Helping a Reactive Rescue Find Calm

The handsome black-and-white rescue dog looks around the room as he trots within the range of his leash. His handler, calm and experienced, catches every good moment this dog gives to him, rewarding it well. While this creates a pause, within seconds the dog is moving again, disconnected again.

As class progresses, I keep an eye toward this dog. When given a new activity to try, he does it vigorously. Pouncing and leaping at objects - his body tense; his focus fleeting. He acknowledges his loving handler rarely.

Some might read him as “enthusiastic,” I read him as stressed.

If his handler attempts to engage with him during an exercise, this dog mouths, spins, leaps. He reacts to rather than accepts handling. And because he can’t accept it, he isn’t getting the positive benefits from real connection. It’s being offered, but once stimmed, he is beyond awareness of it.

An opinion forms in my mind, that he is the sort of dog who, because of his natural activity level, has probably been escalated on by previous people. That is the standard human response to a reactive dog - escalate. Raise the voice, get more physically forceful - “control him”, “make him stop”. With a true reactive, this can only have the opposite effect. This dog’s only possible response, because of his temperament, is to spin upward into mouthing, jumping, humping, spinning, lunging, barking, etc.

This sort of reaction is often interpreted as “stubborn,” “aggressive,” or “dominant” by the human, who takes things up another notch to “show the dog who's boss” and the dog, becoming increasingly convinced that humans have an aggression problem, becomes more of everything the human is trying to stop.

That horrible cycle, repeated probably hundreds of times before he was dropped off at the shelter as “impossible”, had created a one-way road in this dog’s brain: When confused or unsure, escalate, because it is only going to get worse from here!

But this dog is also fortunate. He was rescued by an amazing couple whose quiet ways and depth of dog wisdom are an ideal landing place for him. And he was doing great with them - until he became confused/unsure. Once either happens, he goes up his old road of disconnection and escalation.

He is not "aggressive," he is panicked.

Gentle and patient people, they wait for him to calm, rewarding it wonderfully every time he does, but the looping continued. Which is all that can happen because this dog already KNOWS what to do. He has an answer that he has given hundreds of time and will give to the end of his days unless he is interrupted tactfully and another choice - a better choice - is given.

Watching a dog with this sort of background is nearly physically painful for me. I feel them as lost/confused/disconnected/alone. It is a joy to help such a dog start to find a real safe haven in and though loving connection. Once such a dog finds that spot, they love it. They grow into it. Who wouldn’t? He isn’t “happy” where he is, he is simply stuck where he is.

His human honors me by handing me his leash. I take the dog - trotting at the end of the leash, looking everywhere but at me - to the center of the room. I sit down on a chair and begin...

I'm stopping here for now as this blog was getting too big. My next entry will tell you what I do and why, what happened, and why I think what happened happened.

by Sarah Wilson

Author of MySmartPuppy.com handbooks: My Smart Puppy (book with DVD) and Childproofing Your Dog