What is a reactive dog? If your dog barks, growls, lunges towards other dogs and people then yes you might have a reactive dog. Dogs that are reactive are very likely to show aggressive type behaviours when they blow up. In order to fix this we have to look into a couple of things. We need to stop forcing social interaction we need to target a present goal in the dog and forget about the past. We need to teach the dog obedience because not only for convenience but an obedient dog pays full attention towards the handler not the environment. We need to include contingent punishment the correct way that will teach you to show the dog the right thing to do when they react towards a target and you’ll realize how quickly the dog learns with clear communication. We need to realize that bribery simply does NOT work positive reinforcement can be good to include when the dog makes the right decisions however many people they either try shoving the food to the dog and the dog ignores and continues reacting or either you accidently just rewarded the dog for doing the reactivity so next time he/she is more likely to do it again. We need to be very consistent with this meaning we maintain the obedience and structure outside and we need to be very consistent with contingent punishment because if you allow it it is going to manufacture confusion in the dog so there is always consequence for every undesirable behaviour you are trying to eliminate. Remember dog reactivity is best resolved with a solid approach. Reliable obedience, contingent punishment, reinforcement, consistency and repetition to address a reactive dog. This takes a couple of months if not less because effective training and behaviour adjustments makes everything crystal clear to the dog.