Apps for reactive dogs
Most apps sold to reactive dog owners fall into three groups: general training apps with a reactivity module, plain note-taking apps used as a walk diary, and dedicated reactivity trackers. Which one fits depends on whether you want instruction, a place to write things down, or a record that relates events across weeks. CalmDogs sits in the third group: it is a logging and education tool for iPhone that records the trigger, the distance, the reaction and the recovery time, and reads the accumulated stress of the previous days back to you each morning. It is not a training programme and it has no free tier.
There are three kinds, and the useful question is not which is best but which of the three you actually want.
This page is written by the person who makes one of them, so here is the conflict of interest stated plainly at the top, along with the fact that matters most: there is a free reactivity tracker on the App Store, and CalmDogs costs $59.99 a year. If price is the deciding factor, the rest of this page is going to end somewhere you can predict. Everything below was checked on the App Store listings on 17 August 2026, and listings change.
The three kinds
General training and pet-care apps. Broad tools that cover walks, feeding, medication, vaccinations and obedience progress, sometimes with a training module attached. Good if you want one app for the whole dog. They almost never record anything reactivity-specific.
A notes app used as a diary. Free, already installed, and perfectly capable of holding the facts. What it cannot do is relate them: to find out whether recovery times are shortening you would have to read back through everything yourself.
Dedicated reactivity trackers. Built around triggers and reactions rather than around care tasks. This is the smallest group by a long way — the niche is close to empty, which is worth knowing when you are searching and finding little.
What actually exists
Reacpaw — free, and the closest thing to a direct alternative
A reactivity tracker for iPhone by Christelle Sissoko, also a solo developer. It logs walks, triggers, reactions and notes, produces custom reactivity ratings with trends over time, and keeps a history you can look back through. It has been going since 2023 and is on its third major version. It is free, with no in-app purchases listed.
Where it is better than CalmDogs: it costs nothing, it is older and more settled, and its listing advertises a coming feature for connecting with a trainer to share your history — which is a genuinely good idea and something CalmDogs does not do.
One thing to check for yourself: its App Privacy section states that Diagnostics data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, and that location, contact info and user content are linked to your identity. That is a normal arrangement for a free app and it is disclosed properly. It is simply the trade, and it is worth reading before you choose on price alone.
LeashLog — voice logging, aimed at trainers as much as owners
By Dmitry Kroz. You speak your notes and it transcribes, categorises and analyses the sessions, which is a genuinely clever answer to the "I cannot type while holding a lead" problem. It is free with a Pro tier at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and it is pitched at professional trainers as well as committed owners. It is a training-session log rather than a reactivity tracker.
Doggy Time — the big general one
By Kidplay Technologies. Puppy toilet logs, obedience progress, vaccination and medication reminders, GPS walks, Apple Watch, multiple pets and multiple caregivers. Free with subscriptions. It is the most established app on this page by a wide margin and it is excellent at what it does, which is general pet care — its listing does not mention reactivity, triggers or recovery time at all.
Focus Canine — looks relevant in search, is for something else
By Milton Navarro. Free, and it tracks high-arousal behaviour, routines and a calm-mode timer, and generates PDF reports to take to a vet. It is built for canine ADHD and hyperkinesis rather than reactivity. Worth knowing about if that is what you are dealing with, and worth skipping if it is not.
CalmDogs — what it does, and who it is not for
It records four fields per event — trigger, roughly how far away, what the dog did, and how long they took to settle — and relates them across weeks. The difference from everything above is the direction it faces: the others summarise what has happened, while CalmDogs reads the accumulated stress of the previous several days and tells you what the day starting now can realistically hold. Accumulation across days is the idea the whole app is built on, and recovery time is followed as a measurement in its own right.
It is not for you if you want a training programme, exercises and instructions — it deliberately does not tell you what to do with your dog. If you want one app for vaccinations, walks and feeding. If you are on Android. If you want to try before paying, because there is no free tier and no trial. Or if you are not going to log consistently for two or three weeks, because before that there is not enough history for any of it to work.
It is for you if the thing you keep running into is not knowing why some days go badly, and you would rather have an accurate record than a better memory. CalmDogs is $59.99 a year or $9.99 a week, iPhone only, and does not share your data.
Side by side
| App | Price | Built for | Records recovery time |
|---|---|---|---|
| CalmDogs | $59.99/year or $9.99/week. No free tier | Reactive dogs. Accumulation across days | Yes, and tracks it across weeks |
| Reacpaw | Free. No in-app purchases listed | Reactive dogs. Ratings and trends | Not mentioned in its listing |
| LeashLog | Free. Pro $9.99/month or $99.99/year | Training sessions, by voice. Trainers and owners | Not mentioned in its listing |
| Doggy Time | Free with subscriptions | General pet care, many species | No |
| Focus Canine | Free | Canine ADHD and hyperkinesis, not reactivity | No |
All five are iPhone only. Checked against the US App Store listings on 17 August 2026. "Not mentioned in its listing" means exactly that — it is not a claim that the feature is absent from the app.
How to choose in one minute
If you have never logged anything before, start free — with Reacpaw or with the notes app you already have — because the habit is the hard part and there is no sense paying to find out whether you will keep it up.
If you have already tried and the record died in a fortnight, the problem was probably that writing cost something and gave nothing back. That is the specific problem CalmDogs is built for, and it is what to look for in any tracker, whichever one you pick.
And whichever you choose, the app is not the work. The work is with a qualified professional who has met your dog, and what that costs is worth knowing before you spend anything on software.
Questions
Is there a free app for tracking dog reactivity?
Yes. Reacpaw is a free reactivity tracker for iPhone, and the notes app already on your phone works as a walk diary at no cost. What you give up with notes is any ability to relate entries across weeks; what you give up with any free app is usually paid for in data, so it is worth reading the App Privacy section before installing.
Do reactive dog apps replace a trainer?
No, and any app claiming otherwise is worth avoiding. Behaviour work belongs with a qualified professional who has met your dog. What a log can do is make the time you spend with that person more useful, because you arrive with records instead of impressions.
Is there an Android option?
Not among the dedicated reactivity trackers described here — CalmDogs and Reacpaw are both iPhone only. On Android the practical options today are a general pet-care app or a plain notes app used consistently.
What should a reactivity tracker record?
The trigger, roughly how far away it was, what the dog did, and how long they took to settle afterwards. The fourth is the one most often missing and the one that carries the most information, because recovery time tends to change before anything else does.