Help! My Jack Russell is antisocial!

[theplumfairy]

My 7 year old JR terrier goes absolutely mental ie barking and lunging at pretty much any dog when he's on his lead. If he's off his lead he will be very tense and the outcome of the meeting will depend on the temperament of the other dog. If a fight breaks out our dog will do a lot of snarling, snapping and scrapping. He doesn't seem to have done any serious damage but we have had some very pissed off remarks.

He can have reasonable relationships with dogs - he is friendly with MIL's dogs for example but he knows them well.

I think this probably stems from when he was attacked a couple of times when he was quite young (once by a large English bull terrier that did some damage). His fear of other dogs now seems to mean that he tries to scare dogs off before they can 'get' him.

We live in the country and one of our regular walks is so quiet we hardly see other dogs. We go that way because is easier not to see dogs but I guess this probably makes things worse. I tend to keep him on the lead (unless I can see a clear dog free run) to avoid being accused of letting our maniac dog run amok!

Has anyone experienced this and found a way to deal with it? I regularly hear fellow dog walkers say that they had/knew a jack Russell that was just the same so I wonder if its in his DNA.

Thanks in advance.

[RedwingWinter]

There is a great thread here about teaching a 'look dog' command, and a thread here with links to a video.

Since the dog is fearful you might find also find this thread useful, which explains Behavioural Adjustment Training. This uses a reward of moving the dog away from the thing it is afraid of.

It seems to be a common problem, not specific to JRTs.

[theplumfairy]

Great, thanks for this- will have a good look. Better buy a clicker!!