Our reactivity story: why is Scout afraid of other dogs?

My blue heeler Scout is (or was) what you’d commonly call “reactive”. When she saw another dog, she’d display a range of intense and unsavory behaviors: raising her hackles, growling, barking, sometimes lunging at the end of the leash.

I’ll never forget the first time it happened. We were in a pet store a few days after she had been pinned to the ground by a dog we passed on the sidewalk, and out of nowhere (or so it seemed at the time) she started barking at something on the other side of the aisle shelf.

Turns out there was another dog staring at her through a crack in the cat food display.

I was dumbfounded, and I felt entirely out of control. How had this happened? What did I do wrong? Was every other shopper looking at me like I was an awful owner?

Over the next few days, her behavior got worse and worse — until she was going crazy at every dog we passed, even if they were a full street block away.

She looked wild, but she was actually terrified.

We’ve come a long way since then. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what turned my timid, sweet shelter dog into a raging lunatic at the sight of her own species. We’ve spent even more time working through it so we can be respectful and enjoy each other’s company in public.

There are some things I’ll never know (and dwelling isn’t productive anyway) but this is Scout’s “reactivity story” as I see it.

Just how, exactly, did she become so afraid of other dogs?

What is dog reactivity?

“What is dog reactivity?” is a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one.

Owners and trainers frequently use the term in slightly different ways. Usually, “reactive” denotes a dog who reacts inappropriately to stimuli in his or her environment.

Technically, every dog is reactive in the sense that every dog reacts in some way to what’s going on. A glance is a reaction. A yawn is a reaction. Making space is a reaction.

But when talking dog training, the label “reactive” usually indicates that the dog reacts in ways we humans find inappropriate. Think things like lunging, flipping at the end of the leash, baring teeth, growling, barking, standing on hind legs, or any other behavior that looks reasonably terrifying to a bystander.

“Types” of dog reactivity

It would be remiss to ignore the countless nuances when it comes to categorizing a reactive dog. Straightforward answers often don’t exist! In general, though, dog trainers talk about two different types of reactivity:

1. Barrier or boundary frustration
2. Fear reactivity

Barrier frustration is when an otherwise-friendly dog turns into a monster at the sight of other dogs on leash. This is because he or she really wants to “say hi” or investigate — and being contained is frustrating!

In many cases, dogs with boundary frustration reactivity are quite social. They might have lots of friends at the dog park or attend regular daycare. Their outbursts are generally the result of not being able to get where they want to go.

Fear reactivity, on the other hand, is when a dog reacts out of insecurity. They don’t want the stimulus to get any closer because they’re afraid of it. While being on a leash might be part of the problem because it takes away their “flight” option in the classic fight-or-flight framework, it’s for the opposite reason of a boundary-frustrated dog.

My favorite way to explain Scout’s fear reactivity to friends and family is relating her to a porcupine. When she sees another dog, she’s scared — so she “puffs up” and tries to look scary herself in hopes that it will go away.

She doesn’t want to cause harm (in fact, she’ll submit instantly if another dog actually approaches her). The reason she reacts is in hopes to avoid a fight: to keep her distance.

The building blocks of Scout’s dog reactivity

It’s impossible to know for certain what caused Scout’s dog reactivity. At our lowest points, I’ve spent hours lying awake at night wishing I could just ask her myself.

But while I might never know exactly what goes on in her little brain and body, a few things definitely set her up with a predisposition to reactive behavior.

Genetics: cattle dog breed and recent ancestors

Australian cattle dogs (also known as red or blue heelers) are notorious for being “reactive” to other dogs or people.

As a protective herding breed, cattle dogs are highly attentive to everything around them. Watchful eyes and sensitive ears don’t miss much! For generations, we intentionally bred them to be territorial and distrusting of strangers — and their strongly ingrained herding drive can display itself through reactivity as well.

While Scout isn’t a purebred blue heeler, she is about 95 percent cattle dog and 5 percent German shepherd according to an Embark DNA test.

This tells us two big things:

1. She’s almost full cattle dog. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect the vast majority of her breed traits to come from being a heeler!
2. She is not well-bred. A reputable breeder likely wouldn’t have a small amount of GSD in their ACD lines. From this, we can guess that her parents probably weren’t temperament screened or health tested.

And a breeder who doesn’t health and temperament test likely also doesn’t carefully socialize their litters — which leads us to consider her previous experiences.

Previous experiences: unknown past and socialization

I’m pretty confident Scout was not exposed to other dogs very much in the first year and a half of her life.

She came into the Humane Society of Marathon County as a stray in the fall of 2018. They estimated her to be between one and two years old — and she was already quite insecure around other dogs.

She didn’t have any interest in playing with them, and she puffed up during one of her on-leash greeting screenings. Given her age, I’d guess that she hadn’t necessarily gone through a bad experience with other dogs yet — I think she just didn’t have many good experiences.

A lack of exposure to a stimuli can be just as damaging as a negative exposure.

When I met Scout, her shelter card said “could use help with confidence around other dogs”. I didn’t fully understand what that could mean.

The tipping point of forced on-leash greetings

So here I was with a dog who was delightful and sweet and also painfully timid. She was nervous in most situations, and I remember her hackling when we first walked through the door of our apartment complex that smelled of other dogs.

I wanted to be confident for her. So many people had told me how dogs can pick up on their owner’s energy — so I decided I would be brave.

When we saw another dog approaching us on the sidewalk, I worked hard to act like it was no big deal. If they sniffed her, I didn’t do anything. This was normal, I told myself. Just keep swimming.

But deep down, I was scared, too.

Looking back, I wish I would have taken those first few weeks to build more trust with her. To show her that I understood other dogs made her uncomfortable. To build a foundation that I wouldn’t force her into it… so that when I did introduce her, she’d believe I had it under control.

Instead, though, I led her straight into several on-leash greetings. She tolerated them well on the surface, but her body language was all fear and insecurity: tucked tail, ears back, slight cower.

The writing was on the wall.

The attack that made her reactivity emerge

And then, about two weeks after I adopted her, she was attacked.

We were walking down the sidewalk. I saw a dog and owner up ahead, and — as I’d done in the past, believing it was the right move — decided to think nothing of it.

When we walked by, the other dog pulled to the end of his flexi lead. He lunged at Scout, pinning her to the ground almost instantly. To this day, I’ve never heard her yelp so loudly. She cried. They flailed. I felt my blood freeze and then boil.

When the other owner finally dragged her dog away, I was at a complete loss.

What the hell just happened?

Scout wasn’t physically hurt — there was no blood on her speckled coat — but she was never the same mentally.

In the next few days, I tried again to “not make a big deal of thigs”. My motto: act like nothing happened. We saw a few more dogs without huge incident, but we were both shaken.

And finally, once Scout saw that I wasn’t going to do anything about keeping other canines away, she took it upon herself.

Her reactivity emerged full force.

I would do a lot differently — but I can’t

If I am 100 percent honest, I will tell you this: I think I could have prevented Scout’s dog reactivity.

If only time travel was possible! I could take a better approach to socialization. I could avoid on-leash greetings and build more confidence. Maybe the past year would have looked completely different.

But I can’t change the past — and wishing I could does nothing but set me up for an emotional guilt trip.

The truth is that I did the best I could at the time. I was trying for her. I did care. We made some mistakes, and then we had to deal with them.

We do the best we can with the information we have. And then, when we learn and know better, we do better.

Every future dog I own will benefit from my experiences with Scout. And I will always beat myself up, at least a little, for the ways I feel I’ve failed her.

But I choose to focus instead on how far we have come as a team.

One of the most important things I’ve learned through owning a “reactive” dog is that we need to forgive ourselves. Dwelling on what I could have done to prevent her fear is useless, because the reality is that we are where we are.

What defines us now is not what we have been through — it’s how we move forward.

I will take these lessons into every future dog relationship I have. I will share them in hopes that others can learn from our mistakes without having to make their own.

And in the meantime, I will continue to work with my wonderful, goofy, resilient dog. I will learn from her, I will love her, and we will keep growing.

How we train through her dog reactivity

Over many months of tears and insecurity and blunders and podcasts and books and conversations and experiences, we have developed a reactivity training strategy that works for us. You can read complete details in this blog!

At it’s simplest, we:

• Build Scout’s impulse control and ability to be calm
• Work hard to create clarity and consistency so she isn’t unduly stressed
• Stop negative patterns of behavior
• Try to change her emotional response to other dogs

There are countless ways to work with a reactive dog. I am not a professional trainer, and this is just what works for our individual lifestyle.

If you have a reactive dog of your own, the best advice I can give you is to find a trainer (whether in person or virtually) whose philosophy aligns with your unique lifestyle and goals. Getting behind the “why” of everything you do with your dog is absolutely pivotal to seeing the change you want.

I’ve benefitted through learning from multiple different trainers, talking to different owners, and ultimately evaluating what makes the most sense for us.

Reactive dog owners: you aren’t alone

Dog reactivity can be an immensely emotional, difficult, and isolating thing to deal with. These feelings are only made worse when we’re inundated with silly memes and cute photos and general societal perceptions of how our dogs “should” be.

If your dog struggles with inappropriate reactions, you are not alone. I see you — and you absolutely can work through this.