What is it?
“Leash reactivity” refers to the overreaction of a dog when he sees other dogs or people while out on walks. The dog may pull, lunge, jump, whine, bark, or growl when he sees the trigger. There are a few different forms and causes of leash reactivity:
Frustration over being held back by the leash: some dogs really want to run up to the other dogs/people. Their over-excitement turns to frustration, and becomes so intense that it looks like aggression.
Anxiety or fear: some dogs are anxious about interacting with other dogs/people, and are taking the approach of “best defense is a good offense.” The leash may be causing the anxiety, as they are unable to control their speed and direction of approach.
Many dogs feel a combination of both frustration and anxiety.
It's common for dogs that display leash reactivity to be much more relaxed when they are off leash around the same triggers, because they have more control over the situation.
How do we fix it?
In order to reduce the undesirable behavior the dog is showing, we need to change the underlying emotions that are causing it. This means that we need to reduce the dog's anxiety or fear, teach him coping skills to deal with the frustration and/or anxiety, and help him redirect his energy to a more appropriate outlet.
It is crucial to not rely on punishment to simply stop the reactivity. Punishment often makes the problem worse over time, since you will be increasing the dog's anxiety. Although you can punish a dog until he stops barking at triggers if you are harsh enough, you can end up with what is called a “silent biter” - a dog who doesn't give any warnings because he is afraid of punishment, but strikes “out of the blue” when he feels he truly needs to defend himself.
Management
The first step is to scale back your dog's exposure to triggers so that you can implement a training plan. The more your dog experiences feeling frustration/anxiety around other dogs/people, the more ingrained the leash reactivity will be. While you are training, you should avoid coming close enough to dogs/people that your dog displays the reactive behavior. That might mean crossing the street, or even immediately turning around when you see other people.
You should also prevent your dog from having chances to rehearse reactivity from behind windows, fences, and in the car, as these all feed into the problem. Don't leave your dog in the yard unsupervised. Use pens or gates to keep him away from windows that face the street. Play white noise or calm music if your dog reacts to noises from outside.
Equipment
When walking your dog, do not use any equipment that will cause your dog discomfort or pain, as he will associate that with the sight of his triggers. This will make his reactivity worse. No choke chains or prong collars, and use a “no pull” harness if your dog pulls on leash (or a head halter for extreme pullers).
Set ups
The best way to teach your dog to be calm around his triggers is to do training set ups: recruit a person (with dog if needed) to act as a “decoy” for your dog to work around. This enables you to start training with a person and/or dog who is quiet and calm, and will go only where you direct them. By carefully controlling the set up, you can create successful practice sessions for your dog. You can also get in many, many repetitions within a short training session. As the training goes on, we’ll move from high controlled sessions to ones that mimic real walks, then to practicing in public.
If you don't have anyone you can recruit as a helper, it's possible to train your dog by just doing “stealth” training around people you see during regular walks - but it's harder to ensure success, and takes longer because of the low number of repetitions per encounter.
The training will always be done with the dog “below threshold,” meaning that he’s not negatively reacting to his triggers. If he does start posturing, pulling, growling, barking, or showing other signs of being “over threshold,” our priority is to get him out of that situation, calm him down, and then try again with the set up changed so he can be successful. This applies to dogs who are reactive due to fear/anxiety AND dogs who are over-excited/frustrated and lunging because they want to greet or play.
