hi, Bill is now 20 months old. He’s a great dog most of the time but a couple of ongoing irritations. He loves his walks, especially off lead, but we avoid him meeting other dogs off lead as he stops listening to us and goes straight to them, making a nuisance of himself, not aggressive, just very playful. How do we get him to walk past other dogs, ignoring them? His other issue is that very occasionally, when he gets too hot/too tired or too excited he gets hyper, running at us barking, nipping if he could, and just behaving very badly. I try to distract or ignore him but that’s not always easy! Hoping it’s just a passing phase!! Thanks in advance
Hi, We have a 20 month old lab aswell and she sounds very similar to Bill. Occasionally she will get into this hyper mode and refuse to listen. It's like all the blood is rushing to her head. She runs laps at full speed. Would love to hear a response to this also. But it is reassuring that our dog isn't the only one acting like this . Hoping it's something she grows out of too.
I've got a very dog friendly young Lab too. You might find it helpful to get a copy of Pipps's book Total Recall and work on the proofing with dogs section. Look At That is very useful too, there is a sticky in the Training Forum.
Hi from myself and Mason choc lab who is 12 months. Bless him, off lead, we have similar troubles but maybe you could do mixture of off/on lead see if that helps. Keep him interested in you, I try sit, paw etc to keep him near me but when he sees someone or a dog he is gone! When we are close to dogs I talk to him and we do some heel or find it by throwing treat on ground and lots of praise.
Hi there, it's great that your dog is friendly Being able to come away from other dogs when called is a learned skill, and to practice it you need some other dogs (under control of course ) and some great rewards. You can't do this on your own. So you'll need to join a dog training club or work together with a friend who has a dog and is willing to follow a training plan.
Thanks for reply. We do train with other dogs, and in a controlled training environment he’s great. He doesn’t seem to realise that this is wanted outside of the classroom!! I can deal with this more easily than the hyper behaviour. Is this a Lab thing? I find it so frustrating and difficult to anticipate and deal with
Not knowing that a learned cue in one situation (ie the classroom) applies in another (on the beach or at the park) is not a Lab thing, it's a dog thing unfortunately They just need to practice each new skill in different locations. Eventually the penny drops that the cue applies no matter where they are. However, the "wanting to make friends with and play with, every dog in the world" is very much a Lab thing For many Labs at least.
