<human>: Can you give me the gist of the text in a nutshell?

Hi, I can't flair my post because baconreader doesn't allow me to, so this is encompassing that part here. Help and possibly discussion. 

Our dog is somewhere between 3 and 4. She was doing a thing recently where she'd whine urgently when she saw other dogs, which was weird, but better than behaving like she wanted to eat them. Our older cat was the alpha of the pets, and she died a little over a week ago. The first few days were weird and the dog whined a lot, but that was probably due to my behavior, and my SO's as well. 

Since the end of last week, she's been calmer on walks. She still pulls here and there, and reacts to the presence of other dogs as far as a block away, but she isn't making any noise. I can tell she sees them though, because her body language changes. She whined once at another dog yesterday, and once today. Both dogs were barking at her while walking past, and she was wagging both times. Typically, walks are very noisy, and I do a lot of talking in a calm voice to redirect her attention and keep myself calm. I'm a stress case, and I become tense when I think she'll tense up, and then we have a self fulfilling prophecy, and she reacts. 

I'm having trouble figuring out if this is progress, or if once things feel "normal" in the household, she'll regress. Our remaining cat had some behavioral issues the first few days, and she needs a little extra attention, but I don't think that's really affecting the dog. 

So I think that's pretty much the pertinent info, but
<bot>: is that the dog's reactivity has seemed to subside immediately after the death of the animal who ran the show in the house. Not sure what to expect, or if there's any advice anyone has for such a specific issue.