Understanding Reactive Dogs: Why Dogs React & How to Help

By Jay Gurden

Dogs are one of the most popular companion animals, and many of them go through life confident and happy with the world around them. A significant number do not - the scared dogs, the anxious dogs, the ones who are terrified when approached by another dog, person, or a whole range of possible things. These dogs react to the causes of their fear in a range of ways, all of which combine to make what are called 'reactive dogs', the ones who cannot cope and have to find a way to tell us. They may be labelled 'bad', 'aggressive', or 'vicious' when they are none of those things. They are scared, and it is up to us to learn and to help. 

Learn how fear, anxiety and stress affect the dog. Follow the chemical and physiological changes that happen in the fear response. Find out the potential causes of reactive behaviours, and how to help a puppy have the best chance of avoiding reactivity as they grow and mature into an adult. Discover how to help the reactive dog develop a better relationship with the world. Finish reading this book better understanding reactive dogs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Gurden
• Release date: Apr 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393522041

Book preview

Dogs in a very human world

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"Imagine you live on a planet where the dominant species is far more intellectually sophisticated than human beings but often keeps humans as companion animals. They are called the Gorns. They communicate with each other via a complex combination of telepathy, eye movements and high-pitched squeaks, all completely unintelligible and unlearnable by humans, whose brains are prepared for verbal language acquisition only.

What humans sometimes learn is the meaning of individual sounds by repeated association with things of relevance to them. The Gorns and humans bond strongly but there are many Gorn rules that humans must try to assimilate with limited information and usually high stakes.

You are one of the lucky humans who lives with the Gorns in their dwelling. Many other humans are chained to small cabanas in the yard or kept in outdoor pens of varying size. They have become so socially starved that they cannot control their emotions when a Gorn goes near them. Because of this behaviour, the Gorns agree that they could never be House-Humans. They are too excitable.

The dwelling you share with your Gorn family is filled with numerous water-filled porcelain bowls, complete with flushers. Every time you try to urinate in one though, any nearby Gorn attacks you. You learn to only use the toilet when there are no Gorns present. Sometimes they come home and stuff your head down the toilet for no apparent reason. You hate this and start sucking up to the Gorns when they come home to try and stave this off but they view this as increasing evidence of your guilt.

You are also punished for watching videos, reading certain books, talking to other human beings, eating pizza or cheesecake, and writing letters. These are all considered behaviour problems by the Gorns. To avoid going crazy, once again you wait until they are not around to try doing anything you wish to do. While they are around, you sit quietly, staring straight ahead. Because they witness this good behaviour you are so obviously capable of, they attribute to spite the video watching and other transgressions that occur when you are alone. Obviously you resent being left alone, they figure. You are walked several times a day and left crossword puzzle books to do. You have never used them because you hate crosswords; the Gorns think you’re ignoring them out of revenge.

Worst of all, you like them. They are, after all, often nice to you. But when you smile at them, they punish you, likewise for shaking hands. If you apologise they punish you again. You have not seen another human since you were a small child. When you see one on the street you are curious, excited and sometimes afraid. You really don’t know how to act. So, the Gorn you live with keeps you away from other humans. Your social skills never develop.

Finally, you are brought to training school. A large part of the training consists of having your air briefly cut off by a metal chain around your neck. They are sure you understand every squeak and telepathic communication they make because sometimes you get it right. You are guessing and hate the training. You feel pretty stressed out a lot of the time. One day, you see a Gorn approaching with the training collar in hand. You have PMS, a sore neck and you just don’t feel up to the baffling coercion about to ensue. You tell them in your sternest voice to please leave you alone and go away. The Gorns are shocked by this unprovoked aggressive behaviour. They thought you had a good temperament.

They put you in one of their vehicles and take you for a drive. You watch the attractive planetary landscape going by and wonder where you are going. The vehicle stops and you are led into a building filled with the smell of human sweat and excrement. Humans are everywhere in small cages. Some are nervous, some depressed, most watch the goings on from their prisons. Your Gorns, with whom you have lived your entire life, hand you over to strangers who drag you to a small room. You are terrified and yell for your Gorn family to help you. They turn and walk out the door of the building. You are held down and given a lethal injection. It is, after all, the humane way to do it." (Jean Donaldson, ‘The Culture Clash’).

Dogs are undoubtedly one of the most common companion animals with whom humans choose to share their homes. In the United Kingdom in 2019, according to the Pet Food Manufacturer’s Pet Population report, approximately nine million dogs were resident, with twenty five percent of households containing at least one dog. From these numbers it becomes clear that the domestic dog plays a massive part in the world of many humans. Far too often, however, we forget the sense of disconnect that sits between the canine world and ours. This disconnect, this parallel but not quite matched existence, is highlighted with total clarity in the above words from the highly recommended book ‘The Culture Clash’, quoted here with the kind permission of the author. While some – and thankfully an ever growing number of – people make every effort to provide their dogs with an excellent lifestyle based around the needs and wants of the dog alongside the needs and wants of the humans in the household, many other dogs are not lucky enough to find themselves in such a situation.

The modern domestic dog is the result of thousands of years of evolution and development alongside humans. We have selectively bred chosen animals together for centuries, generation after generation, to suit them better to our wants and needs. Today’s dog breeds are, for the most part, the ‘refined’ product of a long design process as they move closer to the human mandated ideal for that particular breed. It is a sad fact that in the case of some popular breeds the design does not necessarily result in the best health and function for the dogs. An obvious example is the group of breeds that are an extreme brachycephalic type, with muzzles almost non-existent, occluded nostrils reducing their ability to breathe, and bulbous eyes too large to sit safely in their sockets bulging out at massive risk of injury. The popularity of these breeds, combined with a lack of knowledge surrounding their health challenges, means a lucrative market for unscrupulous breeders, their eye fixed on big profits.

Why have dog breeds developed in the way that they have? The simple answer sits in the paragraph above, to better suit our wants and needs. Dogs, throughout most of their long shared history with the human race, have had jobs to do for us. We have used their skills and help to hunt for food, to manage our livestock, moving and guarding them, to guard human dwellings and, particularly in later years, to keep us company, as friends and companions. The original working aspects of the relationship are now less common in modern times, as fewer humans hunt for food or work with livestock, and more pet homes exist where dogs are resident, hopefully in the house with the humans as members of the family.

With such a long and intertwined history, how can this disconnect between the human and canine worlds still be in place? For the vast majority of our shared existence, little thought has been given to how canine psychology works, and how domestic dogs function as individuals rather than as mildly different variations on an identical animal. In modern times, science is discovering the individuality of dogs, their personalities and the fact they are, just as we are, a wonderfully diverse and fascinating species. This heightened interest and understanding is helping those people intent on learning all they can about their canine friends. The more we learn about dogs, the better we can make their existence in our world.

The truth is that, no matter how carefully the parent dogs are taken through the processes of assessment, health testing, and selection, or how well observed and carried out are the pre- and postnatal care of mother and puppies, dogs will still be dogs, with the same differences and challenges in relating between human and canine. Dogs will never communicate in the same way as humans do, or understand in quite the way many humans think that they do. Dogs are always dogs, and they will always think and communicate like dogs.

The most intelligent domestic dogs have an intellect that is approximately equivalent to a human toddler, generally thought to be up to a maximum of two years of age. Nobody expects a toddler to automatically understand and obey all the rules, fit into all of the norms, and behave perfectly and appropriately at all times, regardless of what is going on around them. An alarming number of people, however, seem to hold these kinds of expectations of dogs. Even worse, many of these same people have little or no understanding of the way in which canine brains work, or how they communicate, the methods they use to tell others around them their emotional states, wants, and needs.

For better or worse, Homo sapiens sits at the top of the metaphorical tree on our planet. Human beings run the world and so, of course, this means that the world is structured in a way that makes sense for and to humans. This makes life easy for us, but equally makes it not such an ideal fit for the other species who are required to co-exist with us. Dogs are one of what we call the companion animal species, those that we choose to have living in close proximity to us, and so they are under a particular intense pressure to cope with the expectations and restrictions living in a very human world entails.

One of the most difficult differences for our domestic dogs to navigate is the primary manner in which each species communicates. Humans do use a certain amount of body language but compared to many other species it is very limited. We as a species communicate predominantly via spoken language. For an animal that has evolved to read so many minute changes in body position and attitude and utilising the entire body to communicate, spoken language is of little or no use although they do respond to the tone of our voices, as anyone who has snapped an answer to someone else while their dog is nearby has probably seen. It is true that our dogs can, when we have put the effort in to teach them, ‘learn’ cue words but the reality is that the words themselves have no actual meaning to the dog, they are just a series of noises. A dog coached to respond in a certain way to a vocal cue does not understand the word. Instead, they recognise a sound they have come to associate, via repetition and reinforcement, with an action they are required to take. Some very intelligent dogs, coached by people with an excellent grasp of the learning process and the patience to establish and reinforce the cues as much as necessary, can learn to respond to hundreds. One famous example was the Border Collie Chaser, whose handler taught her to recognise more than a thousand different names of items. She could locate the particular item requested and bring it back to her handler when asked. Learning to connect the sound of a word to an item does not demonstrate an understanding of what the object is, only that the particular sound links to that object. The same follows for an action we wish to request the dog to take such as sit, down, wait, and so on. We will examine some of the challenges surrounding the difference in communication methods further later on.

One phrase often heard in connection with dogs is the nickname of ‘man’s best friend’. Dogs are indeed wonderful friends and companions to us but the way in which we live is not necessarily set up to automatically allow domestic dogs the best life possible for them. Humans are frequently a gregarious and highly social species, given to interacting voluntarily with strangers. Social conventions mean a certain expectation of amicable and civil behaviour towards those people that we meet. This expectation also extends to apply to dogs in our society. Because of this, many dogs in our society live under an expectation that they will meet and greet happily any other dog or person they might encounter, in any situation at any time, content to interact with anyone including those outside of their family or usual social grouping. This is not something inherently built in to the normal psychological patterns of the canine species. Domestic dogs, when allowed to behave naturally, have a series of communication steps, stages they will move through on encountering a stranger and deciding if they wish to get closer and actually interact. We will look at these communication signals and their links with to reactive behaviours in a later chapter. Through a lack of knowledge and understanding, prevention of the dog following this natural and instinctive process can lead to that dog developing worries around the idea of meeting others. The further misunderstandings surrounding the behaviours used to display their discomfort can often result in a dog gaining labels like rude or aggressive. Alternatively, the link comes at some point to that perennial and outdated favourite, ‘dominance’.

Dominance and the concept of the dominant dog is an area that causes massive amounts of discussion and arguments among canine professionals. It is one of the clearest indications of that previously mentioned disconnect between the human and canine worlds. In many places, from the mouths of a number of famous – or infamous – well known and celebrity trainers, we see and hear the words ‘alpha’ and ‘pack leader’. Both of these terms will cause a visible wince and shudder from many modern canine professionals. The idea of dogs locked in an eternal struggle to be the boss of the humans in their pack, the ones they share their homes with, is at the centre of one of the largest divides in the canine professional world. There it sits among the other contentious subjects like the ethical debate surrounding the use of aversive training equipment like electric collars, prong collars and choke chains. We should note that the same people are often on matching sides of both debates.

The dominance theory is probably the most persistent in the canine world, and quite possibly the most threatening to the canine and human relationship. This persistent myth came from a scientific paper published in the 1940s, on the first behavioural study ever undertaken on wolves. This paper titled ‘Expressions Studies on Wolves’ was based on observations scientists made on a group of captive wolves in Basel Zoo in Switzerland. They saw a group of animals in a constant state of flux. Dr. Rudolf Schenkel, the author of the paper, concluded that the individuals in