A Pondering on Reactive Dogs

As I have said on a number of posts, I have a reactive dog. His name is Finn, he is an adolescent Border Collie and he is scared of a lot of the world. His fear manifests as barking, growling and lunging. I have lost count of the times people have looked down their noses at me for having such an ‘aggressive’ dog. I used to spend a lot of time saying ‘Sorry, he’s reactive,’ which made no difference at all.

That has got me thinking now. Are we being unfair to our reactive dogs by using that label? Yes, it is a logical one – a dog demonstrating fear aggression is reacting to a trigger. My question is does everyone else out in the wider world understand what is meant by reactivity?
Those of us that live with reactive dogs or who have studied dog behaviour to any level understand the physiological and psychological processes and effects going on in the reactive dog’s body and brain. They know about cortisol and adrenaline, and the effects stress has on the body. They understand the fight or flight response, and the amount of distance that a reactive dog may need around him to feel that he is safe.

What about everyone else? Do they hear the word reactive but mentally translate it to aggressive? The reactions I have had from people I have used that word to would seem to imply that. Canine body language can be subtle and easily misread by those that have not studied and taken the time to learn it. The canine ladder of aggression is a very useful tool, but often the average person on the street can mistake the signals that the dog displays. Many people hear the word aggression and immediately translate it into a term of anger, as it often is in humans. Dogs are not humans – a dog displaying aggressive behaviours is more than likely a scared dog. Dogs can be scared for a whole range of reasons – a food aggressive dog, who people would often label as greedy, is afraid that someone is going to take his food away. I would growl at anyone that tried to take away something I was in the process of eating!

So – are we in fact making things worse for our terrified dogs by calling them reactive? Should we instead be using the words scared, nervous or terrified? I have a yellow lead for Finn that has the word NERVOUS embroidered on it a number of times and that does have an effect at times, although it has been known for someone to come up close enough to upset my dog and ask why it says nervous on the lead. I am afraid I may be a little less than polite at times if I have been repeatedly asked that question and have been known to reply ‘Why do you think?’ before walking away with my now sent over threshold hysterical ball of fluff.

Owning a reactive dog (and particularly walking a reactive dog) is a stressful, emotionally demanding experience at times. I defy any person that lives with one to truthfully say they have never been reduced to tears by a difficult walk. Maybe a change in name would help others to understand and have more empathy. Our dogs are not aggressive, they are not trying to tear anyone’s throat out. They are in fact trying to make something they find very, very scary go away before it can get close enough to hurt them.

My dog is on a lead. All you have to do is move away. I walk my dog on a harness with two points of contact on a lead, and he also wears a head collar with a third lead as an emergency measure if he ever happened to get the harness leads out of my hand. I do everything I can to make sure that, so long as you stay out of reach, everyone is safe.

My dog is not going to attack you. My dog wants you to get the hell away before you can hurt him.

My dog is not aggressive. My dog is scared.