Guide: Help for Your Barking and Lunging Dog

Guide: Help for Your Barking and Lunging Dog

Christie Catan
Guide
TOC Reactivity Guide cover with red background and brown dog on the right

Living with a reactive dog can be really challenging. It can also be really beautiful. Reactive dogs are some of the best teachers I know. While reactivity can be isolating at times, it’s important to know that you are not alone. You are not a bad dog guardian. And your dog is not a bad dog. If you find yourself looking for some support with your reactive dog, the good news is that there are so many wonderful, skilled, trainers (who are committed to humane training practices) out there creating great resources for you and your reactive dog. 

While this guide is not designed to lay out exactly what to do with your your reactive dog, our hope with this page is to: 1) give you a useful overview of reactivity to help you make informed decisions on your reactivity journey; 2) connect you to great reactivity resources across a range of formats (books, courses, webpages, podcasts, etc.); and 3) recommend trusted products that might help you on your journey - keep scrolling for our list with links. There is no one perfect resource or product, so ultimately, you’ll still want to do a little investigating to find what works for you, but we hope this guide gives you a great jumping off point. 

We want this to be a community resource, and we are thrilled to receive suggestions of things we should look into adding to the guide. You can make a suggestion here.

While we may use the term “reactive dog” in this guide for ease of reference (referring to a dog who shows reactive behaviors under some conditions), in reality, reactivity describes behaviors your dog does in certain conditions (for example, when another dog comes within 20 yards of them on a walk) rather than who your dog is. Your dog is wonderful. “React” is what your dog does in certain situations.

The photos in this guide are all from awesome, “reactive dogs” from our TOC community with captions that share a bit about that dog’s journey. Let’s dive in!

close up photo of Tatum who is three years old and is a black dog standing and looking at a camera while on the grass and in front of a road with trees and grass behind it

Tatum is three years old and has a ton of interest in other dogs. He barks/lunges/growls when he can’t say hi to them. Even seeing a dog across the street (with natural barriers like trees and cars in between) was too much for him at the worst. He’s made a lot of progress, and while he can’t pass dogs on the same side of the street, he can disengage from dogs nearby much easier. (Photo & story credit: Hannah)

What Is Reactivity in Dogs?

This is a really important first question to ask. Reactivity is often described as an “overreaction” to a stimulus (something in the environment). I think this type of general description may be useful in providing an overall “sense” of what reactivity is, but ultimately, “reactivity” and “overreaction” are both labels. If we want to really understand a behavior (and at some point, change it), we need to operationally define it: What behavior can I actually observe? 

Here are some common behaviors that are often associated with reactivity: barking, lunging, freezing, excessive pulling on leash, hyper fixation, whining, and jumping. 

Talking about observable behavior is important, but we also need to talk about the conditions under which the behavior occurs. Behavior doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and many of the behaviors listed above would get labeled as reactivity in some contexts but not others. For example, if my dog was stuck in the basement and barked at the door, I wouldn’t call that reactivity. If my dog was lunging and barking anytime another dog got within 20 yards of us on a walk, I’d probably label that reactivity. Ultimately, we need to talk about behavior in context to understand it.

And while it may go without saying, I want to mention that reactive behaviors (like any behavior) involve the whole body. This means that there are lots of physiological processes at work – the nervous system, the circulatory system, and respiratory system, etc. are all involved when a dog is “reacting.” This also means that the dog is experiencing emotions as they are behaving and interacting with the world around them – this should matter to all of us. 

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What Causes Reactivity in Dogs? 

Gotham wears a yellow muzzle and lies in the grass with his black leash and orange biothane handle over him

Gotham is a three year old Doberman who has "stranger danger" and reacts to dogs in certain contexts. Things that have helped his reactivity include: Playing around his triggers, carrying his ball, describing his triggers to him, blocking triggers with a small umbrella, wearing a muzzle, and pattern games such as up & down game and 1-2-3. (Photo & story credit: Steff)

Behavior in general comes from three things: genetics, learning history, and current conditions. You can’t do much about the genetic piece of your reactive dog’s puzzle or the experiences that they’ve already had (though knowing this information can be useful), but you can build new learning histories and adjust current conditions. 

One of the most important aspects of the current conditions to consider is whether your dog is experiencing any pain or discomfort, which are often present when we see reactive behaviors – especially if there is a sudden shift in behavior. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to tell if your dog is in pain or discomfort (especially if we haven’t been trained how to spot it), so we’ve included some resources in our resource list below to help you. Getting your dog checked by a vet and any other relevant professional is an important first step on your reactivity journey (we generally don’t want to start any behavior modification until pain is addressed if pain is involved). A trainer should be able to help you through this process too (they won’t diagnose though). Okay, so what else could be causing the reactivity if pain isn’t involved? 

In order to understand why your dog is reacting, the key is to look at their observable behavior and the conditions under which it occurs. While your dog’s behavior may look like an “overreaction” to you, it’s functional behavior for them (i.e. it produces some valued outcome) – otherwise they wouldn’t be repeating it. This is just the way behavior works on this planet. 

If you want to understand what is causing your dog’s reactivity, here are some questions to investigate (noting that ruling out and/or addressing pain/discomfort is the place to start): 

  • What are the behaviors you are seeing (describe them in observable terms like barking or lunging)?

  • What happens in the environment immediately after your dog performs the behavior? This likely tells you WHY your dog is performing that behavior. For example, did the mail person walk away from the house? Did the passing dog look away?

  • What happens in the environment immediately before your dog performs the behavior? This tells you WHEN your dog performs the behavior. This could be something like another dog appearing within 15 yards of them.

  • What other things might set the stage for the behavior but not directly cue it? This might be things like whether or not your dog has had a trail walk that day, how many dogs they’ve seen on a walk, how long it’s been since their last acupuncture appointment, etc.

These questions can help you pay attention to the behavior and the conditions under which it occurs (or doesn’t). If you are feeling up to it, you can even collect data (an important part of changing behavior)! Check out this post we created to get an idea of an easy way to collect data.

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When It Comes to Reactivity, How Do My Dog’s Emotions Factor Into the Equation?

You may have noticed that emotions were conspicuously absent from the “what causes reactivity” section above. Using a behavior science lens (or even a neuroscience lens), emotions do not cause behavior. 

Does that mean I don’t care about a dog’s emotions? HECK NO! I care deeply about dogs’ emotions. And I think there are likely some very big feelings involved for our reactive dogs and see great value in thinking about emotions anytime we try to change behavior.

The difference is really in how we talk about those emotions in relation to the behavior: Instead of saying “the dog barked and lunged because they were afraid,” we can say “the dog barked and lunged AND was afraid because an unknown dog came within 15 feet of them.” The environment causes both the behavior and the emotions. 

Ready to add another layer to it? 

Scenario 1: Imagine you are on vacation and swimming in the ocean. Suddenly a shark appears. You feel afraid and immediately swim to shore. The contingency (“When X event happens, if Y behavior is performed, then Z result will happen”) in play is basically this: When the shark appears, if I swim to the shore, I will avoid being bitten. The emotions that track an escape/avoidance contingency like that tend to be “unpleasant”/”uncomfortable” (not in all cases though – for example, I move away when a dance partner moves into me, and my emotions aren’t uncomfortable). 

Scenario 2: Now imagine you’re a marine photographer swimming in the ocean with your camera. A shark appears. You feel excited and start snapping photos. The contingency in play here is likely: When the shark appears, if I snap photos, the camera will click (which is a conditioned reinforcer … down the line results in photos of sharks). In contingencies where individuals are behaving to get/access something valued, emotions tend to be “pleasant” or “comfortable.” 

In both scenarios, the same thing showed up in the environment: a shark. But in the first scenario, you felt fear; in the second, excitement. What you felt was determined by the type of contingency that was in play. 

While saying that emotions don’t cause behavior may sound callous at first and then like a picky semantic thing, I actually think it matters when it comes time to help our dogs. If the cause of the barking and lunging is fear, it’s harder to figure out where to start if you want to change the behavior. How do you just make a fear go away? Perhaps you see how it starts to get circular very quickly. However, when we think about the cause of both the behavior and the emotion as being the unknown dog coming within 15 feet, you now have a pretty tangible starting point if you want to change the emotion and the behavior (we can change conditions to change behavior AND emotions). If we can get the unknown dog approaching to signal a different contingency, different emotions and behaviors are likely to follow. 

Note: We happened to talk a lot about fear here as an example (it’s a common one), but it’s not the only emotion dogs may experience in situations where they display reactive behaviors. For example, plenty of dogs experience excitement and frustration in situations where their reactive behaviors show up. 

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What Is a ‘Trigger’ in Dog Training?

Nova sits in front of tombstones and is wearing a patriotic bow tie while on a leash

"Nova started exhibiting reactive behaviors, including on-leash reactivity toward other dogs and other big feelings in general, when he was four months old. With three years of consistent R+ based training working with fantastic trainers and behavior professionals as well as vet behaviorists and Fear Free vets, I'm happy to share that Nova's once debilitatingly big feelings - especially on walks - have dramatically been reduced. Some of our go-to training and management techniques in the face of triggers include u-turns (Nova's personal favorite), arch-bys (if we're feeling comfortable and confident), and "front" (face me for treats as triggers pass). My favorite piece of equipment is the double-ended leash because it helps distribute the force more evenly if he lunges." (Photo & story credit: Jessica Arnold)

With reactivity, it’s common to call the stimuli that “set off” dogs’ reactive behaviors “triggers,” which has a way of making you think that your dog’s behavior is being involuntarily “triggered” when this thing shows up. So many reactive behaviors are big and explosive and give the impression that they’re happening automatically. In reality, most of the observable behaviors that we think of as the reactive behaviors (e.g. barking and lunging) are voluntary and have been learned based on the past results (consequences) of doing them. 

There are certainly also respondent behaviors (“reflexes”) that are triggered (aka involuntarily pop) in the presence of whatever your dog’s “trigger” is – those behaviors are primarily physiological responses like muscle tension, heart rate increase, etc. These involuntary behaviors happen basically at the same time as (or maybe fraction before) those voluntary ones like lunging. Some of those physiological responses may even make certain voluntary behaviors more or less likely. 

I don’t bring this up trying to zero in on the difference between respondent and operant behavior (ultimately, a less and less useful distinction), but rather to emphasize that the language that gets used with reactivity isn’t always as accurate or helpful as it could be. Most of the behavior you think of when you picture your dog reacting (barking, lunging, jumping, etc.) is not automatic; it has been learned based on the past results of doing that behavior in similar situations. 

Here’s the good news about all this: Learning is always happening! Our dogs can learn new behaviors! We can really humanely and effectively change conditions to change behavior and emotions – yay!

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How to Change Your Dog’s Reactive Behavior

We can’t give an individualized plan in this article, but we can highlight some key aspects of a lot of good reactivity training. Before doing any training, it helps to start with determining exactly WHAT the reactive behavior is (what does your dog do), WHY your dog behaves that way (to produce what outcome?), and WHEN your dog behaves that way (under what conditions … presumably they aren’t barking and lunging 24/7). Below this general overview, we’ll connect you to resources we really like to help you on your journey.

  1. Health check – Make sure your dog has a clean bill of health. If you suspect pain or discomfort, keep going until you find the right person to help assess your dog. 

    1. For example, when my dog suddenly seemed quicker to bark on walks, I had a gait analysis done to see if a professional noticed anything and suspected pain. 

  2. Add enrichment – A key part of most behavior plans is meeting your dog’s needs. We want dogs with big skill repertoires and environments that have a big variety of reinforcers that they can behave to access! Behavioral health is health! Some of the resources we’ve shared below provide great enrichment info. 

    1. For example, this might mean finding low-traffic trails and taking your dog on walks using a long line and letting them sniff and move freely. This could also mean hiding a food item in your yard and letting your dog sniff and scavenge for it (I am a BIG fan of sniffy enrichment). I’ve also found it hugely helpful to teach “reactive dogs” tricks – dogs gain lots of new behaviors and ways to impact and control their environment to access a range of reinforcers related to working with you. There are SO many ways to add enrichment – the key is to watch how it impacts your dog’s behavior. 

  3. Prevent rehearsal of reactive behaviors (as much as possible) – This is done by avoiding certain environments, changing conditions, and/or implementing trained management strategies.****

    1. For example, if your dog is reactive to other dogs coming within 20 yards of them on a walk, this might mean avoiding areas where other dogs walk altogether. It might also mean teaching your dog a pattern game (like Leslie McDevitt’s 1-2-3 pattern) at home and then gradually moving it into more distracting settings until your dog is able to play the pattern game with you to move past another dog. 

    2. Pssst … sometimes this is enough to make daily life navigable for you and your dog. Other times, you may continue teaching new skills. Either way, preventing the rehearsal of reactive behaviors (as much as possible) is an important step.

  4. Teach desired behaviors out of context – It’s often easier to teach your dog skills in contexts where they’re likely to occur as a starting point. Why swim against the current?

    1. For example, if you want your dog to orient to you when they see another dog, you would first train offered attention at home and then gradually add neutral distractions and move to new locations before finally working on the behavior around other dogs (at a distance to start). Or if you were looking for your dog to sniff when they see other dogs, you may start training by playing a nose work game and then slowly fade in distractions (starting with neutral) as the dog sniffs.   

  5. Slowly bring those behaviors into the target contexts / teach your dog to do desired behaviors around their triggers – This is a slow process. You won’t move straight from your living room to working outside a dog park. 

    1. This is true for even “simple” things like eating a treat from your hand. A behavior that shows up in one context may not in another. It’s our job to gradually add distractions and change environments in a way that keeps the behavior stable. This may mean playing the up-down pattern game at home, then at home with some toys out, then at home with a friend walking around you, then in a low-distraction new location, etc. 

**** Sometimes we can’t change conditions enough to make space for new behaviors, so we may need to partner with a vet behaviorist or vet to add some pharmaceutical support if needed. This can be a very important part of a reactivity journey. If medication may help your dog thrive, it’s absolutely worth exploring.  

Ultimately, if we want to change behavior, we change conditions. There are so many things we can play with to help support our dogs: distant antecedents (things like the amount of enrichment they’ve had that week, their learning history related to desired behaviors, etc.); antecedents (things like walking in places less likely to have triggers or introducing other stimuli that can cue more desired behaviors); and consequences (things like reinforcing more subtle distance increasing behaviors like stiff body or upping the value of treat available for orienting to you). 

Hana Solo lies on a red and gold turkish rug and looks at the camera

Hana Solo is a two year old Keeshond who reacts to dogs, cats, squirrels, (and anything that could be a dog/cat/squirrel), and people when they're alone or in small groups. Hana's human expressed that it can feel demoralizing when reactivity training feels like "two steps forward, two steps back," and also explained that they have to be quite selective about when they go outside with her to avoid huge reactions. (Photo & story credit: Hana Solo)

As a little plug here, I can’t speak highly enough about the importance of adding enrichment to you and your dog’s life. Working on reactivity can be hard (on you both) – be sure to also do things that you both love doing! I could go on a whole tangent story here, but my dog used to bark and lunge at anything new in the environment. I mostly addressed this by doing LOTS of fun shaping games that didn’t seem super related to the “problem.” I still had to work on reinforcing some new behaviors in the contexts where the barking and lunging historically showed up, but our “unrelated” training gave my dog a whole new set of skills and learning history that changed how he approached some of those situations. Plus, fun matters. 

At any rate, there are SO many ways to work on changing reactive behavior. One key element in most (all?!) of them will be honoring the function of your dog’s original behavior (when possible). If your dog was barking and lunging to create distance, they still need to be able to use their behavior to create distance (especially initially) – you might just teach them other behaviors that can also access that same distance increasing result. In plenty of cases, we don’t even have to teach them anything new. We just need to help them create space (e.g. walk them away or ask someone to stop approaching) when they show more subtle behaviors (like muscle tension) than barking and lunging (i.e. we just have to be really good observers and “listeners”). If they can effectively use those more subtle behaviors to control distance from a trigger, the need to bark and lunge may decrease. 

While retaining your dog’s ability to avoid or escape a trigger, you can also teach them that “good things” are available in the presence of a trigger. Sometimes being able to effectively say no opens the door for them to say yes to other things. 

And in time with new skills and experiences, that trigger showing up may no longer represent an escape contingency at all - cool!!! It may come to represent the opportunity to gain valued things (this takes some intentional work on your part)! As a quick reality check, this doesn’t necessarily mean your dog-reactive dog is suddenly going to seek out social interaction with other dogs (though it certainly could). It might look more like a reactive dog who sees another dog and either looks to you for a treat or puts their head down to keep sniffing and walking. Behavior is flexible, and that is a good thing. 

I feel excited knowing that there are so many ways to tailor training to support specific dogs and teams. There are lots of levers you can pull that can influence behavior and so many different procedures. 

Reactivity is really about a problem situation, and we can adjust situations (at least to some degree). 

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Charlie sits in a living room on a blue rug with a lighter pattern

This is Charlie -  a seven year Great Pyrenees/Pitbull/Boxer mix. He’s the biggest, cuddliest sweetheart and is also selectively reactive to other dogs when in the house (looking out the windows) and on leashed walks. He has a few dogs in the neighborhood he strongly reacts to, even from a good distance. His humans do a lot of avoidance and try to reinforce a range of alternative behaviors to reacting around dogs. Without any dogs present he walks like a dream: loose leash, casual sniffing and taking in the world. Charlie can slip out of a harness or collar on its own, so his humans use a collar/harness combo and clip them together at his chest, which helps them keep Charlie secure in case they can't avoid a reaction. (Photo & story credit: Emily)

Resources to Help You and Your Reactive Dog

Reactivity can be a tough journey with a lot of ups and downs. It can feel isolating and frustrating and can get expensive quickly. There are so many reasons to be hopeful though! There are wonderful people creating great resources to support you and your dogs. Our hope is to connect you with some of them. With that being said, here are some resources for you to explore. We’ve included some recommended products below the resources section in case it’s of interest. (You and your dog are doing a good job!!!!)

As a note, we recommend resources and products from companies that follow a suggested hierarchy of behavior change procedures according to the least intrusive, effective intervention principle (LIMA). 

If you see any missing resources or products you think should be in our guide, you can make a suggestion here.

Books:

Reactivity Courses, Webinars, etc.: 

Free E-Books, Guides, and Webinars: 

Articles: 

  • Thanks for Barking 2.0 by Kiki Yablon – If you have a dog who barks a ton at noises they hear in the apartment hallways or things they see out your window or through your fence, this is likely going to be a very helpful blog for you. The “thank you protocol” (as it’s often called) is pretty straightforward and accessible and can help you build an alternative behavior to barking at stuff out of windows and fences (or at a minimum, have a reliable way to stop the barking).

Body Language YouTube Videos: 

Podcasts:

Relevant Research or Scientific Papers and Articles:

Other: 

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Products We Like for You and Your Reactive Dog

We are big fans of buying quality products so you don’t have to buy as much stuff. With that in mind, we’ve collected recommendations from our community and shared them below for you. 

Signage 

There are lots of ways that you can try to signal to people to give your dog space – you can use leashes with words on them, attach leash sleeves to your leash or the belt of your treat pouch (attaching to your belt can be helpful!), wear a vest yourself (can buy these on Etsy or DIY them), and much more. Here are some recommendations from our community: 

Leashes & Leash Add-Ons

A good leash setup will go a long way with any dog, but it can be especially important for a reactive dog. In general, people tend to like slightly longer leashes with a traffic handle add-on (so you can quickly grab a shortened leash if needed), a safety strap, and a harness and collar. Here are some recommendations from our community: 

Harnesses

A well-fitted, non-restrictive harness is critical. We have an entire TOC Harness Guide to help you determine the right fit. The guide also has a lot of harness product recommendations. 

Muzzles

Good dogs wear muzzles! I am a strong supporter of muzzle training dogs – even if they don’t need to wear them. You just never know when they might, and future you (and your future dog) will thank you if wearing the muzzle isn’t stressful. Muzzle training can be so empowering for you and your dog and open up their world. Here are some preferred places to get muzzles from our community: 

Go-To Enrichment Items

Enrichment before a walk may set your dog up for a bit more success, and enrichment after a walk may help them decompress. Here are some favorite enrichment activities and products from our community. 

Treat Packs

Other Fav Products: 

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Rosie sits on leash on a bed of fall leaves

Rosie used to be very reactive and fearful of other dogs and animals, barking at them loudly and only focusing on whatever she was reacting to - even from long distances - and of sounds and objects she didn't recognize. Three years later and she's traveled with her humans through eight countries on a road trip and can settle in cafes and restaurants and even the vet. What’s helped the most is simply building her confidence. For instance, her human, Johanna, would sit in parks with her just watching what's around and delivering treats, play with her in various places, do cooperative care training, and even agility and tricks in parks using the environment as their props. Recently, Rosie was even able to do scent training in a class with other dogs. (Photo & story credit: Johanna)

Thank You

It’s important for us to thank the people who have contributed to this guide - including the many members of our community who’ve made recommendations. We’d also like to thank trainers Lyz Knight, IAABC-ADT, FFCP, Juliana DeWillems, CDBC, KPA CTP, and Ran Courant-Morgan, M.S., Behavior Analysis for sharing their favorite resources and really helping us get this guide off the ground. Grateful to be a part of such a generous community who really cares about helping people and their dogs. 

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