I know there are a lot of posts about excitable dogs jumping and lunging at people and other dogs, but I don't want to hijack someone else's thread so I'll post my own problems here. I also read some of the stickies on excitable dogs but those are more general excitability. I want to know what to do specifically about my 4 month old who is lunging excitedly at every person and dog within 10 feet. I know some of this is just puppiness but we go to a puppy training class every week and ours is the absolutely worst behaved in this department. The other puppies there get excited too but settle down shortly when restrained. Our lunges incessantly. We've tried gentle leaders, martingale collars, no-pull harness that tighten around the ribcage. No help. Currently we're using a front lead harness. Not because it stops the pulling and lunging but because we can at least pull her around and away when we need to keep her off of people. We've tried the foot on the leash to prevent jumping up. But she still tries and doesn't seem to ever give up. If she can't lunge or jump because of the foot restraint she will just add ear-piercing yips and whines to her attempts. We've been trying "sit before greeting" but get nowhere. Either she's so crazy with excitement she won't listen (we can all just stand there for 5 minutes while she attempts to lunge and she never tires), or she'll sit for half a second and as soon as the person reaches to pet her she is up and lunging. Even if the person immediately pulls back, apparently that was enough. She seems to think just one touch before pulling back is worth it because she only seems to be getting worse the more we try that. I'm ready to start telling everyone they cannot pet her at all. Just forget it. But sometimes we have no choice, like when she goes the the vet. The doc and staff obviously have to touch and handle her. Our vet is patient and has tried to help and wait for her to sit, but the vet doesn't have all day. At some point she has to just handle the puppy and then the puppy has her reward. I keep hoping she'll get better with more effort, better with more socializing, but she seems to just get worse. It's getting so frustrating.
