Dixie is a small rescue lurcher who I brought home six months ago, and while I’m very proud of how far we’ve come, she still has some areas of life that she finds scary. The biggest challenge that we had to work on was her fear of other dogs, particularly while on a leash. She would bark and growl at any dog who approached her, as she couldn’t run away if she needed to.
Even when off her leash, she wasn’t interested in socializing with other dogs, particularly when there was more than one. If a boisterous dog ran up to her she would put her tail between her legs and skip away or bolt and hide behind me. I wasn’t sure what I needed to do, if I needed to treat her as reactive and work on calming her reactivity, or if I should accept that she was a nervous dog and take her on walks where we were unlikely to meet anyone.
