“Reactive” has become one of those words that seems to have taken on a life of its own in the dog world. Mention that a dog is reactive and many owners immediately assume you are talking about a serious behaviour problem. Some even seem to hear the word as though you have said their dog is aggressive, dangerous or somehow difficult beyond repair.

But what do we actually mean when we call a dog reactive?

In its simplest sense, reactivity describes a dog responding strongly to something in its environment. That might be another dog, a person, a vehicle, a noise, a particular type of movement or something else entirely. The important word here is responding. A reactive dog is reacting to something.

That doesn't automatically tell us why they are reacting, what they are feeling, whether the behaviour is problematic or how much help they need.

And this is where I think we have started to overuse the term.

I regularly speak to owners who introduce their dog to me as “reactive” almost apologetically, as though they have confessed to something terrible. They may have a dog that barks and lunges at other dogs, or perhaps one that becomes very excited when it sees them. They have read about reactivity online, watched videos about reactive dogs and gradually come to believe that this is the worst thing their dog could possibly be.

It isn't.

It is a description of behaviour, not a diagnosis of the dog's character.

One of the problems with labels is that they can make us stop looking at what is actually happening. If we decide a dog is “reactive”, we can very easily start treating the label rather than the individual dog. But two dogs that both bark at another dog may be doing so for completely different reasons.

One may be worried and trying to make the other dog go away. Another may desperately want to get closer and becomes frustrated when it cannot. One might be overexcited. Another may have learned that barking makes the other dog disappear. There may be elements of fear, frustration, excitement, conflict, previous learning or simply a very low threshold for coping with what is happening around them.

The behaviour may look similar from the outside, but the motivation and emotional experience can be very different.

Recently someone described their dog to me as being “squirrel reactive”. I understood what they meant, of course. Their dog reacted strongly when it saw squirrels. But personally, I would probably describe that as prey drive rather than reactivity.

Why does that distinction matter?

Because words influence the questions we ask next. If I hear “squirrel reactive”, I might immediately start thinking about the dog's ability to cope with movement and arousal. If I hear “strong prey drive”, I am thinking about a different aspect of the dog's natural behaviour and how that might influence what we see.

Neither term is necessarily right or wrong. The point is that the label doesn't tell us enough.

And perhaps we should be a little more careful about assuming that reactivity is always a bad thing.

A dog that reacts to a strange noise in the garden might be doing exactly what we want a dog to do. A dog that notices something unusual and alerts its owner has demonstrated that it is paying attention to its environment. A working dog may need to respond rapidly to movement, scent, sound or changes in its surroundings. A dog that becomes highly motivated by movement may be extremely useful in certain types of work and sport.

Even in an ordinary pet dog, responding to things isn't inherently undesirable. We don't actually want dogs that are oblivious to everything around them.

The issue is usually how big the response is, how appropriate it is for the situation, how easily the dog can recover and whether it prevents the dog and owner from getting on with normal life.

That is a very different question from simply asking whether the dog is reactive.

A dog that notices another dog, becomes interested, looks for a moment and then carries on isn't necessarily a problem. A dog that explodes at the sight of every dog within 100 metres, cannot disengage, remains highly aroused for a long time afterwards and makes walks miserable for everyone may need help. Both dogs could technically be described as reacting.

This is why I prefer to look beyond the label.

What happened?

What did the dog notice?

What did they do?

What happened immediately beforehand?

What happened afterwards?

How intense was the response?

How quickly did they recover?

And perhaps most importantly, what was the dog trying to achieve or communicate through that behaviour?

Those questions give us something useful to work with.

I also think we need to be careful about the way social media has turned “reactive dog” into an identity. Owners sometimes start to believe that because their dog has behaved badly around other dogs, they now have a “reactive dog” and therefore a life of avoiding everything is ahead of them.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Some dogs genuinely do struggle around particular triggers and need thoughtful behaviour work. Some need changes to their environment and management. Some need their owners to learn how to recognise the early signs that they are becoming overwhelmed. And some simply need better understanding of what is driving their behaviour.

The aim isn't necessarily to make every dog love every person, every dog, every squirrel or every noisy environment.

Sometimes the goal is much simpler.

We want the dog to be able to notice something without feeling that they have to do something about it.

So perhaps the next time someone tells you their dog is reactive, don't immediately picture the worst possible scenario. Ask what they actually mean.

Because “reactive” can describe a dog that is frightened, frustrated, excited, highly motivated, easily aroused, strongly driven by movement, or simply very responsive to its environment.

The word itself doesn't tell us whether we have a problem.

The dog in front of us does.