When I owned my first reactive dog, I thought I was an experienced dog trainer. I had trained dogs in obedience and agility and search work for about 10 years. I had titled and certified dogs. I thought I had things down. Enter my first German Shepard Dog (GSD), Quincy.
Quincy took to search work right away. He lived for it. He was fairly obedient, but he had times he just would not listen for anything. Even with search work, if he saw another dog, he could not keep his head. He wanted to play and it didn't matter if I had steak as a reward. He would take off and try to get the other dogs to play whenever he was off leash. He would scream and carry on if he was on a leash wanting to go to the other dogs. He valued playing with the other dog over all rewards that I tried. I felt very powerless and others were scared of him. Quincy pushed me as a trainer in ways that no of my other dogs ever did. None of my techniques that had worked with my previous dogs could help when Quincy got into reactive mode. When I desperately was trying to get training help for him, no trainers would help. I was left on my own with no resources, so I started reading books and researching.
Reactivity is not easy. It is a dog that is triggered and is having difficulty in their surroundings. Even if you are an experienced dog trainer, if you have not dealt with reactivity before, it will take you by surprise and make you feel like you know nothing. It is not a matter of forcing the dog to watch things that trigger them or hoping it goes away. Reactivity tends to get worse over time if it is not addressed. I learned a lot about reactivity and did eventually solve Quins issues.
The key to solving reactivity is understanding what is causing it. Thankfully, Quincy was not aggressive or scared. He had an excitement based reactivity. He just couldn't keep his excitement inside. Certain breeds are more prone to reactivity then others. We followed a routine working to desensitize him at a distance from his triggers and gradually moved closer to his triggers as he progressed. We did a lot of attention and focus work and taught him to focus on his handler and ignore things happening around him. We used super high value rewards as well as corrections. Once I started getting him to behave himself in controlled circumstances, we had to take it on the road. I took him to many dog shows and practiced our techniques. At first I had to keep him far from other dogs, but he eventually got used to it and started being able to focus around the other dogs. He even received some obedience and Rally titles. I was able to get him passed it enough to certify him in disaster work where he was tested against other dogs and passed with flying colors. I have seen these techniques work for many other reactive dogs in the years since. If you are dealing with a reactive dog, realize that you are not alone and depending on the causes, it may be able to be fixed with some patience and hard work.
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