hi, I have a 9 month old working cocker spaniel. He is absolutely gorgeous, no aggression at all but nearly all the dogs we meet when out growl or go for him. Is it his hormones or over energetic body language? He's very confident and not scared of anything. He never shows signs of submission to other dogs but is all wagging tail and sniffing. What can I do? I'm terrified of letting him off the lead when out in case he is attacked.
How horrible for you. It's good that your dog isn't upset by the dogs you have been meeting. What kind of locations are you exercising him in? Are you in the UK? And welcome to the forum.
I think the other dogs are growling at him to tell him to "go away", your pup sounds very waggy and happy, but older dogs often don't like enthusiastic dogs so close. I would train him not to go to other dogs but to concentrate on you. If there are no other dogs around, do let him off the lead, he needs to be free and you can train him to keep a certain distance near you.
Hi, I'm trying my best to distract him when we see othe her dogs and we go to puppy socialisation classes. I think he probably would wpbenefit from a good growl but would hate to see anything worse, which is always quite unpredicatable when we're out. I'm letting him off the lead in fields we have nearby but I'm constantly on edge in case other dogs show up. There have been a couple of occasions where he's just disappeared chasing birds. He comes back fairly quickly and he responds really well to whistle training most of the time. I've also started playing games while we're out so that he's more focussed on me and he's responding really well so far. Thanks for the advice, sometimes I feel like I'm doing everything wrong.
We're doing a mixture of quiet fields and busier places on the lead. We're in Surrey and I'm currently studying Total Recall having already read Happy Puppy. We start adolescent dog training classes next week and go to socialisation classes every week since he was little. Unfortunately I don't have many friends close by with dogs or the ones I do have have impeccably behaved pups which just makes me feel worse! I'm trying not to beat myself up and just keep going with the basics of training plus some fun games.
