Understanding leash reactivity in dogs as a welfare condition driven by frustration or fear, and evidence-based approaches to treatment.
Leash reactivity is a welfare condition, not a dominance or disobedience problem. A dog that explodes into barking and lunging when it sees another dog on lead is communicating emotional dysregulation — fear, frustration or both — through the only repertoire available to it. The welfare harm is bidirectional: the reactive dog experiences acute stress during every encounter, and the owner experiences shame, social isolation from dog-friendly activities and physical strain from restraining a pulling, reactive animal. The welfare solution is behaviour modification that reduces the emotional response at the root of the behaviour, not management that simply suppresses the visible expression while leaving the underlying emotional state unchanged.