Reactivity

I learned this term just a year or so ago and I think it is a good, descriptive term. Lola is reactive. She is not necessarily aggressive or fearful, she just reacts to things. Cats, mongoose, chickens, other dogs, mopeds, bikes, sometimes runners, etc. Anything that is moving or making noise, she's been known to go crazy over a loud Harley sitting at a stop light, causes her to react. It's pretty simple and I know - mostly - what will set her off so I can usually plan ahead.

Axl on the other hand, has some fear aggression issues. When he sees another dog he goes a little crazy. He looks very aggressive but it's clearly fear since he pulls us away, not towards, the other dog.

When we walk them we have to be on the lookout for everything because they will set each other off. If Lola goes crazy over a motorcycle, Axl will start going crazy too even though he clearly has no idea what's going on because he's looking around for the other dog. When Axl reacts to another dog Lola will go off too but she whines and pulls towards the dog, she seems to want to play.

We have developed very specific circumstances for walking them and we have mapped out routes that have the least amount of dogs. We also plan what time we walk, early in the morning or in the heat of the day, so we run into as few dogs as possible.

With me working at Walgreens, some walks have been missed. If I work until 5 - it's generally too late to walk them since everyone and their brother walk their dogs between 5 and 6. Or if I have to be to work at 4, walking them at 3 in the afternoon is really super hot and not a great time for anyone. So the walks have been reduced to 3-4 times a week instead of every day. Lucky we have a nice big yard and they run and play back there, but they do miss their walks.

So this morning I didn't have to be to work until 9 and everyone was up by 6:30 - we decided to walk the dogs early. During the walk we passed 5 other dogs and Axl and Lola hardly reacted at all. At. All. We were shocked. This started me to thinking, could the things we have been doing in an effort to make things better for the dogs, actually been not helping?? Instead of working so hard to avoid other dogs and distractions, should we be slowly exposing them to more and more? Could the not walking regularly actually help with that? It has just really got me to thinking.

There are currently two schools of thought on reactive/fear aggressive dogs. One is the avoidance school. Avoid the situations that cause the reaction/fear and teach the dog that the world is a safe place. The other side of the coin is desensitization. Expose the dog to more and more in an effort to remove the reaction. What you are exposed to long enough you begin to get used to. I think that different dogs will react better to different approaches and you have to figure out which one works for your dog. But I'm thinking we were going the wrong way. Instead of avoidance, maybe desensitization may be the way to go....