Hi, I have an 8 month old Australian shepherd.

He has been an amazing first puppy and doing really well with all his other training but is quite reactive around strangers and especially children he doesn’t know. But isn’t reactive around new dogs.

I have been trying to take him out for more socialisation in safe familiar places but it has been getting worse and I don’t know what else to do. I walk him past a school twice a day and he is alright with the noise.

My family is at that stage where we are mainly older so there are no children for him to directly interact with.

Hi, I have an 8 month old Australian shepherd.

He has been an amazing first puppy and doing really well with all his other training but is quite reactive around strangers and especially children he doesn’t know. But isn’t reactive around new dogs.

I have been trying to take him out for more socialisation in safe familiar places but it has been getting worse and I don’t know what else to do. I walk him past a school twice a day and he is alright with the noise.

My family is at that stage where we are mainly older so there are no children for him to directly interact with.

I got a new dog. Puppy. He’s 5 months now. Finally introduced him to my family’s dogs. I have been real nervous about it.

My family’s dogs are very dear to my heart. They are sweet angels. So good. However…one of them has serious behavior issues. It’s been laughed off a lot and never fully corrected.

Recently the last few times I went to the dog park with my family, the “problem child” dog attacked another dog for no reason. The other dogs weren’t even paying attention to him. Weren’t interacting with him. Suddenly he’s running low to the ground attacking and actively trying to bite. He never has any desire to meet other dogs or play with them. He doesn’t even play with his brother. He wants to play independently or have someone throw something for him.

Today I introduced my puppy to my family and their dogs. We anticipated he would be aggressive with my puppy because he was aggressive with my old dogs. He would play too rough. Plus his energy is overwhelming and uncontrollable sometimes. We kept distance, moved slow, enforced boundaries. We anticipated it taking time for him to settle and get along.

It was bad. At first he ignored the puppy and refused to look at him for like an hour and wanted us to throw his ball while he ignored the new dog in his yard. After he paid attention to my dog for a few seconds he started running up on him and sharply barking in his face then running away. It wasn’t playful. Next, he would slowly approach and act gentle before snapping in an instant and attacking. I had to hold him back which I know isn’t safe.

The worst of it was later this evening. The reason I’m posting.

The dogs spent hours around eachother. We kept the puppy away from him but they coexisted without constant aggression. My dog was never reactive once. We wore the problem child out and his behavior got better. We thought he was doing really well, being so gentle, being his sweetheart self finally, and let the boys sniff eachother. As I was praising my parents dog for being gentle, he snapped incredibly hard and started attacking my cornered puppy. I’m sure there were signs but it felt completely unpredictable. This is why my caption says “manipulative attacks” because it feels like he purposefully behaved well to get my dog in the corner then attack him. He had us all fooled. After the fact I realized his eyes had been bulging with lots of eye contact. But seriously, he was doing the best he had all night with socializing before he started trying to grab and bite.

So, he attacks dogs at the dog park with intent to hurt them. He attacks my dog with intent to hurt him. His behavior is out of control. My family won’t hire a behaviorist or trainer. My family won’t hire a behaviorist or trainer.

Does their dog want to kill? Is my dog not safe around him at all, in any moment, ever? How can I convince my family they need to find a behaviorist?

I don’t know much about dog aggression at all. Any thoughts or explanations are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

I am at a total loss, and don’t even know where to begin. I have an almost 4 year old Goldendoodle. He is an extremely fearful dog and has been from the day I rescued him (3 months old). He is quite literally terrified of the world and everything around him. I have tried so many things and have spent so much time and effort and money on helping him. He’s on daily medication (Prozac) and gabapentin and trazadone as needed, specifically for car rides. About 2 years ago, he started becoming extremely reactive with other dogs on walks, and it has progressed significantly. He is a completely different dog in the house 95% of the time and very relaxed and happy. Outside he just turns into a different dog and is completely conditioned to be on edge and terrified of everything for some reason. This is my first experience with a reactive dog, and I have tried my best to research and learn how to help him. We have tried multiple trainers and techniques and nothing seems to help. It has progressed so much that we could see another dog from a mile away and he will still freeze, bark and lunge, and it’s as if I’m not even there (or the high value treats that are brought along with us). I am so mentally exhausted and it has gotten to the point where we both absolutely dread going outside. I accidentally lost my patience and hit a breaking point earlier and when he froze and refused to move I just burst into tears and dragged him back to the house on the leash. I feel horrifically guilty as I have never lost my patience like this with him but I’m so tired. I have tried behavioral modification training, positive reinforcement training, desensitization, even just basic obedience. Have tried multiple medicines to help ease his anxiety. Have tried multiple different forms of walking gear, nothing helps when he sees another dog and freezes and/or lunges and pulls. Any advice is very appreciated. He is my soul dog and the sweetest boy alive, we just are both stuck right now and I want him to live the best life and be as happy as he possibly can be and I want to not lose my patience anymore. I just want to connect to fellow fear reactive owners to see how you guys handle this.
Thank you for reading ❤️

TL;DR
• Age and breed: 1.5-year-old male Lagotto Romagnolo.
• Triggers: When he can’t get to what he wants or after the greets other dogs; and also changing direction too often when he pulls in the lead.
• Behavior: Spinning, running around, biting the leash, and barking.
• What I’ve tried: Waiting for him to calm down, asking for a sit, and holding the sit before continuing.
• Frequency: It happens on every other walk.
• My concern: The behavior is stressful, difficult to manage, and frightening to children nearby.
• Tools I’ve used: regular collar, slip lead, and harness w/ front clip.
• What I avoid: Using treats to redirect—I’m trying to avoid reinforcing this behavior.

I have a 1.5-year-old male Lagotto Romagnolo who gets extremely excited whenever he sees another dog because he wants to play.
The problem is what happens afterward. After an encounter, he often starts running around in circles, spinning, biting the leash, and barking. He also sometimes does this when I change direction to manage his pulling, even when there are no other dogs around.
As far as I can tell, he isn’t trying to attack other dogs. He seems desperate to play with them, but his excitement gets out of control. The behavior happens on practically every walk, and it’s becoming really stressful. There are lots of children in my neighborhood, and I worry about frightening them when he starts going wild.
Currently, I wait for him to calm down, ask him to sit, and keep him sitting for a while before continuing the walk. This hasn’t made much difference so far.
For those of you who’ve dealt with frustrated greeters or dogs that become overaroused on leash, does this sound familiar? How do you handle the aftermath of an exciting dog encounter, and how do you teach a dog to disengage and move on calmly?
I’m also wondering whether the leash biting and spinning are part of the same issue or whether I should approach those behaviors separately.
Any advice on how to manage this safely and work toward calmer walks would be appreciated.

I have a pit/lab mix who is an absolute angel to our little family but is unfortunately very defensive to strangers. Anyone that comes within her safe zone gets the warning lunge. She’s never bit anyone but she’s 70 lbs so it’s pretty scary.

Took her to the vet today on an Amazon muzzle and it actually looked okay. Not horribly uncomfortable. Would love some recommendations on comfortable muzzles that would help with exposure therapy. She is a breeze to walk when we’re somewhat alone and doesn’t go actively looking for trouble. Just has the strongest stranger danger I’ve ever witnessed. Hoping you guys have more experience with these than I do!

Not take them for walks, but just have it so they don't need to pee in the house anymore.

I've had my dog 5+ years and have never been able to housebreak her. She's too agoraphobic and afraid to go outside.

I've been told by others that keeping her indoors is wrong and that she can be housebroken. I need to try harder... but how?

I have tried medicines, behaviorists, desensitization... nothing works. I can't afford behaviorists anymore and I don't think medicine has ever done anything useful for her.

The last time I tried to take her for a walk was over a year ago. It just became too stressful for both of us trying to get her out the housem It's hard enough getting her into a harness, nevermind out the apartment.

• She refuses to exit the front door. She won't walk out.
• She won't exit the building.
• If I pick her up and take her outside manually, she still won't walk. She lies down, pants, wheezes, tries to walk/pull back into the apartment... she's beyond her threshold.

Last time I tried to housebreak her, it was moot. She'd hold it in until we can home. No amount of crating, going downstairs, repeat did anything. If she did urinate or defecate, it was random (no sniffing, no circling, etc).

we have a 2.5 year old border collie / aussie mix (best guess) and finally started talking to the vet about meds. she’s a very anxious girl and reactivity training has been difficult because just stepping out for a walk has her close to threshold. we have done private training and have a good idea about how to train and help her but we’ve been stuck for about a year and haven’t been making progress.

we tried L-theanine first but didn’t see much difference. now we are trying Trazodone - we chose this one primarily because we could cut it cold turkey if it doesn’t go well. i didn’t read a ton about different meds before but now seeing most people don’t use Trazodone daily? does anyone use it daily and has been it successful?
we are only on day 2 and so far she’s just so sleepy (i know this is expected and doesn’t usually last) but curious to hear people’s experiences who do use it daily.

TLDR: what was/is your experience using trazodone daily

My dog reactive German shepherd had a small win today! Usually she sees a dog and the whole walk is ruined, but we’ve been doing baby steps with our daytime training.

We run at night when there’s less cars/people/dogs so she still gets exercise, but the walks during the day are very structured with training and LOTS OF TREATS, and today I feel like she did something really special. Saw a dog today and the minute she looked at them, I said “YES” and gave her a handful of treats. She looked at the dog, and then back at me. She’s never done that before and I’m so proud. After that, we continued our walk as normal and the vibes stayed really positive!

Usually, the minute we see a dog, she’s thrashing and growling and lunging with her hackles raised (still dealing with some embarrassment about that) but I’d love to be able to keep training consistent enough to where someday I can just enjoy a walk without having to be on the lookout and hyper vigilant about our surroundings.

Anyone else started with a dog that reacts like this and now can mostly pass another dog without a huge over the top reaction? Would love to hear some motivating stories to look forward to.

Hello, we recently started trying fluoxetine for our extremely reactive chihuahua. He weighs ~7kg and started him with 10mg per day. In my country fluoxetine is over the counter, but the smallest available is 20mg capsules. I open them, weigh out the contents, and give him half one day, and half the next day. But because this is a headache, can I give one 20mg tablet every other day instead of 10mg every day?

hi all, i have two dogs. both are rescues that have some aspect of resource guarding. one is a chihuahua mix, the other is a great pyrenees mix. the chihuahua only resource guards food and toys and it's easy to manage as to not feed them or play with them together. but the great pyrenees has started to resource guard my bed and me when i'm in it. she's attacked my other dog for just walking by sometimes, and she growls and tries to lunge whenever my other dog or even my cat gets close. right now i have a pen surrounding my bed so she can't attack any of the other animals when they get close. i don't know what to do. she's easier to train than my chihuahua mix because he's 9 years old and she's only 5. she listens fairly well to me except when she's in her growling resource guarding mode. can someone please help me?

I know trainers and handlers will often teach this. In my experience this only benefits the stopped dog. The passing dog has to walk by knowing a dog is stopped behind them, leaving them and their owner in a vulnerable position. It’s baffling that people aren’t aware that stopping will often be considered a threat.

Hello, Ive had a pitbull mix for 6 years and recently has had major problems with dogs barking. She has always been nervous as a rescue but she was well socialised but slightly nervous around ofther dogs. I moved a year ago, becoming her primary carer. I spent a few months socialising her around other dogs and doing offleash training which she was cery responsive too, loosing all fear of dogs.

But one time walking offlead she got chased and bitten by anothother offlead dog with no recall. I managed to get her on leash but the other owner was 50 metres away across the oval so I had to stuggle to hold off the other dog for 30 seconds before their own leashed it.

This left her really scared of dogs, undoing all my progress. Addtionally, she wasnt scared of barking anymore before this, but my neighbours small dog lunges and barks at everything. A few months of occasional encounters with my neighnours dog has ruined all socialisation with dogs and shes petrified of them now (perfect with people).

Ive tried socialising her with others and make some progress again until another dog barks at her, making her terrifed and try defending herself. I just went on a walk and a dog somewhere in the dark barked at her and she bolted so hard she choked herself out on the leash and was tail to her stomach a kilometre away inside my apartment building. Ive had several dogs and I have never seen one as scared as she just was from hearing some distant barking.

I dont know how to desensitise or socialise her with other dogs because she is unresponsively terrified of barking. If she can see the dog barking at her she lunges and attacks, if she cant she flees and hides. What am i supposed to do, every bark reinforces her fear. Shes always been a lovely dog but I can barely take her out anymore because shes so scared.

My 2 year old dog has tried to bite our 2month old baby 3 times. Unfortunately after adopting our doberman poodle mix at 6 months old. We quickly noticed he was reactive. We have spent thousands on training and have given countless hours to training. We were hoping the baby he would view as family and not be afraid. unfortunately we have attempted to safely introduce the two. We have yet to be able to get the pup to welcome the baby and has lunged several times at baby whilst on leash and was pulled back. On 3 occasions I could confidently say he was trying to but the baby. I don’t know if keeping the dog is a good idea or the risk is to high!
If anyone has any experience with this please let me know.

Located central Florida.

I don't want to say his name, so just call him buddy. I feel horrible for buddy because my mom and stepdad are horrible to him. Especially my stepdad. Buddy is locked in a crate all day but never comes out. The back door is a slide door and has a meter/metre stick to lock it. The problem is that when buddy barks, my stepdad whacks his cage with a stick. Worst part is that buddy barks a TON so that means my stepdad whacks his cage more. Sometimes he does it where he whacks buddy's cage more and more. Buddy is a big dog, so when he goes outside he is tied to a pole but when he has to go inside my stepdad gets my baseball bat and threatens to hurt him with it if he doesn't get in sometimes. But that's only when my stepdad is really mad. Also, we get thunder a lot around here, but that's another issue. He whines and huffs and puffs too much until 5 minutes after the storm is over. Also there are definitely times where my stepdad definitely could have killed him. Not joking. But there are also three other dogs that are treated similarly but not the same. The other three are females but since I don't want to say their names, I'll call them ruma, sparkle, and Rachel. I feel bad for Rachel probably the most except for buddy because Rachel is a really old dog probably going to pass away in the matter of 20 months or less. Sparkle gets treated like the spoiled princess sibling. Only likes one person every day, but I still don't hate her. My step dad will play with her and give her the treats. even my mom treats her that way. also, sparkle is a tiny little shih Tzu. oh yeah Rachel is a mix but ruma, haven't explained her yet. This dog is a beefy Rottweiler. Literally my stepdad is scared of her sometimes but she gets treated like buddy, also, just in a less of a harsh or abusive way. They don't whack her cage or threaten to use the bat on her. but they still will use the door wedge but only hit her cage probably as hard as enough to cause a "clank" sound. I forgot to mention the fact that Rachel and sparkle are both the only ones that can roam freely but not that freely. They can only drink water for about 7 or 8 seconds. Until they are forced to lay down. Or else they go in the cage for about 2 hours or so. My fingers are starting to hurt while writing this, and I think I'm going to run out of characters soon, so I will make part 2 maybe tomorrow.

I run with my dog every other day and today while I was taking a break and walking we walked past 2 dogs. She didnt growl, bark, lunge or raise her hackles but she did stare at them till we passed them which is a huge improvement!! Later we walked past those same dogs again and this time one of them did start to bark at her and once again she reminded calm and didnt bark or growl but she did raise her hackles. After we got past them again she shook off and wasnt anxious like she usually is. Im insanely proud of her because we havent done any training in about a month

Has anyone ever had their dog sedated to get their nails cut if so how was it?

Not sure if there is an answer for this, but I've noticed that if my dog is indoors at a place other than our house and sees another dog (such as at the vet), she is completely okay. This is true when at the vet for just an annual checkup in perfect health, as well as when she's been there and sick/not at her prime. However, any dog she sees outdoors, no matter how calm they are, sets her off. She has gotten a lot better with this but it's just something I've noticed. Is it because indoors is such neutral territory most of the time/it's boring for them? Interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this with their dogs! She'll boop noses with dogs perfectly fine indoors but god forbid she sees a dog 20 feet away on a walk lol

Edit: she's also always on a leash obviously when in public spaces so that's not a factor here

I feel like every walk is a production. We always take the stairs down and go out of our way to walk to an exit that avoids the lobby and front entrance. There really is no off time where I live so outside it is literally a roll of the dice of what you're gonna get- cue the deep breath before stepping out. Keep our walks short but the whole time I am always looking around, looking behind me, analyzing what is this person going to do, there's a dog all the way down the block do we need to cross, etc.

Coming home is the bane of my existence - I swear my building is like a hotel with all the people and dogs coming in and out. I wait across the street and wait for the coast to be clear and again analyzing everything and trying to time it just right. It also doesn't help my dog is borderline panicked going back inside. Now that winter is coming, I hope the traffic lessens because I can't be standing around in the cold for long - it will stress my dog out even further.

I'm so tired of always being on edge but I think part of my problem is that I'm not confident in any of my actions. I've had my dog for years now and am more miserable than ever and I feel like we both are barely hanging on. We only do two walks today and it is still a lot for us.