What is it about housing complexes that seems to create dog-dog reactivity?
Growing up, I lived in a neighborhood where it seemed as if every house had a family dog. As a general rule, all of the dogs in the neighborhood got along. Sure, a dog in a yard would bark at another dog walking down the street, but the dog passing by would never bark back. It was almost as if the walking dog knew he had the upper paw. And the same dogs who would bark from their yards would politely greet other dogs if they were out on leash.
After moving into an apartment, I was shocked by the number of reactive dogs living there. I'd estimate that 80% of the dogs there were reactive to other dogs (I couldn't say how many were reactive to people because I always had Iris with me). After moving into the condo, I was again shocked at the number of dogs who are either very reactive or very inappropriate in their greetings. I would say that about 80% of the dogs here are reactive and another 15% like other dogs but are way over the top in their greetings (barking, jumping and pulling in excitement). I can only think of two other dogs here who are well behaved around other dogs.
Why such a high percentage of reactive dogs? I'm guessing that it's a combination of factors. Without a yard, every dog in the complex is walked on leash multiple times a day. It doesn't matter if they behave well in public or not, they still have to be walked. That makes reactive dogs a lot more visible than in a neighborhood where all the houses have yards. With a yard if your dog doesn't behave, you don't have to walk him. Even still, I can only think of two dogs from my neighborhood who were never walked because of behavior. It was a much lower percentage of reactive dogs than the apartment/condo.
Everything about the housing complex environment just seems to really encourage dog-dog reactivity. Because there are so many apartments and condos that don't allow dogs, the ones that do tend to have a lot of dogs. So there's a lot of dogs on leash in a relatively small space. It's also a lot of
untrained dogs in a small space. Odds are good that with that many dogs, there's going to a few reactive ones and I wonder how much of a domino effect that has. I know that every time Iris sees another dog outside, she's anticipating that the other dog is going to explode at her. And nine times out of ten, she's right. That certainly doesn't help. It seems like a pretty quick way to turn a non-reactive dog into a reactive dog. Without proper management do a few reactive dogs very quickly "poison" the atmosphere of the entire complex?
I'm curious to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on reactive dogs in housing complexes. Has anyone else noticed the same scenario?
