To the uneducated, reactive doesn't mean much. To them they see a dog who is barking, lunging, growling, snapping, or any mixture of the previous. To them they think this is an aggressive dog, when the other lot of us know this isn't necessarily the case.
The definition of aggression is the intent to cause harm, those of us who understand reactivity know that a lot of the time this isn't the case with our dogs. With fear reactivity, what our dogs are trying to do is create space between them and their trigger. Get space between them and what is scaring them.
You also have frustration reactivity, or boundary frustration. Which is generally when a dog is so excited they cant control themselves on the end of the lead, when they want to say hello to another dog but get frustrated because the lead is stopping them. Again to the uneducated the barking and lunging may seem aggressive.
Dogs are fully capable of causing injury if they really wanted to, if they want to bite they will bite.
For those who dont understand reactivity, that's fine, you may have never experienced it in your lifetime. You may have got lucky. But for those that have, its hard work. It makes walking our dogs harder, going to the vets harder, basically anytime we want to take our dogs outside a lot harder. There is no set trigger, it could be dogs, cats, humans, horses. But generally people only really notice if its towards people or other dogs.
I can guarantee you that the majority of reactive dog owners are doing SOMETHING about it, whether they're managing the situations they put themselves in, or they're actively training i can guarantee they're not just sitting back and letting it happen. They're not allowing their dog to be triggered daily just for the fun of it.
As a member of the general public you may see a dogs reaction for 15 seconds, and go about your day. As owners we experience this everyday, it can be draining. It is important to have some compassion towards other people, give them space if you see their dogs reacting. Yes the reactions aren't nice to see, but its a whole lot worse for the owners. Every reaction is an extra battle the owner is facing, and a step back in their progress.
In the words of Thumper, If you don’t have somethin’ nice to say, don’t say nuthin’ at all.
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