Leash Reactive Dog? Stop Feeling Guilty, Understand It

Episode Title: Leash Reactive Dog? Don’t Feel Guilty, Understand It
Host: Amy Castro
Guest: Stephanie Bennett
Summary: Trainer Stephanie Bennett explains what leash reactivity really is, why it can look so intense, and the mindset shift that helps you stop feeling guilty and start making progress.

Contact Stephanie and Access Resources: https://believeindog.com/

Chapters

00:00 Leash Reactivity Isn’t Aggression
01:32 Meet Stephanie Bennett
04:50 What Leash Reactivity Is
06:23 Reactivity Vs Aggression
13:50 The Mindset Shift
18:17 Progress Isn’t Linear
21:30 What Makes It Worse
32:43 What To Do Next + Resources

Transcript Note: This transcript is lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Transcript

Amy Castro, Host (00:00)
If walks with your dog feel like a public meltdown just waiting to happen, you’re not alone. And no, it doesn’t automatically mean you have an aggressive dog, a bad dog, or that you failed. In this episode, trainer Stephanie Bennett breaks down what leash reactivity actually is, why it looks so intense, and the mindset shift that makes everything easier to change. So stay tuned.
You’ve reached the Pet Parent Hotline, your lifeline to practical solutions for your toughest pet parenting challenges. I’m your host Amy Castro, and I’m here to help you cut through the noise and turn expert advice into step-by-step strategies so you can stop chasing your tail and start enjoying life with pets again.
If you found this show because you’re worried about your dog and you don’t know what to do next, you’re in the right place. By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to start telling the difference between reactivity and true aggression, understand why the leash can flip a totally normal dog into chaos mode, and walk away with a few clear guardrails that can prevent this from escalating while you figure out your next step. To help us sort out what’s actually going on, get over the guilt, and decide what to do next, I’m chatting today with certified dog trainer Stephanie Bennett. She’s the founder of Believe In Dog Training here in Houston, and she specializes in fear and leash reactivity. And stay with us for the whole episode because Stephanie explains the leash reactive paradox, the one thing that confuses almost everyone, but changes how you see your dog instantly. Well, Stephanie, thank you for being on the show and welcome.

Stephanie Bennett (01:41)
Thanks Amy, good to be here.

Amy Castro, Host (01:44)
I appreciate it. You know, this is a topic that I personally have dealt with with my Doberman Pinscher Jack, and I always felt guilty and sometimes angry and accused because when it’s a Doberman Pinscher that’s barking, growling, and snapping at the end of the leash, it’s always my fault, right? And so I appreciate getting a broader perspective on these things.
So I wanted to start off and kind of talk about how did you get started focusing and having such a passion for this area of leash reactivity?

Stephanie Bennett (02:14)
So I mainly have always specialized in puppy classes and puppy day school and teaching puppies and taking advantage of that critical socialization period in order to keep them out of shelters later and things like that is I think is a very important thing. But here in Houston, they estimate that there’s somewhere around 2 million homeless animals, which is just tragic.
When I first moved to Houston, so around 2011, I found a stray pit bull on the street and he was in my neighborhood and he was very skinny and clearly sick and he was afraid, obviously. And it was one of those weird nights that we were actually gonna have snow in Houston and I wanted to get him in. I think that he had not ever crossed a threshold into a home before.
Anyway, long story short, I took him to the vet. He had heartworm, he was emaciated, all the things, but just the sweetest man and just the sweetest, tender soul. And it took us a while to get him healthy and well. And then I put him on a leash and I went to go walk him and discovered that he was 100% leash reactive. And when I say 100% leash reactive, I mean that when we were walking on a leash and he saw another dog, he would immediately go berserk. Losing his mind, lunging, screaming, yelping, all the pit bull sounds.
And I’m already the professional dog trainer in the neighborhood. And here I am walking my pit bull who is losing his mind. And just like you don’t want to have pit bulls, I think have such a bad rap and we are such pit bull advocates. And the last thing I want is to have this very sweet dog that I love and is so affectionate to me at home, then getting such a bad, scary rap when we go out.
And I’d already been studying leash reactivity for a few years. However, when the universe gives you your very own, it becomes on a whole nother level. So there it became, and I just deep dived right into that, and we worked and worked and worked. And so he taught me so much, way more than I ever taught him for sure. But it is absolutely his legacy, because I just discovered after working with it and trying new things and it became a real big passion of mine.
And then finally, about seven years ago, when I opened this business, I was able to start a group class for our Reactive Rovers, which is a highly unusual thing. There’s nothing in Houston like it because obviously it’s not easy to have six reactive dogs in the same room together. I just taught my 104th Reactive Rover class and it’s amazing and it’s the most fulfilling thing that we do for sure. The puppy stuff is awesome and cute, but the Reactive Rover stuff are the people that really need the most help and are struggling the most.
I literally can sit in the private training room and do nothing but Reactive Rover, leash reactive classes and lessons every single day. That’s how prominent it is.

Amy Castro, Host (04:50)
Yeah, it is such a huge issue. And I think especially for people these days, more than ever, they want to go to the local pub or the dog park or be in the hiking group or whatever. And when you’ve got a Tasmanian devil on the end of the leash, because that’s the way I always felt like my dog was so well-trained and he was so good, but he’d get one look at a dog and it wasn’t every single time.
I think a lot of it had to do with the energy of the other dog. Like if it was somebody who was passing on the other side of the street, he didn’t react. But if somebody was scrambling towards him down the sidewalk, you could see his eyes get big and he’d lean back. And then it would just explode from there.
So is all reactivity leash reactivity or is there reactivity and leash reactivity as two different things?

Stephanie Bennett (05:36)
Yeah, it is two different things. And we specifically specialize in leash reactivity because what we’re trying to do is when the leash reactivity gets so bad and stressful for owners and the dogs, then people of course want to stop doing it. But we live in the city and so there’s a lot of people that live in apartments and things like that and they can’t stop doing it. People who are lucky enough to have yards then of course they’ll just go, I call it midnight dog walkers club, or they totally stop walking altogether, which then of course brings out a lot of other issues.
And so we focus on leash reactivity because my goal is to just get the dog a walk, right? Let’s just be able to walk the dog and it not be the most stressful thing in the world and something that you are dreading every single day that you do it. We just want to be able to walk their dogs. That’s the big deal for me, because it means so much.

Amy Castro, Host (06:23)
Yeah, it’s such a freedom to be able to do that. And I get on Reddit and you see people that are just, they become hermits because they feel like they can’t leave their house.
What I always thought was interesting with my dog is that when you took him off the leash and you introduced him properly, that’s a whole nother episode, but he didn’t hate other dogs and he wasn’t aggressive. Like he wasn’t the instigator. And I think a lot of times people confuse reactivity with aggression. That’s why they give you the dirty look when your dog reacts like, oh, you’ve got a terrible dog.

Stephanie Bennett (06:52)
It’s funny because then those people end up getting a reactive dog themselves and they’re like, gosh, I shouldn’t have judged everybody when they were walking their dog.
But you are right. What you’re talking about is the leash reactive paradox is what we call it. Meaning that most of time, I would say that a high percentage of the reactive dogs that we work with, the leash reactive dogs, like 95%, they are not in fact dog aggressive. Even if it looks like that when they are on the leash. We are talking about barrier frustration. The leash causes a barrier of frustration.
And this is one of the things that confuses people to no end and I think flusters them and makes them so upset because I think a lot of times us as human beings, if we can’t understand it and figure out a real like, why is this happening exactly, then we get frustrated with it and go, well, this can’t be a real thing. And sometimes I have to go, look everybody, you’re just gonna have to accept it. It doesn’t make sense all the time.
The internet is full of all these barrier frustration situations, like when you see a gate closing and dogs barking, barking, barking, and then the gate opens and then they just go quiet. And then the gate closes and they bark, bark, bark, and then the gate opens and they don’t know what to do. So it’s something like that that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to us. And even though it doesn’t make sense, it is a real thing, barrier frustration.
And for whatever reason, thankfully, many of these dogs are not in fact dog aggressive, meaning they are not intending to do harm. I’m very, very careful with the word aggression and reactivity. And even if the proper term were to be leash aggression or anything like that, in everything that I do, I’m very careful with the word aggression, because I think it’s overused and it’s used for every little thing.
So I tell everybody, in order for me to say that we have an aggression issue, we’ve got to meet two criteria. And the first one is that I have to believe and think that the dog intends to do harm. And so much of the time, the dog does not intend to do harm. And then the second thing is it has to be completely unpredictable. And that’s very rare also.
Now, if we do meet those criteria, then we probably do have an aggression issue. But usually with the leash reactivity, it’s not that.
So much of the time, it depends. If we get a dog that is a new rescue, people don’t know. And if the dog is acting like that on a leash, they don’t know if the dog is aggressive or not. They just look like that and then they go, I’m not going to even try. On the other hand, we get a lot of people who are like, yeah, my dog goes to daycare and they have social time and all that. However, they’re still leash reactive.

Amy Castro, Host (09:19)
So for my dog Jack, I feel like I did a great job socializing him with humans when he was a puppy and at the appropriate stages. But I didn’t even think about the dog thing because we had a dog and it’s like, well, he’s around dogs and look, he went to puppy kindergarten. But looking back at it, he was scared at puppy kindergarten and then he didn’t have contact with other dogs very often.
But I don’t know, is that what causes it or is there more to it?

Stephanie Bennett (09:48)
Well, I would say, after doing it for this long and having this many dogs go through classes, you’re right, there are so many different possible causes of the leash reactivity. And sometimes I think it can be different per situation. Meaning, what is the other dog doing when they come to me? Because if another dog is talking smack, my leash reactive dog is going to talk smack back 100% of the time, no matter what. So I think a lot of the time it has to do with what the other dog is doing for sure.
Now I will say, it can be so many different reasons. Every so often, a smaller percentage of them, we get dogs that are so out of their mind and aggressively friendly, where they are just like, I’m dying to play with that other dog. I cannot stand it. I’m losing my mind. And that becomes leash reactivity. However, I would say that’s a smaller percentage.
A larger percentage is fear. It’s fear-based so much of the time, even if off the leash they’re not.
I don’t have any real data to support this, but I would say that a high percentage of the dogs that are in my class are rescue dogs, and they have been through some kind of trauma, whether street or shelter or whatever, abuse, neglect, all of those things.
The other one is there’s a high rate of certain breeds that come through the Reactive Rover class. And those are the shepherd dogs. The German shepherd dog and the Australian shepherd, they’re high-strung dogs, especially if they’ve been through rescue or trauma or something like that. And so I think that a lot of it has to do with genetics and breed sometimes.
Again, it can be one specific thing, but also it can be, well, in this situation it was that, in this situation it was that. Dogs are complicated beings, just like we are. But usually we can kind of label it to go, here, it’s probably mostly about this.
And when I first start with people, so many people come in and they are just at their wit’s end. They have had it. Somebody came in the other day with pads on her hands because she had been dragged across the asphalt. Things like this have happened and it just is upsetting people so much.
And I think people are running the gamut of emotions here because they love their dog. Of course, they have a sweet dog at home. Like my Hank was the most affectionate dog I’d ever had. This is my baby. And then suddenly I’m out here and he’s acting like this crazy maniac and it embarrasses me so much.
People are so embarrassed, first of all, over the social stigma. And then they’re sad too because they’re like, what’s wrong with you? I’m sad. I’m frustrated. I’m mad. They’re all over the place because it’s a highly emotional situation. We’ve got a big box of tissues in my private training room because people get very emotional about it. And I just, it’s okay. I try to tell people it’s okay. I get it. Welcome to Leash Lungers Anonymous. We are a support group and we help you and we do become a community.
So the first thing is to go, look, we get it. We understand. But here’s the most important thing for the people to understand. The very first and foremost thing that sets them up for success is for them to change their entire perception and to go, this is not bad dog behavior. You do not have a bad dog. You do not have an aggressive dog. You have a leash reactive dog.
So let’s take away all of the anger and the frustration and all of that, because why you’re here is you want to help your dog. And I don’t know who came up with the line, I wish I could give credit to somebody, but you hear it a lot now. And that is, your reactive dog, your leash reactive dog, is not giving you a hard time. Your leash reactive dog is having a hard time. That’s what’s happening. Your dog is having a really hard time.
So us humans like to make it about ourselves, right? This dog is giving me a hard time. This dog is mad at me for this or whatever. It has nothing to do with you. Your dog is having a hard time. And so luckily you are here so that we can help.
And that’s what we have to look at it as because if I had a partner or a child that was having a very hard time, I would not get angry with them. I would not punish them and I would not get frustrated. I would go, how can I help you? And that’s what I want people to start right away. Let’s get rid of all the things that you’re mad at and all of that stuff, and that you have a bad, misbehaving, disobedient dog. That’s not what this is.

Amy Castro, Host (13:50)
You know, when you were talking about that, I had this vision of that poor mom or dad on an airplane with a screaming infant, right? It’s like, it’s not the baby’s fault. Its ears are hurting, its tummy’s got gas from the altitude, whatever it might be, or it’s just having a bad day. But the same emotions are there. You’re mad, you’re frustrated, you’re embarrassed because everybody’s looking at you like, shut that kid up.
And it is so important, the ability to change your mindset and look at it in a different way is not just about, I’m just gonna look at the positive. It’s not about that. It’s about taking that exact same situation and giving a more realistic perspective on it, but it changes the whole way that you feel. It changes the way your body language is. It changes the way you react.
And that’s why you see in these videos with people videotaping screaming babies on the plane, some parents are very frustrated and they’re reacting and other parents are just like patting the baby on the back. And it’s like, hey, it is what it is.

Stephanie Bennett (14:52)
That’s exactly right. Everybody has bad days.
And the other thing is, I call it the Lassie syndrome where we’re like, oh, every dog should be the same. Every dog is going to love every other dog. Every dog is going to love every person they meet, which is ridiculous in every single way. There’s no Lassie. There’s no perfect dog. So I constantly tell everybody, don’t expect perfection. The dog that you are comparing your reactive dog to over there has something else. Every dog has something that we don’t love. So don’t do that anymore.
The way that I can try to help put it in perspective for people is I say, now we all have a better understanding of things like anxiety and panic attacks. And I really do believe after doing it all for this long, especially for the dogs that are so leash reactive, because there are different levels of reactivity, the dogs that are leash reactive that literally go, I call it going to Mars. They have gone to Mars, they have lost their mind, they are on another planet completely, and there is no way at that moment in time that you’re getting through to them, whether it’s food, punishment, whatever, none of the stuff is gonna work.
And that’s like having a panic attack or an anxiety attack. Because when you’re there, you’ve gone to Mars. And it’s certainly not something that you would choose to do. You would not choose to have a panic attack or an anxiety attack. And so I try to teach people that I feel like your dog is going through that. So look at it in that way.
Again, if you had a child that was having a panic attack or a partner that was having an anxiety attack, how would you treat them? And what would you do about that? And what’s different the way you’re treating your dog when they start doing that, right? Because we all get into no, stop, frustration, punishment, whatever it may be.
But if we can turn our perception and look at it that way, I think that is the number one thing that changes everything for the people, for them to start to go, okay, I understand this better. I have empathy for them because I know what that feels like. I’m not taking it personal.
That’s my favorite thing. When people graduate from my Reactive Rover class and they say, what is happening now is I’m not embarrassed anymore. And that makes me so happy.
Sometimes I tell them in the first class, I go, look, you may not see a huge difference in your dog, but what you are going to see a huge difference is in yourself because you are going to be calmer and you are going to be less anxious, which is gonna go right through the umbilical cord of the leash of that dog. So of course, what you are accidentally doing is going to affect your dog. They’re going to model your energy either way.

Amy Castro, Host (17:15)
Yeah. And that’s such an interesting point. There’s the empathy for the dog who’s going through something. There’s the empathy for myself as the person that’s handling the dog. So I change my perspective so that I’m calmer. And then if we could just have that third person, the observer, the friend, the neighbor, the other person at the pub, to also have empathy for that handler and that dog, the whole interaction would just be so much easier for everybody.
Just like if that same thing happened with the screaming baby on the plane, the baby’s gonna do what the baby’s gonna do, but if we change our perspective on it, it changes everybody’s experience at that point.
And I’m glad you said that, because I know that in working with Jack, if I could get myself in that kind of calm frame of mind, relaxed, not being tense on the leash, it definitely made things better. It didn’t stop it, but it certainly made me feel more in control and a lot less worried about what was gonna happen at that point.

Stephanie Bennett (18:17)
The thing that I tell people is that if it is similar to having an anxiety attack or a panic attack, that means that this work that we’re doing, this behavior modification work, which is way different than just teaching some basic manners, because we’re trying to change their emotional distress. We’re trying to change their emotional response.
But if it is in fact like that, then anybody who has a panic attack or anxiety attack, we know that we don’t go, I went to six weeks of therapy or I took a magic pill and yay, it’s done. That’s not how it works.
But what we can do is we can manage it really well. We can bring down the intensity and the frequency. That does not mean that it will never happen again. It doesn’t mean that. I don’t believe that we ever go, yay, 100%, 0%, it’s gone away.
I tell people, look, I don’t know, your dog is young. They’re only one year. They’ve not been practicing it for very long. Who knows, as they develop and they mature and you really work on this and you really put your all into it, maybe it will extinguish over time. But generally I say, you can expect that sometimes it’s gonna happen and you have to accept that and you have to expect it and go, okay, it happened today, so what, now let’s move on.
And not go, dang it, it happened again, that means I’m doing something wrong, or it means that it’s not working. It doesn’t mean that. It just means that we all have good days and bad days. Or some reactive dog comes around the corner and surprises you and starts barking in your dog’s face and then suddenly they’re reacting.
So we have to accept that it does that. We also have to accept that it’s not linear. You may go out today and go, wow, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. We had the best walk we ever had. And then the very next day you walk out and you have the worst walk you’ve had in two months time. And that just is the way it goes.

Amy Castro, Host (20:08)
And I’m glad you said that about the linear nature, because I think sometimes people have a tendency to think, oh, that went really well, so let’s push it. Then it doesn’t go as well and it’s like, what happened?
And that actually brings up a good point, because I know there probably are people that are listening that are thinking, when are you going to get to the point where you tell us how to fix it? And I know that we specifically talked about the fact that that’s not what we’re talking about here.
Well, we are talking about it in a way, because the mindset is the first big shift before you can make anything else that you might do work. But for those people who need that satisfaction, is there something that we could say, maybe things that do make it worse? Or not to push on your own, because I really feel like this issue of reactivity needs to be handled with a professional because I think you can make it worse if you’re going about it the wrong way.
We did an episode the other day talking about puppy raising mistakes. And it’s like, if you’ve got a fearful puppy, the approach is not to pick them up and stick their face in the thing that they’re afraid of because it doesn’t work like that. It’s not facing your fears like we tell people.
What would be your advice from that perspective? Any little tidbits of help that we can provide?

Stephanie Bennett (21:30)
Yeah, I would say, because I’ve been working with leash reactivity so long, for at least the past 15 years, I have taught every single person that walks in this doors, puppy, adult, whatever it is, we never, ever, ever do on-leash greetings with dogs. Ever. Never do an on-leash greeting with another on-leash dog. People hate that rule, especially people with puppies, they hate it.
But I’m not saying I don’t want them to be social. I do want them to be social if that dog wants to be social. I want every dog to be as social as they want to be, just like people. Some people want to go to the party and some people do not want to go to the party. So if they want to be social, cool. Then we have a play date or we do a Sniffspot. We do an off-leash structured time for social time.
I want leash time to be me and you time. We are working together where I want mutual respect. That’s why no phones are ever allowed on the walk. Nobody can walk their dog without being on their phone. It’s crazy. So if I want my dog to give me attention, then I better give them that attention. It’s a mutual respect thing.
But I do believe that on-leash greetings cause all kinds of problems, not to mention bad leash manners. I often think that it causes leash reactivity from the very beginning because we are preventing them from greeting each other naturally the way they would.
But the big deal is this. Dogs are trapped when they are on the leash. There is nowhere for them to go. If they are nervous or afraid or any other reason, there’s not a chance in the world you can predict what this dog’s personality and this dog’s personality are going to do when we greet them on the leash.
So I believe a lot of the times the dogs start going, well, here’s what’s working for me. And the first thing I always ask people after we talk about changing the perception is, what we know is behavior is driven by reinforcement. This is dog training 101. And if your dog is continuing to do any behavior and it’s progressing, because in my opinion leash reactivity is always progressive, if it is getting worse, what is working?
Because if your dog continues to do that behavior, there is something about it that’s working for them. They don’t do it for no reason. And it’s usually not an innate behavior. This is a learned behavior.
So what do you think is working? Why do you think your dog continues to do that?
And a lot of that stumps people. And I’m like, it’s not a trick question. I mean, I’m really saying there’s gotta be something that’s working. Now it doesn’t mean that a dog has been practicing it for six years every single day, that just may turn into a habit. Now I don’t even remember why I started it in the first place. It’s just, this is what I do. Every time I see a dog, this is what I do.
And I always ask people too, what would your dog tell me you do every time we see a dog? Because you just now told me what they do, but what do you do? Because that means something also.
But usually, if I had to guess, it’s because that dog has gone, you know what, in my past, dogs have come near me and it has made me anxious or nervous or scared when I’m on a leash and I’m trapped. So I have learned that if a dog gets too close to me, if I go, ah, go away, go away, go away, go away, it will work every single time, 100% of the time. If I freak out, mom makes it go away or the dogs go away. It works for me every time.

Amy Castro, Host (24:38)
Yeah, because I was thinking as you were saying that we were at the farmer’s market at an adoption event the other day for kittens. But watching the people walking their dogs and it’s just so many things going wrong there, but so much nose-to-nose on the tight leash. And then like you said, either a dog makes it stop or there’s the reaction and both people rip the dogs back by their neck. And it’s like, okay, now what are we doing here? What are we teaching?

Stephanie Bennett (25:05)
Right, now we’ve had a bad experience all around.

Amy Castro, Host (25:07)
Over and over again. And you see them going down the row of the farmer’s market, having that same interaction with other dogs.
I would say a mistake that people make is not educating themselves before they dive into some of these situations. And it’s like just the basics, whether you have a reactive dog or not, learning what is a proper greeting. If I am at the farmer’s market, do I really need to have my dog meet all these other dogs? No. We are walking, you and I, at the farmer’s market.
There’s a time to walk and sniff and there’s a time to keep walking because we’re not going to take a poop or a pee on every person’s front yard as we walk through the neighborhood. The dog doesn’t run the agenda. I think I should be running the agenda.

Stephanie Bennett (25:51)
Yeah, and I think it’s a Lassie syndrome. Again, like we have this fantasy that every dog should say hi to each other. And again, it would be crazy if we were expected to say hi to every person that we saw. Of course we’re not expected to do that. Why would we do that to our dogs?
I think that in Europe it’s quite interesting because I think in America it has a worse problem. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel some in Europe and they don’t do that. In Europe, it’s a lot more dog friendly because people are taking their dogs everywhere. But what I notice the most, because obviously this is what I do for a living, I watch dogs and watch people.
A lot of times in the places I’ve visited in Europe, people are out with their dogs, but they do not meet other dogs on the leash. They don’t do it. They don’t go up to each other and go, hey, say hello. The other thing they don’t do is they don’t go as a stranger, I go up to you and go, oh my God, can I pet your dog? Can I say hi? They don’t do that.
When I had the opportunity to go to Switzerland, I wanted to take pictures. And so I would ask, can I take a picture of your dog, like on the subway. And every person said yes, absolutely take a picture. Not one person said, you want to pet my dog? And not one dog acted like, hey, you want to pet me? It was so interesting to me, because that’s just not done. And I think that helps a lot. Meaning we don’t go, hey dogs, say hi to each other. And we aren’t all the people running up to go say hi to all the dogs.

Amy Castro, Host (27:14)
That’s such a valid point and it’s about boundaries. And I think we have less when it comes to stuff like that. We’re always in people’s business, in people’s space. Like you said, it’s shocking to me that people will walk right up to a strange dog and just expect that they should be able to pet it, hug it, take a selfie with it, whatever it might be.

Stephanie Bennett (27:34)
It’s nuts. Every day I’m shocked at how many people continue to come to a dog when the dog is clearly going, no, no, no, no.
But the boundary thing, we have an orientation for our group Reactive Rover class and we introduce ourselves, we talk about it, we do all the things. And I say at the very end, we’re gonna come back next week with the dogs and we’re gonna start.
And what I want you to do is now that you’ve told me all the things that bother you about your dog, all the things that you don’t like about your dog, the very first thing that you’re gonna tell me when you come back to class next week is three things that you love about your dog.
Because right now, what I know is the list of what you love about your dog is way longer than the list of the things that you don’t like about your dog. And so we’re gonna start thinking about that only. Think about what you’re grateful for. Think about what you love about your dog. Do not concentrate all the days that you have with this dog on the things that you don’t like.
And one day there was a woman there with her little cocker spaniel. The cocker spaniel was quite fearful, not only to dogs, but to people. And I have these yellow vests that say, “Need Space.” People get a visual like, don’t touch me, I need some space. But a lot of times people hate that. They want their dog to love everybody. They want their dog to say hi to people.
And so when I asked this woman, what are some of the things that you love about your dog, she said, well, what I’ve learned is I love that she has these very clear boundaries because it’s teaching me to have better boundaries. And I was just like, oh my God, it just made me want to cry. I’m like, that’s the most beautiful thing. To not go, I hate these boundaries. I hate that she doesn’t want to be touched by people. But in fact, hey, good for you. You got boundaries. I should probably have better boundaries.

Amy Castro, Host (29:06)
Yeah, that’s a good point. We can learn so many things from how they react to certain things and certain people too, I find. Sometimes I feel like my dog’s got better instincts about people than I do.
But I said something before about, I don’t think anybody should be handling this on their own, but is that really true? Or are there things we could be doing early on to prevent this or deal with it before it becomes bigger? Because like you said, it’s just going to continue to escalate. And I think it becomes more challenging to manage the bigger the dog gets.
How do I know when I’ve kind of reached my limit of what I can do on my own and need professional help?

Stephanie Bennett (29:44)
Yeah, I mean, as far as prevention, that’s why we teach in puppy class, right? No on-leash greetings.
The other thing that I think a lot of people do is if their dog starts to show fear or any kind of reactivity, people’s first instinct is to go, well, let me force them through it. Let me put them in that position. And maybe the answer is more socialization or getting them closer to that dog that they’re reacting to and kind of force them through it or flood them through it. Unfortunately, we’ve seen TV shows and other trainers and things like that who are like, that’s the answer. Put them in a big group of dogs or get them real close or flood them through it, which is only going to make it worse. One hundred percent it’s gonna make it worse.
So no on-leash greetings. And leash time is me and you time. Do not force them to get close to other dogs or do not force them to be close to situations that are clearly making them uncomfortable.
And then the other thing I see so much of the time is people, the very first time that they see something like this and it freaks them out and they don’t know what to do about it, it gets overwhelming and then they start punishing.
And this goes back to different trainers and different styles. But I have many people who don’t find me until they have already gone to a punishment trainer. And a punishment trainer has said, here’s how we’re gonna fix this leash reactivity. Because your dog is misbehaving, we don’t want them to do that. And then the very second they see another dog, we’re gonna shock them or we’re going to yank them with a pinch collar and we’re going to make that behavior stop.
Now, sometimes people continue to do that because initially it may work. Because of course I can make you feel enough pain to make you stop a behavior. But that is just burying it deep inside.
Can I make you stop having an anxiety attack? Can I make you, with fear or punishment or pain, stop being afraid of monsters or spiders? I can’t do that, but I can make you stop that behavior for a second. Usually it starts to come out sideways some other way.
And what makes me furious is, if we can agree that this dog is reacting because they are nervous, they are afraid, they are scared, they’ve been traumatized, whatever, it’s a negative emotional response. And so now we’ve decided the best idea to fix a negative emotional response is to make them feel as much pain as they can to stop.
Does that not make sense to go, well, now it’s gonna be a lot worse. Now I really hate seeing dogs because not only am I fearful or nervous, but I feel pain every time. So now I really hate it. It just adds fuel to the fire. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
So I tell everybody, no matter what, the minute you see it, start talking to somebody, call somebody. The minute you see it, because the best thing that you can do is get help early and start to realize what you can do to help your dog before it starts to escalate, because it will. It’s going to get worse if you don’t try to do something about it.

Amy Castro, Host (32:43)
Yeah. So to kind of bring things home and I want to end on a positive note, a note of hope. What would you want listeners to do after hearing this episode, especially if they are dealing with a reactive dog right now?

Stephanie Bennett (32:59)
So the first thing I would want them to do is to understand, like I said, that very first change of perception. Change your perception to go, this is something that I can work on and it does not mean that I have a bad dog, a dog that’s misbehaving, a dog that’s disobedient, or an aggressive dog. Let’s change the perception completely about that. You have a dog that’s having a hard time. Your dog is not giving you a hard time. Your dog is having a hard time. So let’s find out how we can help them.
And the other thing is, please, please, whatever work you’re gonna do, whoever you’re gonna try to work with, please do not choose somebody who’s going to use pain, intimidation, and punishment to try to help with these situations because it doesn’t make any sense. We do not want to use those kinds of methods to help with anxiety, fear, and things like that. It doesn’t make sense.
And then of course, I think it’s always smart to go, is the dog getting fulfilled, first of all? Are they getting everything they need as a dog and are they healthy? Is something hurting or is something going on? Those are always things that we take care of first of all, no matter what. Health. And are they being fulfilled with enrichment and exercise and all of that.
And then the other thing that I always end with when we end a class, when we have a graduation, I just say, look, here we are, we just started a brand new year. Yes, we’re at the end of February, we’ve just started a brand new year, we’re about to have spring, the renewal and all of that. But what we all know is that these dogs’ lives are too short. We just don’t have enough time with them. It makes me emotional every time.
Don’t focus on this one thing that’s driving you crazy right now. Don’t focus on it because don’t waste any time. If you’re lucky, you’re gonna have 12 springs with this dog. You’re gonna have 12 of them. Don’t waste any time being upset or regretting or wishing this or comparing your dog or wishing they were different. Don’t waste any time. Love them and be grateful for who they are and accept them for who they are and try to help them. We can work through this and we can help them, but don’t waste any time. Love them hard so you don’t regret it later.

Amy Castro, Host (35:04)
Yeah, those are wise, wise words. And I can see why they’re making you emotional, because it makes me emotional thinking about it too. So I know I want to put a link to your website because I know you’ve got information about Reactive Rover, but are there any other resources that you want to make people aware of?

Stephanie Bennett (35:20)
On my website too, I have behavior blueprints. And so I have a whole category of Reactive Rover stuff and that’s all free. It’s all free, leash reactivity stuff. I try to give out as much information and literature. So it’s not only my stuff on my blueprints. I have links to my favorite, there’s awesome infographics out there, other websites and things like that.

Amy Castro, Host (35:43)
That’s great. Like I said, we’ll make sure we put those links up for sure so people have access to that.
But Stephanie, I just want to thank you so much for being here today. And you made me feel hopeful. I’m lucky right now. I don’t have a reactive dog, but I’m sure there could be one in my future. And I know we’ve had them in rescue for sure. And you’ve given us some food for thought and I think a lot of reason to hope. So thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Stephanie Bennett (36:12)
I appreciate you, Amy. Thank you so much. It’s always wonderful to be able to have a platform to try to get this out into the world because we know there’s so many people suffering with it. So thank you so much for having me. It’s really been a pleasure.

Amy Castro, Host (36:23)
If you’re dealing with leash reactivity right now, remember, your dog is not giving you a hard time. They’re having a hard time. Start there. Avoid the mistakes that can make it worse and get help early. Stephanie’s information and resources are linked in the show notes. We’ll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to the Pet Parent Hotline. If you enjoyed the show, don’t keep it to yourself. Text a friend right now with a link and tell them, I’ve got a show that you need to hear and ask them to let you know what they think.
And remember, your pet’s best life starts with you living yours. So be sure to take good care of yourself this week and your pets.