oh, all that frustration melts away. They go, thank you, and the issue subsides.

Okay.

Think of it like a kid going berserk at the shops. You go, fine, have what you want. They go, oh, thanks. Just flick like that. And then other, other types of this barrier of frustration is sometimes they get themselves so worked up that now they're just pissed off and they will be violent to the next dog that they come across. Like if they've just, they've been pissed off and provoked enough. Um, but this, this is, uh, frustration-based reactivity. Like I said, there's a couple of common denominators here. It's almost always using the wrong equipment. A lot of these dogs are generally on harnesses, so they enjoy pulling at the end of the leash. If you've seen like videos of Nelson doing protection work, or it's always jumped in the groups, always on a harness, always back tight, it's always holding him back, and he gets pissed off that he can't get to the sleeve quick enough. That's just creating frustration, and Nelson gets frustrated enough that he will bite someone. That's his protection training, essentially, to a degree. So one of the common denominators is almost, almost always wrong equipment, and it's almost always kind of an imbalance between the dog and the owner. The dog just doesn't respect the owner. Simple as that. They'll just go, they'll happily have a meltdown. They'll flip out and they just, because they're just so used to getting their own way that when it doesn't go their way in that 1% of their life, they lose their shit. Same with a lot of separation cases for that matter.

Same with children. Don't give them rules, boundaries, and limitations. They just become little assholes and they'll throw a fit and they don't care because they're like, I don't care. Like, you know, it's just like my children wouldn't, won't throw a fit in public. They do it at home, but they won't do it in public. Because then they know that I won't put up with that.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, spoil that— if you spoil a dog and you give it no— this is the problem. And this is the issue you find so often is like people don't give dogs enough rules.

Yeah.

They just, they're like, oh, you know, it's one, it's, it's a— anyway, let's not go down that road. But this is the problem. I think people just don't like to put rules on their dogs because they're their dogs and they love them. Um, and, and they don't realize they're actually doing them a disservice.

Oh, 100%. Like even if we were to leave them Completely wild. They come up with their own rules in amongst their own groups. Hey, you can't go here.

Well, you see dogs correcting each other. It's freaking violent.

Yeah, exactly. It's insane when some people freak out over things like using a spray bottle, saying no, or tugging on a leash. But I'm like, if we let them decide, they'll just bite each other. Like, I don't know which one I'd rather.

But yeah, I mean, even when I make my dog sit for its meal and look at me before she can eat, I mean, some people think that's militant and too much. I'm like, okay.

Oh, look at that robot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Insane, isn't it?

But so like with that frustration bait reactivity, like I, like I think of this where like if you saw a kid having an absolute meltdown at the shops of like, Mum, I want that, and just freaking out, you wouldn't say that kid never gets their own way. That you go, oh no, that kid's used to getting their own way.

Yeah.

And they're pissed off that now they're not. And that's it, is the dogs that never get their own way go, cool, this fits. This is a dynamic. You tell me what to do, I listen. Sweet. It's the dogs who get their way 99% of their life, and then there's these one or two areas of their life that they can't control. Hey, I really want to see that dog. Nah, sorry dude, I'm gonna put my foot down.

You can't. Ah.

Or, hey, I'm used to pushing you around, but now you leave the house. Ah, they flip out. Like, yeah. So that one's a— that one's, you know, can be a bit easier to solve as well. Like, generally when we improve the owner's handling, flip around their relationship dynamics, give them an outlet. Like, if A lot, again, a lot of dogs crave feeling frustrated. For us, it's not a nice feeling, but a lot of dogs actually quite like the whole conflict nature of that situation. And again, kind of thrive on it. Again, like Nelson enjoys his bite work, but he spends most of that hour incredibly frustrated that he can't bite that person quick enough. So, you know, our dogs can really enjoy that. So we want to give them an outlet for their frustration. The last type is just some dogs are just crazy overstimulated and have a bit of a shot nervous system. Like, there's not an exact name for this really, but we just call them dogs who are just like overstimulated really. And because they are, you know, not crate trained, they don't— aren't mat trained, the owner never tethers them, the owner never plays with them, the dog never really has any proper downtime or any proper uptime to exhaust them. They just kind of live this state in this constant like undertired, overtired, not stimulated, overstimulated kind of system. And then they just kind of flip out at pretty much any new thing in their environment, like, you know, a doorbell, ah, person out the front, ah, going on a walk, seeing a car or a dog and they bark. So some of those dogs, that's just more nervous system-based reactivity, I'd say. Yeah. So I guess dogs like this, if I'm just making a bit of a generalisation, is when you see your little small, white, fluffy, barky dogs.

Yes.

Again, a lot of these people that own them are maybe a little bit older, maybe aren't as good as a dog owner as they Maybe used to be, have maybe got some old school beliefs. So all this dog does is it kind of just is understimulated all day, is not made to do anything or have any structure. They don't— they just sit there twiddling their thumbs and they just end up with a really flared up nervous system and they go out the house just agitated and cranky and just overwhelmed by life. And yeah, they flip out at everything.

My neighbour over the road, she's got one of those.

Yeah.

Just, yeah, just so reactive. Just ridiculous reactive.

Yeah, that's it.

And that's it. It's not, it's not fully scared because it will run right up and sniff you.

No, no, absolutely not scared at all.

Yeah.

Or, and it's, and it doesn't want to get there and play. Like, it's not frustrated by that. It's genuinely just like this overstimulated little bulging eyeballed dog.

Overweight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

So generally we categorize our owners into those 3 and sometimes there can be confusing situations where dogs can be a bit of a mix of this and that. And, and, uh, yeah, but that's, that's generally the types of reactivity we see. And it's, and it's important to understand because, um, it does somewhat affect, yeah, how we, how we approach things, how long things might take, and understanding what's going on in their head can, yeah, I think it's beneficial for the owner to know rather than just seeing them as a dickhead or reactive or whatever.

Yeah, I know we've spoken about, you know, sometimes reactivity cases, it's a situation of management as opposed to fixing.

Yep.

How is that easy enough to diagnose if someone comes to you with a dog and you just think, You know what, I don't actually think we're going to fix this. I think it's just more of a management situation.

Yeah, I think it's, it's no, it's, it's generally never a determination we make straight away. A couple of the, a couple of, um, situations that will make me think this is a management case is if the dog's really, really extreme, the owner's absolutely not competent, and maybe even suggest like, hey, I think your dog would be happier elsewhere because they don't like being this way, but you're not capable of providing that environment for them, um, and the owner's sort of refusing to move on.

I go, cool.

Well, and, and I just like to be honest with people, like, this is the best it's going to get because they will only improve as much as you can improve, and that's not going to be substantial or fast enough. So there's times like that. The other times is sometimes a dog's been done, and sometimes done some good training, but they've improved, regressed, improved, regressed multiple times. So maybe they've seen a trainer the owner's fallen off the bandwagon. They've seen enough of this trainer and then another dog's attacked them. And at some point your dog just goes, I know what you're doing. I call bullshit. I've seen dogs are dangerous so many times now that I just— nah, I don't buy it.

Yeah.

And it's really sad. Sometimes we'll see people who their dog's been attacked 4 or 5 times. They go, we've been working on this for years. And just as it gets better, something else happens. And that's really shitty. Um, or sometimes when dogs are like in their senior years, I'll train adult dogs, but the moment they kind of flick over where you go, Oh, they're getting pretty old now. I kind of just leave them alone at that point. They don't want to be, you know, then it's just a management thing. Hey, stop pissing them off. It's their last year or two on earth. But also we're not going to make any headway with something that's just literally done their entire life and they're too old now to be motivated or think or take on anything new. There are a few times when we'll just say it's more of a management thing than anything, I'd say.

Well, if you've got any questions about reactivity, then make sure you jump on the Dog People Podcast Facebook group.

But don't forget Reactivity Rewire.

Is Max's brand new course. You don't have to be where we are to be able to do it either. You can do it online. Max has got a couple of online clients. You can check that out at Down Under Dog Trainer on Instagram and get in touch with Max and the team.

We'll put a link down below.

Yes, link in the show notes of this episode. So make sure you check that out.

Until next time.

Bye.

Pumpkin production, hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

Boom!

No!

Come on, kids, what should we order for dinner?

Pizza!

Thai!

Tacos!

Hey boys, let's not get local. What kind of restaurant sells pizza, Thai, and tacos? Oliver, please! Oh my gosh, why can't we have food without the fuss?

With Wonder, you can combine 20 restaurants in one delivery so your family never has to compromise. Use code MEALTIME for 50% off your first Wonder order. Terms apply. See wonder.com/newcustomer.

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