Finally accepted I have a reactive dog - looking for some advice on two separate things.
I am going to apologize now, I’m probably going to be long winded in this post. There will be a TLDR at the bottom.
I have an approximately 8-9 year old rescue pit bull type that we adopted four years ago. She weighs in at 80lbs of love and bullheadedness. Around two years ago I started to notice that she was becoming reactive when leaving the house. I fully admit this is because my fiancé and I are homebodies and didn’t keep up socialization with her as we should have. We do have another dog that she gets along well with but to be fair, he’s a submissive easy going guy. Anyway, I really saw her behavior escalate around a year ago when I tried to introduce her to my parents’ new dog. She completely flew off the handle and I realized I had a Problem. Since then I’ve been to multiple rounds of training with a dog trainer at Petco who I worked with in the past and trusted to help us. I use positive reinforcement in the form of high value cheese (the only treat she will take outside of the house) and we’ve worked very hard on her not losing her cool at the sight of another dog when outside of the house. We’ve mostly managed to work her through the fear reactivity she displayed towards strangers approaching her, particularly men, so I know progress is possible even if it’s not linear and not fast.
All this to say, I’ve come to accept that I have a dog that’s on the reactivity spectrum and will need to be managed differently than dogs I’ve had in the past. The two things I’m currently looking for advice on are as follows.
One: reactivity at the window. We have a large picture window in our living room that both dogs love to look out. That’s fine until a dog or humans walk by. She loses it. I’m talking full bore barking, growling, all the behaviors. It doesn’t help that our other dog likes to bark as well (to a lesser degree) which hypes her up. We’ve tried working on “leave it”, a command she knows and is good at, to get her to leave the window and move away which is when she’s rewarded. The goal is to get her to move away, calm down, and then return to the window and look out at the distraction without going bananas. This has been hit or miss. Does anyone have any other suggestions or are we doing the right thing and just need to keep at it?
Two: I’m hoping someone on here has some recommendations for a head halter for her. I mentioned above that she’s bullheaded and I mean that pretty much literally. She’s know to ram her head into displays at the pet store and she pretty much uses her head as a wrecking ball. I’ve tried every variant of other options before settling on the head halter. We’ve used front clip harnesses, slip leads, martingale collars, etc. The only thing we haven’t used is a prong collar and that’s because I personally am not comfortable with them and I believe they will not be effective for her. Without a head halter on, she plows forward into everything and I genuinely feel like I have no control at all. With one on, I can get her to look at me, walk nicely, and focus. Without, there’s no hope of even getting a hint of focus despite multiple training sessions with the only goal of her looking at me when outside of the house and not dragging my arm out of its socket. Her current head halter is the Barkless soft head collar size large. It fits her okay, but I can definitely tell that it’s made for dogs with longer snouts. I like the thickness and amount of padding it has but don’t really like how it sits on her head. Her previous one was a PetSafe Gentle Leader which fit on her head better but was thin and rather flimsy. I’m open to any and all recommendations but comfort for her is key. I’d also be interested to hear if anyone has experience using a head halter and muzzle in combination, if that can be done. I’m working on muzzle training her now that I’ve finally accepted that she’s reactive in the hopes of working on introducing her to my parents’ dog again in the future. I just want to take extra precautions.
Thank you so much if you’ve made it this far. TLDR: I have a reactive 80lb pit type that loses it at the picture window in my house when dogs or humans walk by. Hoping for some advice on how to work with her on this. Also looking for recommendations for a head halter with nice padding that fits on pit type heads well.
Posted Oct 10, 2025, 7:30 PM UTC