Dealing with Leash Aggression| Leash Reactivity

February 10, 2015

controlling leash aggression reactivity Dealing with Leash Aggression| Leash Reactivity

Dealing with an angry pooch on leash can be just about the most frustrating thing you have to encounter in a day.   Many dogs have a big problem of getting all wound up, lunging and barking at other dogs while they’re restrained by a leash - this is formally called “leash reactivity” and informally many people call it “leash aggression”.  In actuality though dogs with this problem might not be angry at all, so “aggression” might not be the best way of describing these behaviors, even though your dog might seem indeed quite aggressive!

There are a couple of things that tend to be the sole cause of these issues:

  1. The Positive Reason

Dogs that are well socialized and have a ton of love for fellow canines may get super pent up with excitement as they see another dog approaching.  They simply want to run up and play and can get quite frustrated at the restraint of the leash.  In turn, this can of course make you extremely frustrated and end up being and incredibly NOT positive experience.  

  1. The Negative Reason

Dogs are by nature protectors.  Some dogs may feel that it is their duty to protect against an oncoming canine that they may perceive as a threat, especially if they’ve been attacked or haven’t been properly socialized with other dogs.   This is of course the less fun and probably more difficult of the two main reasons for leash reactivity issues.

Some Tips for Working on Leash Reactivity Issues

Doggy trainers of all shapes and sizes will recommend all kinds of equally unique methods for dealing with leash reactivity, but there a couple of things that stand out as the most popular techniques:

The Gentle Leader: the gentle leaders is a trademarked leash that wraps around your dog’s snout in such a way that when they start to pull and lunge it pulls their snout, thereby handing the control over to you.  A lot of people swear by it!

Avoidance: sometimes it’s just easiest to avoid other dogs, it really depends on your patience I suppose.  I wouldn’t recommend making a full u-turn as this would simply indicate that the on coming dog could very well be a threat and might actually increase the over all problem. But, walking around a car or across the street from the other dog might be a good solution and will certainly help you to avoid an embarrassing occurrence.

Distraction: you can also have treats handy.  As soon as your dog begins changing their behavior in reaction to the oncoming dog and the chances of your dog going crazy are very good, bust out a handful of treats and hold them in your fist close to your dogs nose as you walk by the other dog.  This should distract your pooch and then when they get the treats after you’ve walked by the other dog, they have also then been rewarded for not paying attention to the other dog.

We hope this has helped and if you want some really detailed information on this very common doggy issue, you can check out the ASPC: Dogs Who are Reactive on Leash article, it’s a good read and that’s where a lot of the above information came from.

Sources

Author: Aileen Schultz

Photo Credit: Lonely dog via photopin (license)