Person walking a small, fluffy dog. Leash reactive dog training to walk away from an approaching stranger on a neighborhood sidewalk

How to Help a Leash Reactive Dog: The Flight Training Method

Instead of forcing your reactive dog to “face their fears,” try flight training (teaching them to choose to move away from scary things on cue), which builds agency instead of dread. You’ll get the step-by-step process for pairing a flight cue with rewards and applying it to real triggers, plus an answer to the common worry that moving away might reinforce fear (spoilers: it doesn’t). The real goal isn’t eliminating fear, but building coping skills.