Meeting Your Reactive Dog’s Needs
All dogs have needs that truly need to be met daily. For some reactive dogs, it can be a bit trickier to meet those needs the same way a parent of a non-reactive dog would. I’m going to give you some tips for how you can still meet the needs of your reactive dog daily.
First, let me break down what exactly are the daily needs for dogs.
Just like how you have needs, your dog does as well. They have biological, social, emotional and cognitive needs.
Biological needs: your dog requires a safe place to reside, shelter from weather, quality food to nourish their bodies, clean water to stay hydrated, 12-14 hours of sleep a day so that they can recharge, and an adequate amount of exercise to keep a strong healthy body.
Emotional needs: dogs need to have stability in their lives through keeping their environment stress free, consistent in routine that is safe and predictable, a feeling of safety and free from aversive stimuli.
Social needs: a lot of a dog’s joy and happiness in their lives come from bonding and play with their favorite people and/or animals. They need to have safe and amazing experience with the people and animals around them to reduce the amount of stress that they acquire.
Cognitive needs: these needs have a lot to do with your dogs mind which I feel gets overlooked way too often. Meeting your dog’s cognitive needs helps to continue working and developing their brains. Provide your dog with the independence to make the choices they desire like picking which toy to play with or which route to take on their walk. Provide them with novel experiences to help enrich their lives.
Now that you have a more thorough understanding of what your dog’s needs consist of, let’s discuss how you can achieve meeting these needs for your reactive dog.
My first recommendation is almost always to start introducing decompression walks.
A decompression walk aka a sniffy walk or sniffari is a walk with your dog on a harness and long line, in a quiet and open space where they get to simply be a dog. The focus is on you following them around, letting them sniff, explore, run, play, dig and be a dog! Check out SniffSpot and AllTrails to find great locations and try to do these walks as often as you can.
If your dog isn’t ready to handle the outside world yet, that is totally okay! Bring the sniffari to them. Next time you’re out and about, fill a couple of boxes with sticks, leaves, rocks and dirt. Then take those boxes and place them around your house so that your dog can investigate each one and experience all of those incredible smells!
Remember, sniffing is so incredibly beneficial for your dog. Sniffing helps lower your dog’s blood pressure and heart rate which results in a lower stress level. It is also their strongest sense and how they take in the world. So, let them sniff.
Continuing with the sniffing, scatter some of your dog’s kibble in a snuffle mat, your backyard, cardboard boxes or hidden around the house. Let them forage for their food to help fulfill their natural instincts and to provide them with mental stimulation.
Reactive dogs tend to have much higher stress and anxiety levels, so giving them enough outlets to meet their needs and reduce those stress levels is important. Some of my favorite activities to provide for stress relief in reactive dogs are:
tug
cardboard shredding
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food puzzles
tug
personal play
burrow tows
sleeping
Yes, I added sleeping to that list. Sleep is so important for helping your dog regulate their emotions. Try and think about the last time you didn’t have a good night of sleep. How did you feel the next day?
The same thing happens when your dog doesn’t get the proper amount of sleep. And believe it or not, dogs need a lot of sleep. Like 12-14 hours a day of sleep and about 4-6 hours of rest. So, that means on a daily average your dog should be receiving about 4-5 hours of activity a day.
And let me add, all of that awake time doesn’t have to be filled with training or exercise or constant mental stimulation. It certainly needs to be a mixture of all of those things, spread out throughout the day with plenty of opportunities to nap and relax in between.
Check out my new e-planners to help you keep yourself organized while tracking progress and providing your reactive dog with enrichment to fulfill their needs.
I’d love to know how you go about meeting your reactive dog’s needs. Post on instagram your favorite ways to meet your reactive dog’s needs and tag @misunderstoodmutt, maybe you can even provide other reactive dog parents with fun, new ideas!
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Emily Fitzpatrick, VSA-CDT
emily@misunderstoodmutt.com
