04/10/2025
You may have seen advice online telling you to stand in between your reactive dog and other dogs (or other triggers) - so to protect them and communicate that you are dealing with the problem, and that they don’t need to!
Whilst I can understand where this advice is coming from, it’s not always so simple!
Too often we see handlers pulling their dog forcefully into position, or body blocking and knocking into the dog with their leg.
That’s not protecting your dog, that’s you being a new problem that they either confront or avoid.
If you’re lucky, your dog will avoid the pressure you put them under by moving into position and now you think it’s an effective strategy for preventing your dog reacting at a dog.
The issue is, by using these strategies - you’re not addressing how they feel in the moment. They likely still feel anxious, fearful or frustrated by the dog- but potentially by you also.
DO DOGS WANT TO BE PROTECTED?
In some instances, dogs can find you acting as a barrier reassuring, as demonstrated by my senior dog in this video. When a dog is fearful avoidant- being a barrier can be very supportive to them.
A dog who is happy to hand over responsibility or who wants your protection will assume this position with ease.
But when a dog is proactive with regards to dealing with triggers, it can become a wrestle. Having their view blocked by your body or being pulled and held back on a tight lead can heighten anxiety or frustration.
Equally, whether we like it or not, some dogs don’t want our protection all the time! Your movement and presence in between denies them the control they seek in order to feel safe, and emotions and motivations can heighten.
Things can escalate if the then trigger draws in closer.
Equally, should your dog lunge across you, you risk a nasty twist in your body and your dog can gain extra ground and potentially make contact with the trigger.
At worst, you may receive a redirected bite from your own dog.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO INSTEAD?
Proactive dogs who are motivated to confront a problem need to be taught what to do instead. We need to motivate them to choose avoidance, if and when possible.
Recalling and orienting away can be taught without body pressure and forceful tugs on the lead. But for it to work under higher pressure situations- the training needs to be built up step by step.
Providing controlled and positive experience with other dogs can help reactive dogs develop the confidence and motivation to disengage from these challenging uncontrolled encounters.
Once ready, my reactive dog cases are taught to heel /walk closely on a loose lead past under control dogs or other triggers (such as people) and in this instance, we have them on the opposite side of us to the trigger.
BUT it is a big ask and takes a lot of work to proof this to the level of an incoming dog who has every intention of interacting with yours.
In a true emergency scenario, would I put myself in between a proactive dog and a trigger?
If I thought it was going to prevent a conflict, yes!
But in some instances, us wrestling a dog into position may actually contribute to a conflict, whilst letting them signal to the other dog (should there be time to) may actually diffuse it.
Indeed, our dog reacting disproportionately is something we want to change so to help them be less stressed, as well as not stressing others. (Note, sometimes reactions can be proportionate, some triggers behave in a way that warrants repulsion!).
Should disproportionate reactions happen - we reflect on what went wrong, what we could have done differently and what needs to be done to promote better results in the future. We move forwards and work harder to help our dogs develop the skills where they can successfully be recalled out the situation.
We just need to recognise how hard that can be when another dog is intent on moving into their space, especially at speed, and that us forcing our dog to the other side of us may delay improving their emotional response or intensify negative emotional responses within such contexts and make the problem worse.
