The Kennel Network

How To Fix His Reactivity

I hit a dog with my car on a Saturday morning and fifteen hours later, the owner was thanking me. I know how f*cked up that sounds. But please just hear me out because it's not what you think. My name is Amanda Higgins. I'm 62. I live in Durham, North Carolina with my husband Bill. And for thirty-seven years I was a shelter vet at Pine Hills Animal Rescue. I spent my entire adult life with the dogs nobody else wanted. Bite risks. Dogs three days from being put down at other facilities. Dogs so reactive they'd been surrendered twice before they were two years old. And I was good at it. Our local news did a segment on me once calling me "the dog whisperer" because we'd taken in a pit mix named Gator that two county shelters had already given up on, and eight months later he was living with a family of four and sleeping at the foot of their daughter's bed every night. Thirty-seven years of that. So as you can imagine, what happened that Saturday morning broke me in a way nothing in three decades of rescue work ever had. Because this time, it was my fault. But not just because of the car. Because I retired two years ago knowing something about reactive dogs that would have saved this one. And I said nothing to anyone. It was 7.14am. I was driving down Sycamore Drive to grab the paper for me and Bill, like I do every Saturday. Twenty-five mile an hour zone. Quiet street. Usually nobody out that early. But this time a four-year-old border collie came out of nowhere. She bolted across the road so fast that even if I was twenty-two years old with the reflexes of an athlete, I couldn't have stopped in time. I didn't even see her until it was over. I thought I'd hit a pothole. That's what it felt like. Then I heard a whine from underneath my front left tire and my whole body went cold. I'm not going to describe the rest of what I saw when I got out. I can't. But what I'll tell you is that by the time I tried to help her, she was already gone. I turned around expecting the owner to start screaming at me. I deserved it. I'd just killed her dog. But she was on her knees on the pavement, shaking. And when she could finally get a word out, she said something that to this day confuses me. She said: "I'm sorry." This woman was apologising to the person who'd just done this to her. She thought it was her fault. She explained through tears that for five years this had been happening. Her dog Bonnie was reactive, and whenever she spotted another dog she'd try to bolt towards it. That morning, Bonnie heard a bark from a yard across the street and ripped the leash clean through her grip. She'd had it wrapped around her hand four times and it still wasn't enough. She'd spent five years terrified that something exactly like this would happen to her. And that morning, because of me, it did. Neither of us could stop crying. Two women sitting on the kerb of a residential street at seven in the morning, not believing what had just happened. I gave her my number and drove straight to the car wash. And while I was standing there watching them clean my front left tire so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore, something hit me that was almost worse than the accident itself. I felt sick for what happened to Bonnie. Obviously. But what was eating me alive was something else entirely. Seven hours ago I had no idea this woman existed. But what I did know, after working with thousands of dogs over thirty-seven years, was the real reason dogs are reactive. And it's not their wiring or their past. If I'd just known she existed even one week earlier, Bonnie would still be alive. That thought wouldn't leave me alone. So I called her. Three hours later, I pulled up outside her house and sat in the car for 10 minutes trying to get myself together. I was about to sit across from a woman who'd been alone in that house all day because of me. I got out and closed my door. And before I'd even taken a step, barking. The loudest barking I've heard in years, coming from behind the blinds. I actually stopped and checked the house number. But it was definitely 94 Rowan Lane. She opened the front door and said, "Sorry, that's Rocky." I had no idea she had a second dog. And suddenly I felt this wave of relief hit me so hard I had to put my hand on the door frame. Not just because she wasn't alone. Because what I'd come to tell her wasn't completely too late. There was still time to help Rocky. Rocky settled pretty quickly once I was inside. He was a scruffy brown mutt, stocky, about fifty pounds. One ear that stood straight up and one that flopped forward like it couldn't be bothered. She told me her name was Diane. And over tea, while Rocky lay between us with his head on her foot, she explained everything. She'd adopted both dogs from a rescue when they were around eleven months old. They were a bonded pair. The rescue said they couldn't be split up, and when Diane met them, she understood why. Bonnie and Rocky did everything together. They ate side by side. They slept curled into each other like two pieces of the same puzzle. When one went into the garden, the other followed within seconds. Soulmates. That's what Diane called them. And I was sitting there trying to hold it together because I was the reason they'd been split up for the first time in their lives. But as the dogs got older, no matter how much money Diane spent trying to help them (she told me later it was north of $4,200 across three trainers and a behaviourist), they kept getting worse. It started with barking at the window. That's why every blind in the house was shut when I walked in. Then they both started lunging and barking at other dogs on walks. Diane is only about five foot two. And at some point she realised she physically couldn't hold two reactive dogs on leashes at once. So she started walking them separately. Rocky first. Then Bonnie. That's what she'd been doing that Saturday morning. Rocky had already had his walk and was inside. It was Bonnie's turn. Then Diane told me the part that broke me. She said this had always been her biggest fear. Every single day for five years, she'd dreaded the walk. But she told herself that after all that training, she had it under control. But now she knew how fast things could turn. How one bark from across the street and four seconds was all it took. And she was terrified. Because Rocky was still here. And Rocky was even more reactive than Bonnie. Then she looked at me and asked me something I wasn't ready for. She said after everything I'd seen in thirty-seven years, did I think Rocky was going to end up the same way. That's when I asked her a question I don't think she expected in a million years. "Diane, how does Rocky sleep?" She laughed. The kind of laugh where nothing is funny. "He sleeps all day, Amanda. He's a dog." "Diane, look down." She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Just watch him for a minute. Actually watch him." So she did. And after about ninety seconds, her face changed. Rocky was right there on her foot, eyes closed. But at every little sound, a car door outside, the fridge clicking on, me setting my cup down on the table, one eye slid open. He wasn't properly sleeping. He was lying there on high alert, and she'd been calling it a nap for five years. "Bonnie used to do the exact same thing," she whispered. That's when I told her what I'd spent the last several years of my career learning. Every time a reactive dog sees a trigger, their stress hormone cortisol spikes. And it takes days to come back down. But it never gets the chance. Because the next trigger is always right around the corner. The window. The doorbell. The dog on the other side of the fence. So everyday their cortisol just climbs higher and higher. And a body flooded with that much stress hormone physically can't drop into deep sleep. Dogs need up to sixteen hours of sleep a day to regulate their emotions. Reactive dogs are only getting six or seven, and almost none of it is deep. And an exhausted brain can't stay calm at the window or on a walk. And it definitely can't hold onto any training. Diane asked me why nobody had ever told her this. Five years. Three trainers. A behaviourist who charged $475 just to walk through her front door. I told her the truth. Everyone in this industry is trained to look at the behaviour. I was too, for most of my career. But shelters caught the sleep connection first, because shelters are drowning in surrendered reactive dogs and we can't afford to waste time on things that don't work. When we started looking at sleep instead of behaviour, everything changed. Then I told her the part I wish someone had told her before that Saturday morning. Every day this goes on, their worn out brain finds it harder and harder to hold itself together. The reactions get bigger. The fuse gets shorter. Until one day, something happens that can't be taken back. Diane already knew what that looked like. So she asked me the only question that mattered to her. "I know it's too late for Bonnie. But how do I fix this for Rocky? How do I get him to actually sleep?" I explained how you can't just tire them out. That's what most people try first. But exercise drains the body without clearing the cortisol, so you end up with a physically exhausted dog who's still stuck on high alert. Then I told her what we actually did at my rescue Pine Hills. Every reactive dog that came through our doors, before any training plan started, went on the same thing first. A deep sleep chew each night. I reassured her that it wasn't a sedative or a med, all the ingredients are completely natural. But the ingredients weren't the reason we used it at the shelter. It was the order they work in overnight. Chamomile brings the cortisol down so the body finally gets the signal that it's safe to switch off. Then melatonin carries them into the deep sleep their brain has been starving for, the kind where the nervous system can actually repair itself. And vitamin B1 helps their food digest overnight so they wake up with calm, natural energy instead of being a groggy zombie the next morning. Diane said that last part really mattered to her because she'd already tried Prozac years ago and both dogs just became drowsy versions of themselves who still lost it at the window. She ordered them right there on her phone while I was still sitting on her couch. She said she wasn't waiting another day after five years of not being able to help her pups. When I got up to leave, Diane hugged me and wouldn't let go. I think that might be the first time in the history of humanity that's ever happened. The woman whose dog I'd hit that morning was holding onto me like I'd just given her the winning lottery numbers. She messaged me three days later saying they'd arrived, and that she was already shocked because Rocky is the fussiest eater she's ever owned and he took one straight from her hand like it was a treat. I told her to keep me updated. Five days went by and I didn't hear a word. I knew they normally take a few days to start working because it's years of cortisol that has to clear, but I started thinking the worst. That they weren't working and this woman who'd already lost everything now hated me for giving her false hope. But on the morning of the sixth day, my phone buzzed. Since the accident, Rocky had refused to sleep in his bed in the kitchen. He and Bonnie had always slept side by side down there, but without her he'd howl until Diane brought him up to bed with them. And lying next to him every night, she realised how he never actually settled. But on the sixth night, Diane came downstairs and found Rocky curled up in his old spot in the kitchen fast asleep. Right next to where Bonnie's bed used to be. The next few weeks gave me the same warm feeling I used to get watching a dog come back to life at our shelter. The feeling I hadn't had in two years. On week two, Diane FaceTimed me from her sofa and something felt different. I couldn't put my finger on it at first. Then it clicked. There was light. Actual daylight behind her. When I'd been in that house, it was like visiting a vampire. Every blind shut so the dogs couldn't bark at what was outside. While we were talking, her doorbell rang. I quickly took my headphones out ready for the explosion. But Rocky just kept watching the TV. Diane still has the screenshot she took of my face in that moment saved on her phone. Week four, she asked me to come to the park with her. For five years she'd walked the same loop around her neighbourhood because she'd mapped out every trigger on every street and that route had the fewest. She hadn't taken her dogs anywhere new since they were puppies. She wanted to take Rocky to the actual park for the first time in years. But she asked me to come with her in case something went wrong. I knew she wouldn't need me. But I went anyway so she felt better about it. Rocky walked through that park like he'd been doing it every day of his life. There were other dogs. Kids on bikes riding home from Saturday football. A man jogging with a husky. And Rocky just trotted along, sniffing the grass, completely unbothered. He even made a friend. A little dachshund called Pretzel. When we got back I could hear Diane upstairs in the bathroom crying. But I knew those were different tears to the ones I'd heard before. She came back down like nothing happened, and later that evening she handed me an envelope and told me to read it when I got home. It was a thank you card. She said she knows how hard the last few weeks have been for both of us. That she thinks about Bonnie every single day and wishes she'd known then what she knows now. But that Bonnie is happy somewhere, knowing her brother Rocky is finally calm and safe. And then at the bottom, in different handwriting like she'd added it last minute, one line that made me put the card down and sit there for a while. "You didn't take Bonnie from me, Amanda. I lost Bonnie because for five years nobody told me what was actually happening to her. You're the person who made sure that didn't happen twice." Bonnie wasn't a bad dog. She wasn't wired wrong. She was exhausted. For five years, she was just exhausted. And she had no way of telling anyone. Every day I wish I could've found Diane sooner. I wish I could've told her about Bonnie's sleep before that Saturday morning. But I couldn't. What I can do is tell as many reactive dog owners as possible, so they don't have to learn this the way Diane did. And now I've told you. So for the first time in years, you can finally do something about what's actually happening to your dog. The chews are by a brand called BioPaw. They're formulated by vets specifically for reactive dogs, and they've now helped over 47,000 reactive dog parents finally enjoy their dog the way they imagined when they first brought them home. But please don't wait. I know first hand you don't get a warning before it's too late. Try the chews that saved Rocky: https://trybiopaw.com/products/deepsleepchews One thing I'll mention because I saw it firsthand at Pine Hills. Shelters and rescues buy these hundreds of jars at a time, so they go out of stock constantly. If they're still available right now, I'd grab some today. They've even got a 60-day money-back guarantee, in case you're worried they won't work for your dog. But trust me you won't need it. Your dog isn't broken. Your dog isn't wired wrong. Your dog is exhausted, and tonight, for the first time in years, you can actually do something about it. A few weeks from now you'll thank yourself. And so will your pup. EDIT: Diane just texted me to let me know they've got a buy 2 get 1 free deal on right now. She's been buying them every month since March and said this is the cheapest she's ever seen them. I told her I'd mention it here in case it helps anyone. P.S. Every night without deep sleep, that exhausted brain inches a little closer to the edge. Bonnie had five years of those nights, and one bark from across the street was all it took to lose her. Please don't wait until your dog seems "bad enough." Bonnie never seemed bad enough either. Until one Saturday morning, she was. Here's the link again: https://trybiopaw.com/products/deepsleepchews P.P.S. If you've always believed your dog is reactive because of what happened before you got them, you're half right. That's what spiked the cortisol in the first place. But it's the broken sleep that's kept it spiked ever since. You can't undo their past. You can fix their sleep. And that's the half that was breaking them.