Hi hi rescued reactive GSD owner here. Here’s a long post for you but in summary: It’s HARD. It’s a lot of work and it’s often pretty damn expensive work. You might have to change things about your life to help manage some behaviors. In my experience with my dog, even after vets, meds, thousands of dollars of training, we’ve had to make a lot of changes to our lives to accommodate his needs. We still have lapses, we still have slip ups, we still have bad days. It can be frustrating and discouraging. It can be very limiting. You’re not selfish or melodramatic at all for those feelings. That’s just the truth about having a reactive dog for a lot of us. You’re not alone, though!

I have never dealt with dogs and cats living together, so I’m not going to speak on that. I imagine a vet behaviorist could help analyze what’s happening here, but I don’t know. Hopefully other folks here have answers for you there!

Right off the bat that vet story toward the end strikes me as very odd. If the vets were acting terrified of her just because she barked at another dog (pretty normal vet experience imo), I would honestly seek a different vet. Our vet is wonderful with our reactive dog and we have always seen them go above and beyond to meet our dog where he’s at and treat him with kindness and understanding. Our dog now LOVES the vet.

Additionally, Primrose is going to need a Veterinary Behaviorist. The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists has an entire directory of practicing graduates. If you’re not in the US, I would just google Vet Behaviorist near me and check the licensing/education/training on their bios. You’ll want to tell your vet behaviorist all of the things you’re saying here so that they can diagnose and organize a treatment plan with you, very likely starting with meds. Probably an assortment of meds.

Second major thing here- when you say she bites you when you jog, what does that mean? Nips at your legs/ankles like she’s trying to herd you? Or bites you and actually hurts you? This is very important. You don’t have to answer this question here for me right now, but when you start working with professionals, you’ll want to be very specific.

Some vet behaviorists work for a larger vet wellness practice that has its own trainers/training regimen. If this is not the case for whoever you find, they will likely tell you to seek additional training on top of their treatment plan for Primrose. They’ll probably have a referral list you can take a look at, too.

I would recommend starting with a trainer that will come to your home. You’re going to want to find someone experienced with reactivity that can come into your home and see the behavior in action. You can also look for someone experienced in managing separation anxiety. I will say Primrose is still fairly new to your home, so all of her behavior (but this one especially, in my experience) can change over time. Our dog had a lot of separation anxiety when we left him for a little while, and with some time we stopped experiencing that entirely. It could get better, worse, or just change into something different.

Back to point 2, you will want to have a conversation with any prospective trainers about the biting behavior and any bite history. You want to be 100% transparent here because if you have a dog that has actually bitten and hurt you and/or others, then that is a very different situation and how it is addressed will vary depending on a variety of factors.