What do feelings have to do with it?
Beyond "Fixing": Helping Your Reactive Dog Heal with Care, Not Control
If you’ve ever had a reactive dog, you’ve likely been told to “fix” their behavior. Stop the barking. Control the lunging. Correct the growling.
But your dog isn’t a broken machine. They don’t have faulty wiring that needs repair. They are living, breathing, feeling beings—just like us. And when they react to the world around them, they’re not being defiant, dominant, or stubborn. They’re communicating.
So what does your reactive dog actually need?
Reactivity Is Not a Behavior Problem—It’s a Nervous System Response
To truly help our reactive dogs, we have to go beyond surface-level obedience and understand what’s happening inside their bodies. How your dog feels on the inside is directly connected to how they act on the outside.
For most reactive dogs, their nervous system is operating in survival mode—also known as fight or flight. This means their baseline response to stress, unfamiliar situations, or perceived threats is to either defend themselves (barking, lunging) or try to escape. It’s not a conscious choice; it’s a deeply ingrained survival mechanism.
Many training methods often ignore this. They treat reactivity as a behavior that needs to be “fixed” rather than an emotional and physiological state that needs to be healed.
Why Control-Based Training Fails Reactive Dogs
Many mainstream training models focus solely on obedience—controlling, correcting, and suppressing unwanted responses. The goal isn’t to help the dog feel better but simply to make them look better.
This often leads to:
❌ Punishment for expressing fear or stress
❌ Tools like prong collars and e-collars that force compliance through discomfort
❌ Training methods that ignore the dog’s emotional state and push them past their limits
When these strategies fail (and they do), dogs are blamed for being “stubborn,” “dominant,” or “beyond help.” In reality, they’re just overwhelmed, misunderstood, and in need of something radically different.
What Reactive Dogs Actually Need: Healing Over Suppression
Reactivity isn’t just about behavior—it’s about the nervous system. That means helping your reactive dog isn’t about enforcing strict rules or demanding perfect obedience. It’s about care and healing.
Instead we focus on:
✔️ Regulating the nervous system – Teaching dogs (and their humans!) how to move from survival mode to a place of calm and safety.
✔️ Building trust and security – Helping dogs feel safe in their environment so they don’t feel the need to react defensively.
✔️ Honoring their emotions – Recognizing that barking, growling, and even lunging are forms of communication, not signs of disobedience.
✔️ Using positive reinforcement – Rewarding behaviors we want to see more of while also acknowledging and respecting a dog’s emotional needs.
When we approach reactivity with empathy and understanding, we stop asking, “How do I fix my dog?” and start asking, “How can I help them feel safe?”
And that shift changes everything.
If you’re struggling with a reactive dog, you’re not alone. And more importantly—your dog isn’t broken. Let’s work together to create a training plan that prioritizes healing over control, connection over correction, and care over compliance.
Because your dog isn’t a machine. They’re your friend. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Sara Sokol is owner of Mr. Dog Training in Brunswick Maine; A positive reinforcement dog training facility, offering both virtual and in person classes, that has been voted best training in Maine.
