So at 6 and a half months old now, walks vary between good and horrific. When it’s just us he’s pretty good, walking better and not pulling as much. Recall is reasonable when it’s just us and there is a field nearby where majority of the time we have it to ourselves and can have a good run about. The biggest downfall is other dogs. I’m trying look at that and can get fairly close before he becomes so focussed on them and completely unresponsive to us even when you are holding tasty treats in front of him. He’s started to lay down as they approach and is a coiled spring ready to launch. And at 23kg it’s getting hard to hold him back. Even if the other people try to say hello to him he hooks his front legs around their legs as an anchor to push himself forward. If he’s off the lead he’s gone with no hope of a recall. When he does say hello to other dogs he’s so full on and boisterous and does bitey face, so other dogs and their owners do not appreciate it. He’s had German shepherds snarling at him and he’s still jumping at their faces. Help please
Do you have any friends who have dogs? It would be good to have other dogs walk with you and be able to take away the need to run up to everyone else. You could also ask a friend or someone with a dog to walk past you whilst you practice keeping him calm. What you are doing is really good but sounds like you could do with a proper set up with stooge dogs to help. Training classes are also really useful. I took Harley to adolescent classes at that age as she too pulled constantly and just wanted to play. These classes really helped control her eagerness to get to every dog she seen.
I’d suggest finding a place with no dogs and then play, play, playing with your dog, the idea being that he becomes more engaged with you and sees you as the centre of fun / interest. The sort of things you can do are tug, fetch (in different ways -sometimes just throw it and let him get it; sometimes drop it on the ground, walk on and send him back for it), catch (toss a ball directly to him or throw a frisbee). The point is not to try to use a toy as a distraction when you see another dog but to build up the interest in being with you over a period of time. Hand in hand with this, I’d second Naya’s suggestion of setting up training situations with stooge dogs.
Yep we go to training classes where he can do a recall past all the other dogs, but out in the real world it doesn’t work. I walk with a friend most days but none of the other dogs really like him cos he’s so boisterous. He starts off trying to get to our companions then it tails off but when we pass another dog he goes crazy. We play frisbee in the open field I mentioned. I deliberately went to a path where dogs would be today and went up on the sides when one was approaching and tried to get him to focus on me with treats when the other dogs went past. It was semi successful. Think I’ll just have to keep going where it’s busier and practice practice practice and fingers crossed something will click
THIS means that you have pushed to far ahead on the teaining before your dog is ready. Recall in a training class is completely different to a recall in the big wide world, so you need to reduce an element of two to help the training. Longlines are often used in training to allow more distance while still maintaining contact with the dog and being able to practice recall without the dog being able to abscond. If he's not keen to focus on you or raje a treat he is over threshold so you need to create more distance between you and the 'object' that arouses him. Once you have found the distance where he is responsive work on the attention and taking treats and then take one step closer to the 'object'. Slow but steady progress wins the day. At any point if you can't get attention or there is a kack of interest in the treat you need to go back a step or two as you've tried to move on too quickly.
