r/reactivedogs

Hi ! We just came back from the comportementalist vet for my 3,7 years old dog who has been having a hard time lately since he took an accidental 5 to 7 days break from his hypothyroidism meds. He's now back on it, but still balancing his hormones and quite reactive to us (any handling is a nightmare where he reacts before we can even try to take his harness off).

He was prescribed Gabanpentin to help while his thyroid hormones balance out, as well as with his general anxiety/stress/fear & the reactivity/aggression that is linked. How long to see the effect ? He's 22kg and was prescribed 600mg twice a day (but we may need to adjust it later). It may be stopped later, it's just a short-term solution.

We've also been told to schedule a test to rule out Addison (previous suspsion) + implant (chemical neutering) with his "usual" vet. We know the implant could help, as he shows a lot of testosterone-related reactivity, but we're a bit scared of the "it will be worse for 14 days, and may not calm down if he doesn't respond to the implant", as it's already barely okay right now.

I'm just lost : wait 2-3 weeks with gabapentin to see how it works, then scheduling the test & implant ? Do it now ? Wait more ? ... Have you been in this situation ? What would you do ? What should I do ? I'm so lost :(

My neighbor has a very territorial dog. The dog does not care if you are on your own property or walking alongside the road. When he notices you, he will run towards you barking and then when he is close enough, he will snarl, bare his teeth, and growl and then stop right when he is close to you. He has gotten so many complaints from my fellow neighbors about his behavior. He won’t bite you but I am scared that he may one day. Would it be safe for me to use a correction spray to possible deter him and confuse him once he starts charging? Is there any way to show him that I mean no harm? I don’t want to hurt him but he frightens me. Any help is appreciated!

Hope you are well.

My girlfriend and I are looking for some honest advice about our 6 y/o pitbull, Ashton.

Ashton has had a rough history. He was adopted as a puppy, rehomed at around 1 year old, and then my girlfriend adopted him at 3. He’s always had some level of reactivity toward other dogs, but things escalated significantly after he was attacked by an off-leash pitbull about a year ago.

After that incident, he attempted to bite an elderly man (grabbed his shirt and tore it, no skin contact thankfully). We took that very seriously and put him through a 3-week board and train program about 8 months ago. We saw major improvements in obedience and overall behavior.

However, a few months later, our neighbor’s small dog (around 10 lbs) tried attacking him, and Ashton nearly killed it. Since then, we’ve doubled down on training and have put hundreds of hours into working with him.

Here’s where things stand now:

His obedience is excellent. He walks in a near-perfect heel and follows commands consistently.

But he is still highly reactive and will attempt to go after dogs, some people, and fast-moving stimuli.

I can manage him confidently, but my girlfriend is understandably nervous about the risk and liability.

We’re at a bit of a crossroads. We’re not in denial about the seriousness of this—he is a strong dog, and if something goes wrong, it could be very bad.

For those who have dealt with similar dogs, is this something that can realistically be managed long-term, or are we fighting a losing battle?

At what point do you consider quality of life vs safety for the dog and others?

We’re committed to doing the responsible thing here, whatever that ends up being. My girlfriend has already made up her mind to some degree—personally looking for honest input from people who have been in similar situations.

Thanks all

So, I guess I don’t have enough subreddit karma to post to a thread, so I am adding a post instead.

I have an extremely reactive pit named Beans. She is the best dog at home with me, my partner, and our other dog. But when she is in any other situation where she can see strangers or other animals, and feels like she needs to go into overprotective mode, she is complete chaos. Her brief background is that she was seized with her mom as a puppy by the police (from drug house or dog fighting ring, or both, we don’t know). Her mother was so protective at the shelter that she didn’t let anyone come close to beans for over a month. She was 4 months old at the time. The shelter was finally able to separate them and sent Beans to foster at a local dog daycare. That is where she met us and our other dog, who quickly became the only dog she would tolerate. We adopted her right before Covid, so other than her time in daycare she did not get proper socialization. After adoption, she became increasingly more aggressive at daycare until she finally bit another dog badly and was kicked out. Then we had Covid. It really made it hard for her to be around any new experiences, but we still tried to walk her on the street and had a huge yard with a 6 ft stockade fence, so she could run without having to be around others. We thought that we were in good shape until one day in 2022, she broke through a poorly latched gate and went after a small dog walking in the street with its owner, killing the dog. It was an awful situation that ended up with her going to dog jail and we had to fight to get her back. Luckily, we met a really great trainer through the process and he helped us keep her, testifying to the board that she wasn’t inherently dangerous, just dog aggressive.

When she came home, she was even more isolated, not allowed to leave the house and only allowed within a fenced kennel INSIDE our fenced yard when she went outside. Fast forward to this year, we relocated from the country to the city, and Beans whole world changed overnight. Now she is around dogs, people, and sounds constantly, and it has been pretty exhausting figuring out how to acclimate her to this new environment. I want to share what has worked so far, and hopefully it will help other people with reactive dogs.

1. Prozac and Clonidine - she was on Prozac immediately after we got her, but it was a lower dose that wasn’t increased even though she doubled in size. Our old vet didn’t think it was necessary, but our new vet suggested upping her dosage and adding Clonidine, a med I had never heard of. It had made a huge difference, and I rarely see it mentioned on the forum. The Clonidine is a BP med, so it actually helps by keeping her heartbeat from spiking when she is triggered. It isn’t a sedative, but it has helped take her down a notch. For the first time ever, I am able to call her back and get her attention when she is actively reacting to something. I never thought that would be possible, but this med was the thing finally worked.

2. Baby talk- this is weird but I never considered how much tone of voice would affect her. Since moving, we have started using high pitched voices to call her off when she is barking, rather than our regular voices. She associates the higher pitch with something positive, so it has helped reduce her anxiety about whatever it is she thinks she needs to protect us of. I can’t stop her from reacting, that is just her, but I can stop her from escalating. We say ok! Thank you! After she runs barking at the door once, and she reacts immediately like ok, I did my job, I can stop now. I never thought thanking her for barking would stop her barking, but there you go!

3. Privacy vinyl on windows she might be able to look out of- this we learned early on and it really helped stop the escalation before it starts. She is just SO triggered by what she sees, so taking that one sense away makes a huge difference. We also put barriers up in our new yard so she can’t see through the fence.

4. Crate training and time out- when she is especially bonkers, usually right after eating before her clonidine kicks in, she gets a beanie butter king in her crate, with a blanket draped over it so she can’t see out. This is her happy space, and I’ve noticed that if she’s tired, just like a little kid, she will go to sleep right away. Since she is “on guard” in her brain at all times, the blanket crate is like telling her it’s ok, you are off duty, you can relax.

5. Noise machine- we also got a white noise machine that we run by the front door. It’s not perfect but it cuts down on a little bit of reaction.

6. Gentle leader/halter collar-this is the only collar we use, it is so fantastic at guiding a dog into position, and is the only thing that consistently stops pulling. Beans does not go on walks anymore, but when she is in the yard we use a leader on a long extended leash so she can snoop around but we can still pull her back if we need to.

All this goes along with a ton of time training her, getting her to recognize simple commands like “touch” to get her attention when she is about to lose it. Come and sit go out the window, but “touch” is fast and easy, and can get her to comply when other things can’t.

There are a ton of great ideas and advice given on this forum- I’m really happy to have found it. I hope this helps anyone who needs it. Sorry so long!

TLDR: Clonidine helped my dog, along with window vinyl, crate training, baby talk thank yous, noise machine, and gentle leader collar

Hi all! I wanted to ask for advice on dog sitting a reactive dog this weekend. I have previously watched this dog a few times but I’m feeling particularly anxious about it this time around. She is very sweet around her parents, and usually she is able to warm up to me and seek me out for pets/cuddling/etc, but occasionally she can be aggressive. Especially if I’m leaving the house and coming back, she will growl and not let me close to her. Sometimes it’s hard to get her on a leash to go on a walk because she will just growl and bear her teeth.

Any tips on how to make her trust me? She’s very good with her parents.

Hey everyone, I'm sure what I am sharing is not a unique experience, but I just wanted to share some of my thoughts with this community. I have a 2 year old golden lab mix that I got as a puppy who has been on fluoxetine for fear based anxiety of people for the past 13 months. He started having reactivity at around 7 months which I thought was just a fear period, but after 3-4 months of constant fear and reactivity, I knew it was time to go to the vet. I know before getting a puppy you're not supposed to set expectations for your dog as they may not turn out exactly how you want them to act, as many dogs have their own personalities, but I thought I did everything right. Crate training, distant socialization, trusted meet and greets with dogs and people, basic obedience small group training, etc. and he still turned out to be reactive. He is my first dog and I am so envious of the experiences other people get to have by bringing their dog out in public. I live in a metro area and all I wanted when I got a dog was to take him on my hot girl walks to the coffee shop, or dog friendly patios, etc and I cannot do that. I feel so bad that his world is so driven by fear and envious that I don't get to bring him where I want to because of his anxiety. After working with a veterinary behaviourist and multiple trainers, I know it's not my fault and nothing I did caused this, but there is still so much guilt and envy that I feel. His life is still so fulfilling and his needs are met, but I selfishly wish he wasn't reactive so I would get to experience all the things I hoped I could when I got my first dog.

My girl is 14 years old and always went to a large city dog park with hundreds of dogs to play with until she was like 8 years old. Fast forward and she suffered a major unprovoked attack from a dog that rushed into our home and tore her up bad in our stairwell as soon as I opened the door. It was a bloody mess. She was about 12 years old then.

I’ve been trying to re-introduce her to dogs, but it seems like she’s not good with females and all of the male dogs that she interacts with she will try to instantly just smell and lick their penis, which is obviously gonna make them a little uneasy and they growl or react in a way that makes her upset, and she essentially tries to attack them just for being upset that she can’t lick their penis.

I really want her to have some doggy friends again, but I feel like she’s just too traumatized and I don’t really know what to do. She’s not aggressive until they won’t let her sniff their dick. How can I make her not try to be so intrusive and chill a bit so she can make friends again ?

I have an 80 lb pit mix with a history of abuse and trauma. He’s come a long, long way and is beyond loving with people but dogs are still really difficult for him and he’s super reactive to them on our (short) walks. That said, today we had a horrible interaction with a girl who lives in our building. For context, she’s never been particularly friendly (bordering on unfriendly) and our interactions are extremely limited. The only time I’ve spoken to her in the 2+ years we’ve both lived here is when I was chatting with her partner (who’s lovely and who my dog loves seeing). The girl has two very loud yippy dogs who are my dog’s nemeses on a daily basis (because they pass by our door barking and carrying on multiple times a day to go outside.

Anyway, we saw her today on our walk. She was walking towards us from the opposite direction and I was talking to my mom on speakerphone while casually walking him. And then…she turned toward him and said hi to him and reached down and towards his head to pet him.

He grabbed her sleeve. It was her sleeve, not her arm, to be clear. But he wouldn’t let go and kept pulling. I got behind him and tried to pry his mouth open but he’s strong and I couldn’t get him to open his mouth. Throughout, she’s screaming at me about replacing her jacket, yelling that my dog is dangerous, etc. and all the while pulling against him as hard as she can. I tried to tell her over and over to stop pulling and to stop screaming because they were both escalating the situation but she just wouldn’t stop. I also suggested that she slip the jacket off so he would release it. It was the pulling that was causing him to continue to latch on. Of course, after 5 minutes of her screaming and pulling, she finally stopped and he released it immediately.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I know that this is my fault. Even if she’s the one who approached him, it doesn’t matter. It’s my responsibility.

But I am at a loss here. She’s threatening to report me to the landlord and to animal control. Saying he’s a danger and he’s totally out of control. He’s not totally out of control. On the contrary, he was on a very short leash and should not have been able to have any contact with her. It was her reaching into his space that triggered the reaction.

I’m just so upset. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my apartment. I’m afraid he’s going to have to be put down. I’m afraid I’m a terrible person and I made a huge mistake adopting him. We are training every day and he’s made so much progress but there’s a lot of trauma there. I hate that this happened and I don’t know what to do.

This is a vent but I’m also open to advice.

Yes, we are working on drop it and release. We’re trying. He’s just not there yet. I feel so ashamed that I let this happen. Want to curl up in a ball and die.

Background on my guy Mac -

He was found wandering the streets alone at 7 weeks old by a colleague’s daughter. I adopted him when he was 8 weeks old. He is about 6.5 months old now. Until a month ago, we really had no problems at all. He is a quick learner, house trained, knows several commands, love to play fetch, tug, and go on hikes. He was, and still is, great with other dogs and people, except for me and his dog sitter (my colleague’s daughter).

A month ago he started displaying what I thought was resource guarding around his x-pen. He would growl, snarl, and snap at me when I got close. Two weeks ago, after I grabbed something in that general area while he was outside of the pen, he freaked out and bit me. I had one tooth puncture and bruising.

Since that time, the resource guarding/aggression has gotten worse. He has snarled, growled, lunged with bare teeth when I try to pick up his poop, untie him from his tether, and put him in his sleeping crate. Monday night, he was on the opposite side of the couch from me. I got up to make some dinner and he freaked out, snarling, growling, baring teeth. I have started to live in fear of the dog. A few hours ago, around 1:30 am he started crying in his crate so I let him out to go potty. He also drank some water and ate some of his dinner he didn’t finish. While he was eating, I went to sit far away from him and didn’t look at him but could see from my peripheral vision he looked tense and kept looking at me. When he was done eating, he came over and put his head on my legs so I pet him. He eventually laid down next to me, chewing on a toy. I wanted to get up to lead us back to the bed and immediately his body language changed. He was giving me whale eyes and growling. I very slowly tried to back away from him without making eye contact. He started snarling and eventually lunged at me. I had to grab him by his scruff to keep him as far away from my body as possible but he still made contact with my other hand which has torn skin, bleeding, and bruising. I’m devastated and am not sure how to move forward.

I asked his sitter if he’s ever been aggressive with her, and she said he’s growled and nipped at her over a bone.

We had a pre scheduled vet for Thursday but I’m hoping they can see us as an emergency tomorrow.

I called some behavioral vets on Monday and have either gotten no reply or been told they are booking three months out.

He is so young to be acting like this, in my opinion. He lives a good life in my house and I would do anything to make sure he is comfortable and happy. It just seems like this has escalated quickly and without triggers. I’m scared that because he’s young and has already bit me pretty severely twice that this may not be a solvable issue. If you’ve ever dealt with this behavior in a puppy, I’d appreciate your insight.

I’m in a really tough situation and could use some outside perspective.

My family has a dog who recently bit someone. It wasn’t a severe mauling, but it did break skin and now there’s an official bite record. The incident happened during a late night Amazon delivery. We had clear instructions to leave packages in a designated box and multiple “dog on property” warning signs posted, but the driver still approached the house and that’s when the bite occurred.

We’re in a high fire risk area where insurance companies aren’t accepting new policies, so switching isn’t really an option. Our current insurance company has said they’ll continue to cover us, but only if we remove the dog from the home.

We contacted the local animal shelter to ask about options, and they told us they would take the dog, but because of the bite history, he would likely be euthanized there. The person we spoke to suggested that if euthanasia is the outcome, it might be kinder to do it at home where he’s comfortable instead of in a shelter environment.

Now we’re trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. We’re heartbroken and overwhelmed. On one hand, we don’t want to put him down if there’s any safe alternative. On the other, we’re worried about liability, safety, and whether rehoming is even responsible or realistic at this point.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? What options did you consider, and how did you make the decision?

Please be kind. This is really hard. We’re not downplaying what happened that’s why euthanasia is even part of this conversation.

I’ve posted here a couple times about my Frenchie Fonzie. He’s 11 months now and is a special case as we got him from a cleft palate rescue at 13 weeks and he had been taken at birth bc they usually euthanize CP dogs. He was raised with other dogs and his sister so I’m not sure if he has 5 week puppy syndrome or not.

I am realizing that absolutely everything comes down to severe separation anxiety. At least the biggest problems. And his separation anxiety comes out in aggression and he has bit me more than once. He has absolutely zero threshold so sometimes training doesn’t do much with him bc he’s always over threshold from the jump.

It started with just the door and the door knob. But then it moved to the keys and the coats, then to bags (bc we take the garbage out and he associates bags with that), then to not even being able to tie the garbage bag in the trash can, then to howling at the bottom of the stairs if I’m upstairs, then to the word “leave”, then to now hating his crate, then to also hating being tethered (sometimes we will tether him if he’s being too crazy and over threshold) etc etc etc.

We are in training but it’s like he is learning all our loopholes and tricks. He’s insanely smart. Smartest dog I’ve ever had. At first we started to try to desensitize him to the door but now he’s learned that when we try to give him treats next to the door, we are trying to leave so he won’t focus. He barks, lunges, nips, jumps. It’s mayhem. And I feel like I’m living with my nervous system on edge constantly.

We are about to go to a behavioral vet and get him medication. I am just sooo worried this will be forever.

I could really use some words of encouragement - I’ve had a new foster for about a month and I’ve really been struggling with anxiety about him. He’s been poorly socialized most of his life (almost 2) and is a big boy at over 100lbs. He recently was sedated for veterinary care and since being home has lapsed on a lot of the progress made.

He’s been snapping at home again but I thought we made it over the hill (and past 72 hrs from sedation). He is not normally one to snap at adult strangers unless they’re touching/petting him without his consent. Today we were walking and passed an adult man. The stranger paused to let him sniff his hand and I had him on a short leash hold with distracting treats. My dog took an about 2 second sniff and suddenly jumped up and snapped at the stranger. Everyone was fine - the guy said that it was totally open mouth, no attempt to actually latch on and that he was completely fine - no broken skin, minimal actual mouth contact to his forearm. I went back after dropping the dog off at home and apologized extensively and kinda just word vomited to the guy about how sorry I am and thankful that he was super chill about it. I am just still feeling mortified and ashamed that something so much worse could have happened.

Our fear free trainer had given feedback to set up introductions very similarly the only point of difference was that both I and the stranger should have treats vs. just me. He’s met plenty of strangers before and had minimal reaction that I am aware of. I genuinely thought we were just going to walk past the stranger like we’ve done before a million times. He’s been on pain and anxiety medication to help with his training and minimize snapping at home while we introduce new experiences.

I honestly would just really appreciate some support, I feel like I’m doing something wrong and now terrorizing my neighborhood.