How to stop my lab to get overly excited when seeing other dogs?

I have a 9 moths old lab which loves to go for walks, but the problem is that every time he sees another dog, even if it's at like 50 meters away, he gets overly excited and starts pulling the leash like crazy, jumping all around and I can barely calm him down. Is there any way I can change his behaviour or to train him to stay calm in the presence of other dogs?

 

Yes, you can use the Look At That technique described in the book Control Unleashed.
I've used this to stop my young puppy lunging and jumping at people, and we're working on it with other dogs, too.

Here's a blog post I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago. It's people here, but you can do the same thing with dogs: https://thislittledoggy.com/2017/02/23/impulse-control-ignoring-people/
The behaviour you see at the end with the white dog is how she was with people only a few sessions earlier. Dogs are definitely a bigger draw, and we sadly have very little opportunity to practice, but the same technique - clicking for calmness - is having a positive affect were we can.

 

This totally describes my dog! Sam is 11 months old and LOVES other dogs. When he was small, it was cute, but now, at 97 pounds, he takes off like a bullet and about pulls our arm off, not to mention freaks out the owners of small dogs! He's gentle and just wants to play but most definitely "over exuberant!!" lol I'll be reading that article too-thanks for sharing

 

Hello, I think most labs are like this at this age. Meg certainly was. The way I cracked for her was to train her around other dogs. It's no good being perfect at home without distractions. We did loads of obedience classes that were generally doggy mayhem going on around her. It took a while and by the time she was 1 she had a lovely "meet and greet" but it took effort, proofing and persistence ...keep up the training and it will pass

 

Thank you so much for the link to your blog. It was very useful.

 

Thank you for sharing this! Zac definitely has impulsive control issues still at age 2 1/2. But at 80lbs, it can be a big problem. About a year and a half ago - he got excited to see my husband as I was bringing him out of the kennel and took off. I didn't let go of the leash. I ended up flying though the air and landing face first on the pavement, then dragged into the side of the car. Needless to say - I have some fear built up from this. But avoiding working on it is not the answer... I just sent this to my husband and plan to work with them this weekend!!

 

A nice way to practice that technique in the video for dogs is to take the dog to the dog park but stay outside. Its about the only thing dog parks are useful/safe for.