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Transcript

Jessica: [00:00:00] I am Jessica Wheatcraft, and this is Rethinking Reactivity, A podcast designed to educate, empower, and equip the modern handler of reactive dogs. Whether you have a reactive dog or you help people with their reactive dogs, you’re in the right place. When you hear the term reactivity, what does it mean to you?

Jessica: How would you describe a dog that is reactive? Your answer is probably going to be different from the next person because reactivity is a label that is often used to describe a wide range of behaviors. I wanted to bring in my friend and colleague, Laurie Lawless, to unpack the term reactivity in both pet dogs and shelter dogs.

Jessica: We discuss how we go beyond the obvious behaviors such as barking and lunging to dive deeper [00:01:00] into an individual dog’s motivations for their reactivity. Because the more that we can understand a dog’s motivations, the more efficient we can be at modifying their behavior. And most importantly, it allows us to look at the individual dog and go beyond labels that can have some serious implications for them, especially if they’re in a shelter.

Jessica: As a side note, Laurie and I discussed doing dog to dog introductions with reactive dogs as part of our assessment procedures. This is an area we both have a lot of expertise in, and if you’re not a professional, please don’t go introducing reactive dogs to another dog without professional help. I added some resources in the show notes in case you’re someone who needs them.

Jessica: Let’s dive in. Laurie, I wanted to start with a more per personal question, and I’m curious to better [00:02:00] understand why you have dedicated so much of your career to shelter dogs.

Laurie: That’s such a great question. It’s a little loaded, but I think I could summarize it pretty succinctly even though I’m not known for being succinct about anything.

Laurie: Because we’re behavior people, so I, I think the passion really started early on when I was a kid. I was an animal lover and I had a dog who had aggression challenges, not just reactivity as we’re gonna be discussing today, but true aggression. He was a German shepherd chow mix, and he. Unfortunately ended up having to be behaviorally euthanized when I was a very young child after just about a year and a half, because he kept getting outta the house and going after people, even though he was showing aggression or was aggressive towards people outside of the house.

Laurie: He was so great with us. And so when I became an adult, [00:03:00] I adopted a dog named Charlie. I really wanted a big dog. I had started working with dogs at that point. Actually, no, I hadn’t started working with dogs at that point. I adopted Charlie first, and I wanted a big dog because I had missed having one from a kid.

Laurie: And the first day that I had Charlie, I took him for a walk down the street and he launched and nipped at somebody. Dog behavior specifically has been something that I’ve had to navigate through my whole life and from when I was a child to where we are now. And so for Charlie, I immediately thought, oh my gosh, and it brought back a lot of that stuff from when I was younger with my dog, spooky.

Laurie: I went on this journey at that point and started volunteering at shelters and started researching how to work with aggression and reactivity and all of those things, and then it drove me into sheltering and seeing how many dogs really needed the help and could I help them and to prevent. I guess a spooky or a [00:04:00] Charlie?

Laurie: Charlie was fine. I mean, he lived with me for eight years, but I managed a lot because I didn’t know the behavior modification and all the things I do now, thinking back is those two stories of mine that are personal really drove me into this field and wanting to really help dogs try to navigate our human world.

Laurie: And so that’s how I started working and sheltering and it’s been a really awesome journey. Difficult nonetheless, but awesome.

Jessica: Thank you for sharing that. I think so many of us have a dog that comes into our lives and then it steers us in the direction of working with dogs professionally.

Laurie: I. I think the driving force there was, I knew very early on what the outcome was for an aggressive dog.

Laurie: And so when I got Charlie and the first thing he did was lunge and nip at somebody, I wanted to fix it and I didn’t want the same outcome a second time. And I think that’s really what drives a lot of us is we realized that we have a, a dog with a challenge and. We don’t wanna [00:05:00] think of the worst possible outcome.

Laurie: And so we do our thing, and for some of us, it drives us into becoming professionals in the field. So I think you’re right. A lot of us carry that weight on our shoulders. From an earlier time, probably half the people listening to this podcast right now have a similar story of how they got into doing animal welfare or working as a dog trainer, or if you are a pet owner, having those similar feelings of what do I do and how do I help?

Jessica: Exactly. Thank you for sharing that. So we’re gonna talk about reactivity today, and I wanted to break this word down because it’s technically an umbrella term that can include a lot of different behaviors and it can be confusing for one person to. Hear the word reactivity and then associate a particular behavior with it, but then somebody else has a different definition of the term.

Jessica: And then along those lines, you [00:06:00] also have things like reactivity and aggression often intertwined. And I want to just unpack this a little bit more so that way we could help our listeners better understand perhaps what we view reactivity as. And why it can encompass so many different behaviors.

Laurie: Yeah, I think that’s a great question.

Laurie: And personally, I think that as humans just wandering through the world and trying to do things, we create labels to describe things because we are social creatures too. When we want to try to explain something to somebody else, it can sometimes be easier to make it very clear and concise so we can communicate effectively and efficiently.

Laurie: However, sometimes what I have found, especially. When we have groups of people talking about the same dog and describing behavior, it’s very interesting to, to see what some folks will call reactive and other folks will call reactive. And so when we are [00:07:00] talking broadly about reactivity, what I think is having a very strong emotional response to some type of stimulus.

Laurie: And so typically what we see with that is. Lunging, growling or barking, oftentimes moving towards whatever that stimulus is in a very loud and egregious kind of way. And when I also think about reactivity, sometimes a little bit less so I think of. Doing the same kind of thing of barking growling, but moving backwards in away and maybe circling and growling, and that I consider less reactive.

Laurie: But again, it’s like that label of what is it that you picked? And so for some people it is that fearful dog who is backing away. And for many folks it, it is moving forward or towards. And then I think that gets intertwined with aggression because there’s teeth, there’s growling. Those things will happen also when a dog [00:08:00] is aggressing.

Laurie: However, the two things are very different, and it’s really important across the board if you have a dog who is displaying any of these behaviors, that we need to actually figure out the function of what’s going on underneath, because there’s a. Range of so many different things that could cause those, I would say symptomatic behaviors to become elicited towards the stimulus and then what is the function of the behavior for that animal.

Laurie: And that’s where the be behavior person’s gonna dig a little deeper. So hope that kind of answers the question.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate that you brought up how we put labels on things because it just helps us understand it. It gives us a reference point and then. We have this reference point that we then have in common with someone else.

Jessica: So that way it’s, oh yeah, we’re talking about the same thing. But you also paint some really great points that we need to unpack that more and do some more digging because we’ve all had [00:09:00] clients who send us a message and say, my dog is reactive, and then we get some more information and it turns out that this dog is biting people who are coming into their home.

Jessica: And yes, the dog is clearly having a very big reaction to something, but most of us as behavior professionals would probably think of this sounds more like stranger directed aggression, which is, again, similar if we think about the outward behaviors that are occurring, but we might put it under a slightly different label or put it in a little bit of a different bucket because of that.

Laurie: Absolutely. And where I sometimes see this happen in shelters when I’m working in shelters is I think that due to the, you know, the environment for the humans mm-hmm. We are always thinking about wanting to get animals into adoptive homes. What’s very clear to me after doing this for so long is there is never, I’m not gonna say never, it is rare that a dog is [00:10:00] so blatantly.

Laurie: Aggressive that we have to make a decision really quickly. Most dogs who come into our shelter system, just like people have really great days and really bad days, or really good moments and really bad moments, but it’s not so linear and it can be really challenging when we use words like aggression in a shelter because the overhanging big word above aggression is euthanasia.

Laurie: Right? And so what I see sometimes in shelters going to different ones is that. Dogs will be labeled as reactive, and they will keep it there and treat it as reactivity. They will discuss it as reactivity. They will talk about it as reactivity to internally to adopters, but they don’t do further assessment because I think there’s a concern that, oh, if we assess this dog and it is aggressive, then we’re actually moving that conversation to something different, and then that’s gonna be really hard for everybody, especially if the dog has been there for a really long time.

Laurie: Or even a long enough [00:11:00] time, I should say, for the staff and volunteers to become and build, I shouldn’t say become, attached is not the right word, but build a relationship and then that gets more challenging, obviously. So I do see that conflation in shelters and it’s interesting because I think it’s more complex than not identifying both.

Laurie: Sometimes a fear of if I continue to poke and investigate and if I find out what I don’t wanna find out, how does that change this dog’s outcome. So that’s something I think when we’re looking at labels and labeling, I think that like reactivity can sometimes become a safeguard as a word in sheltering.

Laurie: So that’s something I see and I’ve experienced myself personally in the years I’ve grown up through shelters. I. So something worth mentioning for sure is that it can also be used interchangeably sometimes with aggression for purposes, other than the lack of understanding, I guess I should say. And I don’t think it’s purposeful either.

Laurie: I think it’s like a cognitive, a [00:12:00] cognitive thing that we just, you know, the more you don’t know, sometimes the better. I mean, the ethics and morals around that, we can debate on and on, but I don’t think it’s done with intention to. For anything. I think it’s just something humans naturally do when we have a relationship is we protect.

Laurie: Right. Ah, glad that you

Jessica: brought that up. That does make a lot of sense because I think if, when people hear the word reactive versus aggressive, people will think reactive. Maybe just sounds more noisy, and aggression means maybe some words that pop in their mind and they think the dog is biting, the dog is unsafe, the dog is really scary.

Jessica: And you are right there. It seems to be aggression carries a lot more weight to it, and reactivity I think carries less weight to it. So it could be really easy to want to just label a dog’s behavior as that. And I know that we. Chatted a little bit earlier when we were talking. What does reactivity look like?

Jessica: And you described barking, lunge, and growling. I would say same thing, and for me, when I [00:13:00] reference the term reactivity, I mostly think of it as being on leash. This is my own personal thing. I view reactivity as almost always occurring on leash and. I view, or I would label other behaviors such as the dog barking through the window.

Jessica: There’s a barrier there, right? But I think that’s perhaps more of maybe the dog is alert, barking, or maybe there’s even some territorial barking that’s going on there. Depending on the dog’s genetics, and if they really do feel like they want to be territorial over their homes. So I think there’s a lot of nuances with, yeah, what could be very similar behavior, but then depending on the context could be labeled as something a little different.

Jessica: And I’m wondering if we should unpack how we see the main difference between behaviors that have a motivation or this function of the dogs really using truly aggressive behaviors versus what we might put more under the bucket of this is just reactivity.

Laurie: Yeah. [00:14:00] Oh, that’s such a good question. So whether or not I’m working with a private client in their home, or I’m working with a dog in the shelter and they’re reporting reactivity, typically I’m asking what does it look like?

Laurie: How long does it go on? I do a lot of diagnostic questions to try to figure out exactly is potentially causing this behavior. And then the first thing that I wanna really try to do is. If it’s behind some type of barrier, like you said, a window or a gate in somebody’s yard or on leash, right? We wanna remember that a leash is a barrier.

Laurie: The dog is fully aware that they’re restricted to a certain amount of space and that they cannot escape, which is a really cool topic we’ll talk about later. It’s the function of the leash and how it plays into to reactivity, but. I usually wanna see the animal without that restriction, what is it that they would do if they were not being restricted from, and 99% of the time, [00:15:00] the animal would choose to move away when confronted with the stimulus?

Laurie: 99% of the time is probably a little bit of a, but I’m gonna say 90. 96.3% of the time or so, getting that it’s most common that once that barrier is dropped or gone or the leash is gone, is dropped, the dog actually chooses moving away, and so we can identify that really the function of that is probably fear using all these big, egregious.

Laurie: Movements and vocalizations and teeth flashing. They’re trying to make themselves look bigger and sound scary, so the thing that they are presented with moves away. I don’t always have this ability, but in shelters or in shelters to have that ability to know the history, but it when we’re doing any sort of behavior.

Laurie: Collection previous behavior will predict what future behavior could look like. And so collecting that data ahead of time and then setting it up safely so we can talk a little bit more about the assessment piece. But [00:16:00] really that’s the key component is, well, what does the animal do once the barrier or the restriction is gone?

Laurie: I don’t know what your thoughts on that, but that’s what I find to be the most effective way to, yeah, identify the difference of reactivity versus actual aggression. Yeah, exactly.

Jessica: I would say mine is the same. And I think a lot of listeners who have reactive dogs will also say the same thing. Like, look, my dog, if you just came over to my house, would not behave this way at all.

Jessica: But maybe on leash around their neighborhood, maybe it’s lunging and barking at people, but inside of the home, again, a different context and the dog not being on a leash and not having any barriers, their behavior is different and. I think that is so important to distinguish whether the barrier is there or not, because there is a really big difference between a dog like the one I just described.

Jessica: Hey, it might well lunge and bark at people on leash, but inside the home without the barrier does not behave that way. Compared to a dog who lunges [00:17:00] bark is at people on leash and then inside the home when it has access to a strange person will bite that person. It’s a really big distinction and I think that’s where.

Jessica: So much of why we wanted to unpack some of this, why this is important, because when we’re using either one of those labels reactive or aggressive, it could mean very different things, and especially when it comes down to safety of people, dogs, the community. That’s why it’s so important to really understand more about what the dog is actually doing and in which context these behaviors present themselves.

Laurie: Yeah, absolutely. It’s so important to identify that difference because frankly, your behavior modification, if we’re doing that, is gonna be totally different depending on what the function of the actual behavior is. So is it fear, is it frustration? Is it intent to harm? Which I really feel like is a pretty, like a less likely, but those dogs are out there that [00:18:00] due to learning history, genetics.

Laurie: Who they are, low resilience, territorial behavior. There are dogs out there who his intent is to harm either humans or other animals. And, uh, sometimes we cannot always quote unquote, fix that, but. 99% of it is 96.3% of it. Lori’s made up statistics, fear or frustration on the leash. And yes, that can look ugly.

Laurie: And sometimes I do feel like if we have a dog who’s extremely frustrated and they are very excited and then they get access to the thing while in that highly excited, frustrated state, that can tip over into aggression pretty quickly. If you are not careful in what you’re doing, and so it can start in one way and end in a different way, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that that was the initial intention.

Laurie: And so that’s really the biggest part because we have seen that like in [00:19:00] playgroup, sometimes dogs will start out playing. The excitement level gets really high. One dog bumps into the other dog, and then we have an explosion and everybody’s not happy with each other, and that is something that can happen.

Laurie: But the intent there wasn’t necessarily to harm, but it can turn into that. Well, I’m curious, when you

Jessica: go to a shelter and you’re called in, right, they have a dog that maybe they say it’s reactive, maybe they say it’s aggressive. And when you are gonna go there, what is your procedure for really wanting to assess this dog?

Jessica: And you also talked about how can we also keep that safe, because I think one of the things that you and I think is really important is that not only should people be doing this in safe ways, just because you and I both agree that a lot of times dogs behind barriers will behave much differently in another context, doesn’t mean that it should just be a free for all.

Jessica: Let’s just expose these dogs. To other dogs people without having a better understanding of their history and so forth, while also at the same [00:20:00] time doing these assessments is really important because I like to say that I don’t take reactive dogs at face value. I don’t take that behavior, what I see at face value.

Jessica: There’s always more underneath, and it’s my job to uncover that. So I’m curious from your perspective, when you’re going to shelter, how do you actually uncover that so you could really understand this dog and then figure out, okay, what kind of life does this dog have ahead of them?

Laurie: Yeah, no, that’s a great question.

Laurie: I approach each case individually because I truly feel all dogs deserve a good second chance, right? And so if we’re in a shelter and I have any history, I am looking at that animal’s history. Did they live? Near other dogs. Have they lived with other dogs? Well, how was their owner? What was walking down the street?

Laurie: What did that look like for their owner? A lot of shelters are really moving towards having these more thorough intake forms and or interviews at owner surrender time if we can solely, because [00:21:00] it’s so important for many adopters. So I’m talking about dog to dog reactivity. Now it’s this specific thing, but.

Laurie: I really wanna know, has this dog been to day fair? Did you have a dog walker? What type of equipment did you try using on the walk? W would your dog recover if it saw another dog and then the dog disappeared or did it continue? I wanna know all those details because most people who adopt a dog are gonna want to take the dog for a walk.

Laurie: I think the shelter system in a lot of times misses this gap that what is important to adopters? It’s not always the same as what’s important for information we need in the shelter. And I think we’re missing a lot of data there because if we have a dog who is very challenging to walk on leash, we have a very specific adopter we’re looking for.

Laurie: So anyway, that’s a divergent topic, but I’m looking for all of that information and that’s gonna help me figure out what I’m gonna do for assessing. Now if I have no history, I’d have to start at a blank sheet. [00:22:00] I might take whatever information they’ve given me from the stay the dog has had in the shelter, and then I am so much extra careful if I don’t have any of that.

Laurie: But generally, first thing that I’m gonna do is make sure I have my safety gear on. So I have handling gloves. I usually have a slip lead. I bring a little like puppy leash and keep it in my pocket if I need to do a quick release or a figure eight slip. Or a clip to slip. There’s so many different needs for that, and that’s so that I can always be prepared to, to handle what’s coming at me.

Laurie: But with the way that I do things, I very rarely have a situation in which I need to use to tools. I’ve actually never really used a tool for a dog I’ve assessed, which is crazy. What do you mean a tool? Like, like a, like a citronella spray or anything like that? Like, I’ve never had Oh, okay. Situation.

Laurie: Assessing a dog where I’ve. I became nervous and needed to Yeah, like escape a situation, right. Because I do so much planning around that. Yeah. So I usually, my first thing to do is get them out of the kennel. I don’t wanna pet them right away, I just want to get them outta the [00:23:00] kennel. It’s really important to remember that many dogs, especially if they’ve been in a kennel for a long time, and if you approach the SIP lead, even as an a new person they’ve never met, are so conditioned to the idea that person’s taking me outside and it’s not my kennel, and I enjoy that.

Laurie: So the dog may already form association with you and that slip lead as an okay person just for that fact that you are giving them access to outside. So it’s really important to get them out of the shelter into a space where they typically would be where they’re most comfortable. So once they get them out there, I see how they interact with me freely.

Laurie: If I’m concerned about the dog I leave a leash on, sometimes I leave a long line on it really depends. But the goal for me is really to see how is this dog, so if this is like a human reactivity case, I’m gonna see how this dog is without that leisure barrier, et cetera. So yeah, lots of contingencies.

Laurie: That is not gonna be a simple question for me to answer, but the goal, like you said, is really staying safe and really taking a look at that history, because that’s gonna be the [00:24:00] most important part of how you’re gonna proceed. I never wanna push the dog to do the behavior, but I might want to. Test the water lightly, which I think is something when we’re in a shelter, we do need to do at certain times to make appropriate decisions.

Laurie: But yeah, so it’s very long, but really important to know that when you’re doing these assessments, it’s really to identify the function of the behavior and make sure that you are giving the dog the chance to do something other than the reactivity. And do they take those opportunities, I guess I should say?

Jessica: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think what I’m also hearing. Is you get them out of the context that they’re often reacting in. Yes. So you mentioned that you’re not doing this in the kennel. If this is a shelter dog who does a lot of barking and perhaps even lynching from behind the kennel door. You’re getting them out of that context and you’re purposely putting them in a different context.

Jessica: Yep. And [00:25:00] then seeing what their behavior is like there, of course, without the barrier, but also a completely different context. Yes, and I think that is what is so important for people to really understand reactivity is that. It is so highly contextual. That it often doesn’t make sense to people. Well, my dog only reacts to certain dogs on walks and I can’t figure out why.

Jessica: Or My dog only does this, or is only reactive in this scenario, but then two seconds later behaves completely differently. And I think that’s why people are grasping for, how do I understand this? And to me, so much of this comes down to context. And so I think you did a great job of outlining that. You a, changed the context for the dogs.

Jessica: You can see the dog’s behavior. In a environment.

Laurie: Yeah, and I can elaborate on that a little bit since you up so concisely for me. Thank you. As I mentioned, I am not a very concise person. I’m like, what’s your elevator pitch? I have your ear for 10 minutes. You’re like, how do I get outta this conversation?

Laurie: But, [00:26:00] but I think what is good that you wrapped up for me as I was getting a little lost there. Yes, we changed the context, but especially if it’s a reactivity towards people, I might want to see if that reactivity behind the barrier from in the kennel is generalized to other barriers. So I’m glad that you mentioned that because what I will then do after I get to know the dog a little bit, we formed a little bit of relationship.

Laurie: If they allow it, then I might take them for a walk and from a distance I try to see how they’re responding to somebody getting out of a car or. Something like that. Or if it’s a dog reactivity, it might be somebody walking down the street or I might have a staff member bring a dog out from a distance.

Laurie: And what I’m looking for there is at a far enough distance that I can see their ears perk up or they displacement, sniff. Or are they choosing different things to do? ’cause as the stress escalation ladder and the letter up to aggression, we can keep that in mind and those would be good to probably plug in the podcast show [00:27:00] notes or what those two things are.

Laurie: So that’s how I will then further assess it to see and see if it’s something that is very specific to just in the shelter, especially if you don’t have history on the dog or if it’s something generalized in other places. I, I think what you were saying about how it’s so nuanced and it can be so context specific and I do think that is often why we see these, like fix it all dog training programs out there sometimes.

Laurie: And if your dog is reactive. Do X, Y, Z, and I think those who really study and understand behavior and I guess apply it and practice it for us, it’s just not that linear.

Jessica: Yeah, and it’s also why the vast majority of those fix it all. Programs don’t work because they aren’t really getting to the root of what’s going on or really unpacking and diving into the nuances of the contacts, the dog’s behavior, and also the motivations [00:28:00] behind some of these.

Jessica: And I wanna talk more about that as well, because you’re referring to getting a dog who. Is perhaps being reactive through the kennel barrier towards people, but then you get it out into a more open space and you’re looking to see what does the dog do in this scenario? Just with me. What does the dog do if I then put it on leash and we go and we expose it to other people that are at a distance and so forth.

Jessica: I love that you do that because it just shows how much information you’re actually gathering about the dog. And I will also do a little plug with how much you value getting the dog’s history, because that’s also something that’s really important. That’s why I get a lot of the dog’s history as well, especially when it comes down to what the dog is reactive to, whether it’s dogs or people.

Jessica: I’m really interested to know what set dogs sociability with dogs or people. How does this dog even just feel? About those beings in general because that does lead me down. [00:29:00] Okay, I’m seeing this dog is really avoidant, seems really worried. Of course, that would be natural for a dog who is worried about people, their dogs, now they’re on a leash, they can’t move as they would if they didn’t have that barrier.

Jessica: And so then therefore you’re gonna see another set of behaviors. And I’m wondering if we could talk a little bit more about that. Some of the different motivations that we tend to see whether a dog is on a leash or behind. A barrier. And why is it important that we really need to understand these motivations?

Laurie: It’s such a great question because I see a lot of different motivations. Sometimes the dog is social but worried and wants to go greet because they want to get to know that other dog and understand if that dog is a perceived threat or possibly another dog that they could potentially get comfort from, but they’re unsure and the inability to get to them.

Laurie: Know if they are safe or not can cause fear, right? Then we have dogs who are potentially [00:30:00] very social, but they’re so fearful. It’s very inhibitive, and so they are too scared to approach, and the inability to move away can be something that would then cause forward moving reactivity because if we decrease the space or increasing the likelihood that they have to feel the need to defend themselves, they’re gonna get bigger and push the other dog away.

Laurie: We have dogs who are like in love with other dogs. We see this in a lot of adolescent dogs. Yes, especially in shelters where they are, they lack impulse control is probably not the right word, but their decision making is not fully formed. They’re not mature adults and so all they know is they wanna get to that dog and play and they wanna get there now, and then they get really frustrated and throw a big fit.

Laurie: And that can look exactly the same. Exactly the same as the dog who is scared. And then we do have dogs who are aggressive and do want to get to that dog to hurt them. [00:31:00] But typically with those dogs, you’re not gonna see the big explosive reaction. You’re gonna see a lot more focus concentration, or they’re gonna be doing things such as backing up and like charging on the end of the leash.

Laurie: And those are the dogs that concern me more than the ones who are big and loud. Yeah. Lots of different motivations for sure. So figuring that out is important.

Jessica: I really appreciate how the first version that you mentioned was dogs who want information from the other dog to determine whether, if they’re a threat, am I going to be safe around this other dog?

Jessica: But that once they get access to that dog, that it may not. B something where they’re really all that interested in them once they get access. Yeah, I’ve seen that a lot. Whereas it’s almost as if they were like, well, I just wanted to know what that was and now I’m moving on. Within seconds is all right over it.

Jessica: Bye. But that can be confusing for the handlers because they think, well, they were making such a big deal just to get over there and then [00:32:00] they didn’t do anything. And so again, might not make sense to certain people who have these types of dogs, but I have seen that many times as well that they just want information about who.

Jessica: That other dog is, and yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Laurie: Yeah. I think we forget that dogs get most of their information through their noses and that they also can smell pheromones and have incredible senses of who, who the other dog is, just based on sniffing their butt and sniffing their ear even, and sometimes their mouth.

Laurie: So if we’re inhibiting that ability to do that, I’m not saying go up and let your dog do that. Without a professional or whatever, but inhibiting of the dogs really can affect the way that they perceive and internalize information.

Jessica: Yeah, and the importance of it to me is that I. If we don’t really understand these dogs’ underlying motivations, and then they get labeled as being [00:33:00] unsafe for some reason, then that dog’s world is about to get a lot smaller.

Jessica: Or it could even mean for some dogs that are in shelters that they could be up for behavioral euthanasia, and that’s why it’s so important. I think that’s also one of the reasons why I’m so passionate about working with reactive dogs is because their world is often very small and if. They belong to somebody who doesn’t really understand their dog’s behavior and is too nervous to expose them to things because they don’t know what their dog is gonna do.

Jessica: And so then they just avoid everyone and everything. And that’s really small world for a, a social being. And not to say that all of these dogs just wanna be around people and dogs all the time. We’re not saying that either. But it, it leads to some. Really big impacts on these dogs’ welfare and what they get to do in their lives, and that’s why it’s a big driver for me.

Jessica: Let’s talk just a little bit more about how [00:34:00] we do some of these assessments. Share more about how do you do this, how do you make this as safe as you can?

Laurie: Yeah, so I’ll just go with a couple examples. Telling a story for me is always a little bit easier than explaining my process. Sounds great. I believe, I’ll give you two examples of dogs who were reactive in shelter.

Laurie: So one was a dog that I went down to a shelter in Florida and he. Was so reactive towards other dogs that they had him sequestered in a corner by a back door because him hearing other dogs barking and seeing other dogs made him so reactive, he was screaming, and so they put him in this back door so they could just get him in and out.

Laurie: They made sure other dogs weren’t on walks, and so when I went there, the shelter is focusing mostly on his in shelter care. Right. But we have to really think about who is this dog going home to? Yeah. And what are we asking them to take on? And so I asked to see his paperwork [00:35:00] and while we didn’t have a lot of information, there was a note that said he had been part of a larger hoarding case with other dogs and cats.

Laurie: And so that hit a bell for me because that told me that he has lived in and around other dogs probably his whole life. And if he was in a hoarding case. It was highly possible either A, he was loose with other dogs and being in a shelter is the first time he’s experiencing limited access, which could be frustrating.

Laurie: Dogs from hoarding cases also tend to not have very good worldly developed social skills or understand things like barriers or. The other alternative is he was in a hoarding situation where he was kenneled with a bunch of other dogs and that this was a really scary thing for him to now be in a shelter, an environment he doesn’t know with a bunch of other dogs he doesn’t know.

Laurie: ’cause he was probably used to whatever dogs were around him, like dogs do habituate in those environments. I wanted to get him out with another dog. And see what this looked like. So we found our most resilient [00:36:00] dog. Brought him in and he came out to the yard and the leash screaming. It sounded awful. And as soon as we relinquished the leash pressure a little bit, he decreased his barking.

Laurie: And so we had him in an airlock kind of a thing with this other dog in the yard. And the other dog that I had in the yard was a super rock steady dog, very social playgroup, awesome dog that they used all the time. He didn’t move away from the fence. He looked at the dog and was like, why are you acting like that weirdo?

Laurie: And I thought that was interesting. I’m always looking at the other dog and how they’re reacting to the new dog, right? And so I walk over and he’s like, blah, blah, blah. And I. Put some food through the fence and he immediately stopped screaming and take some food outta my hand. You’re so willing to disengage from what you’re doing.

Laurie: I had my colleague just play a, like the engaged disengage game, which is giving the treat for looking at the dog, and within five minutes he had calmed down significantly. So he came to the yard. We did parallel walks. It took us about 15 or 20 minutes. We did the circle so they could sniff each other’s pee [00:37:00] marking things, and then inevitably what he did is he got very excited and jumped towards the dog.

Laurie: At first we were nervous and then he jumped backwards into a play bow and started wagging his tail. So we ended up letting him and the other dog play, and then we started working more dogs into the playgroup. And he was actually incredibly dog social and got along with everybody. So this, this dog was at that shelter for about four or five months, had absolutely no applications, was listed as no dogs on their website.

Laurie: He had some fear issues, but. Honestly, pretty mild for coming from a situation that like would be a equivalent hoarding case. And he ended up being dog social. He started gonna in playgroup every day and he was adopted like three weeks later. Right? So this is a dog that could have lived there for a very long time had we not just tried.

Laurie: Yeah. Um, and could the alternative have been, he was really dog aggressive, possibly. And then is it fair to give a dog, aggressive dog who’s gonna hurt potentially another dog to the community? [00:38:00] That’s a decision each shelter has to make where their adoptability guidelines are. But it’s a question we should always be asking.

Laurie: So that’s one. And then the second one I wanted to talk about too, I was just recently at a shelter and he was listed as dog only home. They didn’t do dog intros at the shelter. And he was a young pit bull, very strong, found as a stray, no history, terrible leash manners. And when he saw other dogs, he was just pulling to get to them.

Laurie: They were really worried about this, but I read through his in shelter notes and I saw that he was a little hesitant, hand shy, a little fearful. Not totally under socialized, but I felt like this dog was a little soft and just based on his interaction notes with people, I wanted to see what that looked like with other dogs when he was given the ability to access them versus seeing them afar from a leash.

Laurie: The first thing we did, ’cause they had no dog history, was a stuffed dog. And I brought the stuffed dog out. [00:39:00] I always don’t let them see it. I walk them into the room and the dog is just there, and they have Bonnie, the border Collie with a nice open mouth. So she’s like my friendly stuffed dog. And he came in and took one look at her and was like, oh God.

Laurie: And I started snipping the floor and displacement snipping and all this stuff. And he’s loose, he can do whatever he wants. It took him about three minutes to finally walk up and sniff her tail. Mm-hmm. And I’m like, okay, let’s. Fence test. So the next day we were getting some more dogs out to do stuff and we found a cute little playful female pity.

Laurie: They met at the fence and it was play bas immediately. And we did an on leash greeting, quickly came into the yard and did a quick circle. They were both playing and sniffing very appropriately. And then they went and they played for like 20 minutes and it was magic. And then we tried to, with a male, he was a little more hesitant around the male, but nothing that can concerned me.

Laurie: And it just was like, wow, this dog could sit here for another six or seven months waiting for a home that doesn’t have another dog. And now we just found out that he actually loves. Other dogs, [00:40:00] he just doesn’t know to function on a leash. Yeah. So two stories, and I have opposing stories to that too, but we don’t have to go into that.

Laurie: But I do think that it’s powerful. Yeah. Yeah. It really is.

Jessica: I love the stories, the implication of when they get labeled like that. Right. No dogs. The implication is that it’s very difficult for. People to adopt a dog who can’t be around any other dog. Most people, or many, I don’t know the numbers, already have other animals in their home, or they have friends or family members who come over with their dogs and this whole label of it can’t be around any other dogs.

Jessica: That’s, it’s some really serious implications for dogs in shelters and what that means for them. And I also wanna point out that the reason why, you know, those of us who work in shelters, the reason why it’s important to do those assessments is because of what we’re referring to. So there’s more information about that dog to then find its way into a home that’s best suited for them compared to pet dogs where they’re already in a [00:41:00] home.

Jessica: And we tend to be, I’m gonna say probably a little bit more conservative with dog to dog assessments in pet dog homes because in the shelters sometimes you either have a new dog who came in, you need to get the information about the dog. So that’s why shelters do these types of assessments as well. But then in terms of pet dog stuff, I think it’s a little bit different.

Jessica: But I also wanna highlight some of the similarities because what I was hearing you describe with your assessment procedure specifically with the first dog, is when you mentioned that there was an airlock. So for those who don’t know what the airlock is, that is a smaller fence to area or a barrier in a larger fence to area.

Jessica: So you were referencing that one of the other dog was loose, and then you had this one inside of that airlock. So you’ve got some barriers in place and the dog was on a leash. So you actually have two barriers in place. You’ve got two layers of safety there. And then further assessing some of those different aspects of the dog’s behavior and so forth.

Jessica: Some of these dogs might even be muzzled if we’re really not sure, and we think [00:42:00] there’s some indicators that. This could become unsafe or this dog might escalate, then certainly could use some muzzles there as well. But also that when you’re doing these assessments, you’re taking some time. If there’s a pet parent listening and thinking, well, I was thinking about introducing my dog to the neighbor dog, and they don’t know how, A lot of times they think this is a procedure that takes five or 10 minutes, and I think you and I both think, no, this might be a whole hour by the time you get the dogs to calm down.

Jessica: To also where we’re looking at them in many different contexts before we actually have them interact. Meaning we’re gathering information along this entire way in terms of what does the dog look like? Again, within the airlock, what does the dog look like If they’re just on leashes, what happens if they get a little closer?

Jessica: Does their behavior change? There’s lots of things that we’re looking at here to not only measure, okay. We change this. The dog’s behavior now looks like this. It gives us either like a green light or a red light. For example, if we then got [00:43:00] closer to the other dog and then we saw some really hard stairs and some stiffness, we think, well, that’s definitely a red light.

Jessica: I’m not gonna proceed there. So we’re looking for indicators that tell us whether we should continue this or if we need to start scaling it back. And that’s also why if somebody has. A dog who they don’t really have a lot of information with, or if maybe their interactions with other dogs have been mixed.

Jessica: Sometimes they seem to be friendly and it goes well, and then other times it doesn’t, but then they don’t know why. That’s definitely a time to get a professional involved to help you with your dog so that you can have a better understanding of what’s going on.

Laurie: Absolutely. I have one of those that Moose is very specific about, his friends and who he interacts with, so it took a long time for me to figure out that nuance.

Laurie: And having a muzzle was really helpful for me because I felt like I could introduce him to different dogs. Safely and figure out which ones he was [00:44:00] able to interact with and coexist with. The war, play with the player is very limited. He’s got like a very small pool of dogs he’ll actually play with. He can coexist with many he hates badly.

Laurie: Some the sociability stuff’s on the spectrum, but yeah, like the muzzle, the safety gear, having a plan is really, mm-hmm. Having somebody who’s a professional help you figure that out can be really. Instrumental, I think, to helping improve your social life in general. Jessica, one of the things that you had mentioned earlier was even if we’re unable to necessarily socialize with other dogs, if we’re able to identify sociability or with a specific triggers were or are, you can still improve your dog’s quality of life.

Laurie: So something for moose, he loves being in the woods, but I live in Vermont and I think it’s like 1.7 dogs per. Household or something like everybody here has talks. He is very selective. And so [00:45:00] when I want to be able to enjoy those activities with him, instead of going to our local places, which is unfortunate, I can actually go over to upstate New York and those trails are much less traveled than the Green Mountains.

Laurie: And so going over to the Adirondacks. I might run into maybe one or two dogs on a full day trip, and so I can take moose there and we can still have that great quality of life. I’ve just had to adjust the environment. It’s something just to think about too.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. Sociability is on a spectrum.

Jessica: It’s not that one dog is just really social or they’re not social. And then of course it depends on the other dog that they’re interacting with. Which leads me to that last point that I wanted to bring up in regards to the assessment is that the other dog that you use for the assessment is also a really critical piece here because we’re looking for is a, that the other dog has a very high threshold for aggression.

Jessica: And what we mean by that is that if this is a dog who. Has another dog who lunges or barks at them that they wouldn’t [00:46:00] necessarily respond in kind. They tend to be very tolerant to the type of behavior. Doesn’t mean that they’re gonna allow dogs to just run over them with that type of stuff, but they tend to be pretty emotionally savvy.

Jessica: They can gauge the intention of that other dog. And I like how you mentioned that you also look for the reaction from the other dog because. That is something that I have used a lot in my assessments and I am very fortunate that one of my dogs scout is so emotionally savvy that I can tell just from his reaction to another dog, whether that dog has intentions to harm him.

Jessica: Or whether this is just a dog that’s a little bit nervous, and Scout can help pull that dog out of his shell and make the other dog feel really safe around him, and it’s really valuable to A, have a dog like that. But then b. Yeah. And then, yeah, but then B, just [00:47:00] if you don’t have a dog like that again, that’s more of a reason to really wanna work with a professional, because even though we’re talking about keeping these assessments really safe, making sure that you’re taking your time with them and so forth.

Jessica: If you, yourself, as a professional, don’t have a dog like that, then you need to come up with something, which is why a lot of us do have dogs that we use in our own work. Or if we’re really not sure, a lot of us will start with some of the stuffed dogs, which I will do that too. I can get a general I idea of how a dog might approach another dog, but I do find because it’s a stuffed dog, it’s not moving that for some of those dogs that are really sensitive to another dog being threatening or getting in their space, you don’t necessarily see that with the stuffed dog assessments because it’s not moving.

Jessica: And so I have used the stuffed dogs mainly to gather some information about what type of body language the dog I’m assessing might use, how they might approach that other dog. But I have found that was [00:48:00] one area that you just can’t capture with that type of assessment is how does that dog respond when the other dog is wanting to interact with them?

Jessica: Because there are many dogs who like to be in control of those interactions and they wanna sniff the other dog, but they don’t want the roles to be reversed. And they might have a reaction if the other dog was orienting towards them. Gosh, yeah. So many nuances, which I think we, we would go down like this giant rabbit hole.

Jessica: Yeah. If we

Laurie: talking, but I agree with the, what you’re saying about the stuff dogs, and I use them. I would say in a very specific way, the data that I’m collecting is also very specific, like you were saying, and it does not always give a full representation, especially if you have no history. It does give you a decent idea of the initial approach is what I always say.

Jessica: You and I have also worked with many dogs who really shouldn’t be around people or dogs. They’re not safe, they’re not comfortable to be approaching strange people and strange dogs. If you have a dog, like that’s fine too. Their world is gonna be naturally a little bit smaller, right? [00:49:00] But there’s so many other ways that you can meet their needs and do other things with your dog.

Jessica: And also, there’s nothing wrong with your dog if they don’t want to be around new people or new dogs. It’s just their preference. What we’re really trying to highlight is why it’s so important to see what’s under the hood, so to speak. Yeah. We really need to understand. These dog’s motivations to then make a more informed decision about what would be a good lifestyle for this person and their dog.

Laurie: Correct. And I feel the same way for shelter dogs. The more that we’re able to really understand who that dog is, the better we’re able to. Conduct really good matchmaking conversations. And of course we don’t wanna say, this dog will be, or this dog will do that. Well, you always wanna say, this is what we have seen here.

Laurie: We wanna paint that picture and then let the human decide. Is this something I’m ready to take on?

Jessica: Lori, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom and expertise. Yes, I always love talking reactive dogs with you, so any opportunity that I get, I’m gonna take it. [00:50:00] So fun. Thanks for coming on.

Jessica: Bye. Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Jessica: Hey, listeners, I want to hear from you and answer your most pressing questions on all things leash reactivity. Did you know you can leave me a voicemail with your question to be answered on a future show? Be sure to check out the show notes where you’ll find all the details on how to do so. Last, there are a few ways that you can support the show.

Jessica: Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you’re feeling extra generous, you can also leave me a five star review. Thanks for being here, and we’ll see you next time.