I’m Reactive, Too
What my nervous system taught me about the dogs we misunderstand
The other night, I saw my hairstylist for the first time in over a year.
My hair desperately needed tidying up, and I always enjoy catching up with her. The conversation was easy. Nothing stressful. Nothing wrong.
And yet, halfway through the appointment, my face and neck turned deep red and started to tingle.
This is, unfortunately, normal for me.
Maybe it was the lights. Maybe the temperature. Maybe the new tea I tried earlier in the day. Maybe nothing at all. My body sometimes reacts strongly to small changes in the environment, and once it starts, there isn’t much I can do except let it pass.
I finished the appointment mildly uncomfortable, paid, and stopped to check the mirror on my way out.
My face was bright red.
And suddenly I found myself thinking about reactive dogs.
“Reactive” is one of those words that has accumulated a lot of baggage. In dog training spaces, it’s often used interchangeably with aggressive, anxious, overexcited, lacking confidence, or poorly trained.
But that isn’t what the word actually means.
Reactive simply means that a body responds strongly to what’s happening around it.
That’s all.
It’s not a moral judgment.
It’s not a personality flaw.
It’s not a failure of character.
It’s physiology.
I’m reactive.
I have autonomic dysfunction, which means my nervous system responds quickly and visibly to small changes. Sometimes it’s just inconvenient — like when my face acts like a mood ring, broadcasting my internal state whether I want it to or not.
Other times, it’s limiting. My heart races. My breathing changes. My body reacts long before my thoughts catch up.
And because humans are social animals, visible reactions get interpreted.
People assume embarrassment. Anxiety. Anger. Tears.
Sometimes they’re right. Often they’re not.
The reaction becomes the story.
Dogs experience this even more intensely.
A dog who barks, lunges, spins, or vocalizes is often assumed to be making a choice about how to behave. But in many cases, their body is simply reacting faster and louder than the environment expects.
The behavior is visible.
The physiology underneath it is not.
And once a dog is labeled “reactive,” everything they do gets filtered through that lens. We stop asking what happened in the body and start asking how to stop the behavior.
But regulation isn’t the absence of reaction.
Regulation is the ability to return.
A regulated nervous system still startles. It still activates. It still responds. The difference is that it can settle again once the moment passes.
Last night, my body reacted under bright lights in a familiar, safe place with someone I like. Nothing bad happened. The reaction passed. I went home.
My nervous system completed the loop.
And it reminded me of something I see every day in my work with dogs:
We spend a lot of time trying to eliminate reactions, when what most nervous systems actually need is support in recovering from them.
A body that reacts isn’t a broken body.
It’s a responsive one.
Some bodies respond quietly. Others respond loudly. Some responses are easy for the world to tolerate. Others are inconvenient or uncomfortable to witness.
But reaction itself isn’t a moral failure.
It’s information.
I’m reactive.
My body is reactive.
And that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with me.