Have you been training your reactive dog for months or maybe years and don’t see any progress? I’ve been there myself as a dog owner, and good news is: I’ve learned how to get out of there as a dog trainer for problematic dogs. Keep reading to check if you’re making any of the common mistakes.

Before you move further, you need to find out what’s bothering you: no progress at all, slow progress or steady aggravation. If you’re working with a professional dog trainer, you may often see that progress happens slower than you wished. Here is what’s important to check:

Have you set not only a big goal but also intermediate ones? You should have a clear overview of how your training ladder looks like, and you should see that you’re moving step by step.
An example of goal ladder for “Calmly passing other dogs” I’ve had with my dog when he was reactive:
Walking in heel command (quietly, focused on me) in calm areas with no distractions + being recallable
Being recallable in calm areas when seeing calm dogs on a 20+ meter distance
Walking in heel command in calm areas when seeing calm dogs on a 15+ meter distance
Walking in heel command in calm areas past calm dogs on a small distance
Same as above but with triggering dogs (fooling around, staring, barking)
Walking in heel command in busy areas past calm dogs on a small distance
Walking in heel command in busy areas past triggering dogs on a small distance
Staying calm (no lunging) without heel command when passing other dogs
Passing the “worst enemy” dog and staying focused on me, no lunging
Technically, the ladder was even more detailed — I’ve pointed out our main bullet points. If you have the same structure with your dog, and you know where you’re standing, and you move from one point to another, you’re good. If you see that you’ve been stuck on one level for too long, you need to change something.

Now, three most common reasons why people don’t see progress when training a reactive dog:

You don’t work on relationships — you try fixing “bad behaviors” right away but your dog is not taking you seriously.
You go too quickly too difficult — your dog has just learned to walk in heel with no distractions and tomorrow you give it a try when passing your ultimate trigger.
You keep changing the rules — today your dog barks at other dogs and you correct it; tomorrow you let it slip because you’re in a hurry.

What’s worse than being stuck is noticing an aggravation. The most common reasons here are:

You strengthen your correction constantly — if your dog didn’t get your “normal” leash impulse, you make it stronger once again, and then again. In every difficult situation you follow this pattern instead of analysing the situation.
You let your emotions rule and lose your temper when training your dog.
You start from the hardest problem right away without doing any pre-work.

Training a reactive dog is not easy, and it takes time, but you should see improvements.

The first thing you have to do is to set your training goal. As I’ve pointed above, each big goal (like “calmly passing other dogs”) should be broken down to the smaller ones. The more detailed you make it, the easier it will be to move forward and track progress.

Second, you should always start with a relationship check. In 99% of the reactivity cases I had, dogs didn’t take their owners seriously. It meant that they would not take “no” for an answer if they wanted something. Do you think you can stop a dog from barking if you can’t tell them to step down from the sofa with no drama? Well, you can’t. Living with a reactive dog is about taking responsibility, taking the lead, and dogs need time to adjust to the new reality and see that when you say something, you mean it.

Third, you need to be consequent. You can see this advice all over Internet but not everyone gets what is it about. If you’re on the step “walking in heel command in calm areas past calm dogs on a small distance”, you need to make sure that you always follow through if your dog makes a mistake. Moreover, you avoid situations that are more difficult for your dog for a while. I have a few tricks in my pocket to make this easier to implement in real life, for example working with a heel command: in most cases, we teach the dog to pass their triggers calmly in a heel command first, and if you see that the situation is too hard, you do not take your dog in heel, and they are allowed to do what they want — you don’t spoil your progress as a bonus. Only when your dog is able to show desired behavior in heel, we may make one step harder and request to stay calm in a free mode.

Fourth, you should never begin your training with your biggest problem if we’re talking about reactive dogs. We need to do a lot of preparation work: set the relationship rules, make sure your dog is able to show desired behavior with no trigger present, get the dog familiar with correction and what’s the expected response to it.

Fifth, you should not constantly go harsher with your correction method. This is actually one of the most common mistakes I see, and the reason for this is simple: many people lack structure and patience. If your correction didn’t work in a particular situation, you need to stop and analyse it thoroughly. Most probably, you’ve missed a step in your training ladder and need to go back. In fact, when the training ladder is detailed enough, your corrections are never harsh. Making this mistake is not only unfair, but also dangerous, because if your dog doesn’t react to a correction, it means that they’re beyond the threshold, and may escalate.

Finally, understanding what changes energy levels of your dog is important. Some common games (like fetch, for example) may make your dog more agitated and likely to react. In many cases, we need to pause all the activities that make your dog very excited during our training to help them calm down and be more responsive.

Common mistakes in working with reactive dogs

Reasons behind dog reactivity

How to train a reactive dog