Now that we have discussed what reactivity can do to your dog, let’s discuss what it can do to you. This is a topic not often discussed. Having a reactive and/or aggressive dog, can take its toll on you and your entire family. Simple daily activities can be such a struggle causing emotions to run high in not only our dogs but the entire family.

We can be shocked wondering how this sweet dog we know can turn into such a monster when out on a walk. We can think the dog is trying to make life more difficult for us. We can be embarrassed by the looks others give us or comments they make when we are out with our dog.

We can become angry and frustrated ourselves! Often feeling hopeless that we are doomed to live like this forever or we can even give up our beloved dog. We can feel angry at our dog for causing rifts in our family.

We can feel lonely, like we are the only ones going through this, especially if our dog’s behavior has caused us to walk at all hours of the night and/or not have people over to our house. Sometimes dogs can actually cause relationships to end due to extreme behaviors.

We can feel nervous every time we leave the house with our reactive dog. We can feel constantly on edge, scanning the horizon, watching and waiting for something to set our dog off. That can be draining on us, as well as our dogs. We are starting to experience the exact same types of feelings as our dog! It is important to realize those emotions can go right down that leash to your dog.

There is hope! Through a careful plan of management, training and behavior modification your dog’s behavior can change and you can begin to heal as well. There are some key factors to this plan including:

• Consistency – we MUST be consistent with our dog’s training & management routines.
• Management – we MUST manage our dog’s environment to set them up for success.
• Training – we MUST have some basic building blocks and skills to work with before we can embark on our behavior modification journey.
• Time – we MUST work at our dog’s pace when dealing with fear, reactivity and aggression.

A Word on Rehoming

It is important to know that living with a reactive dog is a lifelong commitment. Reactivity/aggression are never cured. Dogs may always resort to aggression if/when they feel scared or threatened. Our goal is to drastically reduce those displays by raising their threshold and giving them tools to deal with those feelings in other ways.

If you do some soul searching and find that this journey is not for you, then rehoming may be the best option for everyone involved including the dog. However, you MUST let the new owner, shelter or rescue know exactly why you are rehoming this dog. That is the only way they can find the best home for the dog.