Why Is Dog Reactivity on The Rise?

07 Apr Why Is Dog Reactivity on The Rise?

Over the last 8 years working as a professional dog behaviourist I (and other trainers around me) have noticed a steep incline in the number of dog reactivity cases referred to me.

One theory I have to explain this increase in cases is quite simply this- there are more dogs.

Since lockdown there are SO many more people working from home and able to have dogs than ever before. In 2015 we think about 9 Million dogs were in the UK whereas current estimates from February this year put numbers a huge 14 million estimate. To put that into perspective were looking at a 35% increase in just ten years.

Now we know that with more dogs there will be more dogs with behavioural problems but this isn’t as simple as you might first think. My theory is that with our dogs having to encounter more dogs in parks and when walking on lead there is more stress on the dog to be dog social/ tolerant and more opportunity for our dogs to have bad experiences leading to negative associations.

In cases of boundary frustration, our dogs have so many more dogs available to socialise with now that it makes sense they get very over stimulated when approaching another dog and are unable to cope.

Unfortunately the increase in dog reactivity seems likely to continue in the near future.

The best thing we can do is learn how to protect our dogs from negative learning experiences and provide a ton of positive and/or neutral exposure!

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