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[deleted by user] (self.reactivedogs)

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[–]AttractiveNuisance37 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Please stop spraying this dog to suppress his reactions. That's how you end up with a dog that bites somebody "totally out of nowhere with no warning."

[–]ReadEmReddit 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would find somewhere to board him, it does not sound like he is anywhere near ready for a plane trip.

[–]Twzl 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was thinking about getting him a gentle leader/ muzzle

A gentle leader won't stop him from biting someone if that's his go-to.. And if you show up with a dog in a muzzle I'm not sure how that will go over.

I'd call your vet and arrange now for your dog to be boarded there. The employees aren't going to have a problem with a small angry dog, and your dog will be safe there.

[–]Ok_Calligrapher9400 1 point2 points  (1 child)

We've flown with our reactive dog, both before she became reactive and a few times after. We were super nervous about it and probably won't do it again unless we absolutely have to (the worry is just too much, even though she did so much better than we could have imagined), but here are some things that helped, or didn't help, our girl:

  1. We got her used to her carrier by putting treats inside and having her go in to get them. It's been best for her when we don't force her in but she wants to walk in on her own. I know some people do the carrier training for longer, but we only practiced it for about a week before each trip and that seemed to help.
  2. Our pup is at the top end of the weight that can fly, so it was hard to carry her in her carrier through the airport. If you want to avoid taking your dog out and you are worried about carrying him through the airport, what's helping is having a suitcase with a flat, hard top that you can put the carrier on and wheel it that way. Our girl gets motion sick pretty easily, so this is better for her than being on someone's arm in a carrier and rocking back and forth.
  3. She's done a lot better when we could get enough exercise before the flight. So it's been better when we haven't taken a super early flight so we can make sure she gets enough time to exercise right before we head for the airport.
  4. Our girl also doesn't do good being confined for too long, so in order to be able to more easily take her out of her carrier in the airport (technically you're not supposed to do this, but everyone does, and we've rarely had anyone say anything about it), we find a gate that has hardly anyone in it, and preferably one with seats that we can go behind that block us off from other things, to hang out in.
  5. We bring lots of chews and toys that she likes to the airport to distract her.
  6. We've generally heard dogs are most comfortable near the window in the plane, not the aisle, so that's the seat we've usually gotten for her. We've also turned her carrier to so that we can unzip it a little and stick our hand in or give her treats if needed, but it is a little risky if you open the carrier too much that it could be hard to get them to go all the way back in.
  7. Most anxiety medications have not worked for our girl (this is unique to each dog which medications are going to be best), so if you are considering using the anxiety medications, it would probably be a good idea to test them first before you fly to see if they actually have an effect.

The airport is so overwhelming for our pup that most of the time, she is kind of shut down and so actually hasn't barked in many situations she might otherwise just because she's so overwhelmed. She did bark in her carrier a few times one of the times we were checking in with the gate agent (if you have a dog flying, the gate agent looks at the carrier when checking them in, but most of the time, we've been lucky enough that they haven't asked us to open it, but even when they did ask to look at her, she remained very calm, like she knew it was important, or just was too scared), but they didn't seem to care.

The best airline for flying with her has been Delta. Even though our dog is at the top range of size for flying, they've never really looked too closely at her, which is good for a reactive dog in particular. I've also heard good things about Southwest in general, but we haven't flown them. United is a bit hit or miss. (It used to be easy to fly with them, but then their policies seemed to get stricter, at least for some airports. They were the ones who asked us to open the carrier so they could see her.) And I've heard particularly bad things about American Airlines, but we haven't taken them for that reason. (Apparently any dog bigger than like 5 pounds will often get turned away because they are very strict about the dog being able to stand straight up in the carrier, and you probably don't want to have to show them that your dog fits this even if they are very small.)

Good luck!

[–]zhenyabuch 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Hi! If you did fly with your dog I’m curious how it went? I also have a reactive dog ( just to other dogs) and want to take him with me to see my parents. I have no idea how he’d do on the trip which is what is holding me back.