
“I’ve lost confidence in my abilities as a dog owner.”
“I’m on edge the whole time we are out.”
“I’ve been stressed since I got her.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Having a reactive dog is hard. It’s hard emotionally. It can be hard financially. It’s hard to explain to those who’ve not had to deal with reactivity. It requires constant vigilance. It requires time. It requires patience. So. Much. Patience.
When I ran into my fellow assistant trainer a couple months ago when we each had our reactive dogs, she and I waved and shouted hello before she quickly did a U-turn, and I walked in the other direction. There was no hesitation about whether or not to strike up a conversation. Later, we talked about how nice it was to run into someone who understood.
A few months before that, I ran into a neighbor who is dog savvy. She does a lot of work with her rambunctious over exuberant chocolate labs. I stupidly agreed to let my two meet her new puppy. Zephyr blew up at her over-confident puppy, and my friend looked horrified. The puppy scared Zephyr. He communicated that fact in the only way he knew how to. He wanted the puppy to go away, and it worked. Zephyr barked and lunged. My friend took the puppy away quickly. (The puppy had no lingering a/effects from this encounter. She is a hearty puppy and even later when Zoe also had to give her a few lessons on how to treat one’s elders by growling at the puppy several times all the while her tail was wagging, she was fine. She was learning her lessons.) Was Zephyr going to bite the puppy? Probably not, but even his skinny whippet self has scary looking canine teeth.
As of now, I’m okay with the looks I get from others. Well, mostly. I still have my moments. There was a time when every walk was stressful. I can’t tell you how many days I came home upset, sometimes in tears, because I couldn’t manage my dog. Often I though about how much better off he would have been in a home with a more experienced owner, and did that mean that I was doing him a disservice by keeping him? I went from dreams of lure coursing and agility to just wanting him to be happy living in the environment he was living in.
The sentences at the top of this post are words I hear during the intro Reactive I dog class I assist every Saturday at MasterPeace Dog. I can identify with every word. One of the best things I was told in the early stages of learning how to help Zephyr, was to write everything down. Success comes in millimeters with dogs like Zeph and it takes going back through my notes to see how far we come. I’ve gone from crying over my barking, lunging dog to helping others with their barking, lunging dogs, and I would not have it any other way.
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