Reactive dog
Author
Discussion

dirky dirk

Original Poster:

3,314 posts

188 months

Hi I’m looking for tips and advice for my reactive dog
I cannot let him off a lead he’s be off especially if he saw a bird or another dog.
He pulls a lot on his harness anyway but when he sees another dog he gos mental
The ones we let him near he lunches at with
His nose and of course other dogs thing it’s a threat then loads of barking ensues.

We’ve always had dogs and never had a problem


He’s lovely but a Nightmarw on a lead
Thank you

Spitfire2

1,960 posts

204 months

When I read the thread title I guessed it was going to be a small curly haired thing. Although I guessed white. A high proportion of these seem predisposed to lunging at other dogs.

Main advice I have is to get a professional involved.

Here we have a great place which I've seen in action. Stirling Dog Behavioural Centre.

When we had our dog at the puppy group, often they would bring a reactive dog in at half time when all the puppies were sat practicing being chilled out - and would walk the reactive dog calmly around the circle. Was a gentle way of them learning they don't have to be a dick around other dogs.

Obviously not the only thing she was doing with these dogs but over weeks she had them moving from.dogs that wanted to kill any other dog that moved to very calm animals in presence of other dogs.

Unless you're a dog whisperer yourself a visit to such an expert will be worth it.

Wildfire

9,888 posts

270 months

Yesterday (13:58)
quotequote all
A behaviourist is really worth speaking to. There is a lot you can do with some good guidance. We go Dani Greenwood on Facebook. She runs a Group called Sighthound and Prey driven dogs Positive Training, as she mainly helps breeds with high prey drive, but she is excellent and helping with techniques to practise to acclimatise the reactivity. We do remote sessions and used her advice to get our dog to a place where he could go to classes with other dogs.

Our greyhound was not good with other dogs at all when he was out and got very anxious, other dogs just seem to bark or snap at him and he would over aroused and start jumping and lunging and spinning, especially if they were off lead. It didn't help when he was attacked by and off lead cockapoo who's owner couldn't recall and he was on his lead. He was bitten and scratched up quite badly.

Today he calmly wandered past 4 dogs, hardly looked at them and went about his business on his walk.

Once he was over freaking out about other dogs, we went a local trainer and we do classes for reactive dogs every few weeks as remote sessions can't really help with that.

With Dani we are currently working on his reactivity to cats and foxes, as he has started biting his lead.

otolith

63,011 posts

222 months

Yesterday (14:24)
quotequote all
If you're after professional help, these people are good, or were ten years ago anyway.

https://royvon.co.uk/

super7

2,162 posts

226 months

Yesterday (14:38)
quotequote all
This is a MInature Poodle / Toy poodle influence in the breed.... I assume this is a Cockerpoo?

Try getting a 10 - 20m long lead. You can keep them close when you want to and give them some room when there's no other dog around.

We've got three Goldendoodles, one with a standard poodle dad, one with a miniature poodle dad and one with a Toy poodle dad. The smaller the dad, the more reactive they are... our little chap, Lando, is proper nuts. We manage when he goes for walks and he's always on a long lead.

Going from a short lead, where the dog can pull, to a long lead where they have some space is transformative in the dogs walk and you walk!