Reactivity! I'm at a loss...

I have a few questions regarding reactive dogs. I'll try to make as much sense as possible, but this may be a long post.

Background:
My dog is a 3-year-old neutered doodle. He is 25% lab, 25% border collie, and 50% miniature poodle (weighs about 35 pounds). I originally got him when he was 11 weeks old with the hopes of training him be a service dog. I pulled him from public access due to him being way too friendly with everyone. He has really bad separation anxiety and has become very reactive, especially on walks. It has made walks very stressful for both of us. Over his life (3 years) he's been attacked by my aunt's German Shepherd four times. Once in the summer of 2023, twice in the summer of 2024, and once this year (she is also very reactive but usually only goes after my dog because he's the most submissive dog in the group). We bring my dog, my parents dog, and my aunt's dog to my grandparents house for puppy play dates a lot. I keep my dog by me and my aunt I do what we can to keep her dog away from mine to avoid fighting. I just don't really want to leave him home alone when he knows my parents dog is over there and he loves to say hi to the people. He has also come very close to attacking other dogs twice. One was a miniature cattle dog poodle mix. We had gone over to my neighbor's house and she invited us in. I had my dog on a leash the whole time, but he still kept trying to get her dog (not the chihuahua that was there, though). She locked both of her dogs in another room so mine could calm down while we were visiting for a few minutes because she wanted to meet my daughter. The second dog was a boxer who had calmly come up behind us on a walk. Thankfully the boxer didn't try to go after my dog, he/she just wanted to say hi. Even though my dog was actively trying to attack him/her, the boxer stayed calm. I shortened my leash as much as possible and tried to stay between them until the boxer's owner got him/her back.

Current situation:
He now barks like crazy when people come over to our house until he is able to see them and know whether they are a threat or not. Doesn't matter what room he's in. If he hears the door or hears people talking he will bark even if it's people who live in our house he will bark until he can go see. Walks are awful unless there are absolutely no people or other animals or even things blowing across the road. He will bark at everything that moves and will often bark very aggressively and pull towards any dogs that he sees or hears, doesn't matter if they are barking at him or not usually. He will hear noises that the rest of us can barely hear and will bark. He didn't used to be like this. He used to be a very calm dog and was doing so well with his training.

Questions:
1. How well do medications for reactivity help and how would we go about getting those prescribed?
2. What techniques can I try to help with his reactivity to determine whether or not a medication would be more beneficial for him?

I'm sure I'll have more questions, too. That's just all I can think of right now. We recently moved and I was hoping the change in scenery would help. It did help for about the first week, but it's getting awful again. We don't take the same route twice in a row normally because that was something you suggested for him in the past was changing up his route.

Thank you so much in advance!!

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Hmmmm sooooo 1.) it entirely depends! Theres often quite an improvement seen when anxiety meds are onboarded especially if we think anxiety is the root cause of the big issues we’ve been having
1a.) a vet behaviorist is the most direct line to getting a dog on anxiety meds, but a lot of normal vets offices will be willing to try helping out, and if they don’t do that type of treatment in office there they would likely have resources of where to point ya towards next!

2.) honestly I’d say from the sounds of it, to me, it does sound like medication would be beneficial! And him going on it doesn’t mean hell require it forever! Sometimes onboarding meds helps us get a dog back towards a baseline where they can then experience more successful training, because their no longer too anxious to learn!

@Parker 又 I ended up scheduling a vet appointment for him since he was due for his annual shots soon anyway. He flipped out during the appointment, thankfully the vet and his tech were very patient with him. The did put a muzzle on him during the shots just to be safe. He's never bit anyone but he was also very stressed already. He's never had an issue getting shots and didn't flinch this time either. The vet prescribed an anxiety med (Fluoxetine) for him and said it would start working within two weeks and we would know by the 6 month mark if we need to increase the dose or try something else. He gave me a couple other suggestions as well such as products with t-theanine (I think that's how it's spelled) so I got him som Solliquin because it has that in it. We'll definitely keep working on his training and hopefully the meds will help him stay a but calmer in the presence of triggers so he can learn to work through them rather than freaking out right away. Thanks!!

Reactivity! I'm at a loss...

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