So, we now have Dog2. He is a rescue, and we have support from the rescue if we need it, but so far he is more challenging than we thought. I would really like some advice on dealing with an overexcited dog, in the moment when he is overexcited, because he basically can't seem to hear us or notice anything other than the thing which he has got over-excited about (dog, squirrel, person ...).
I read Minimuu's great post last week about teaching a 'look dog' and 'let's go' command for when you see another dog, and we will be doing this. We've bought a clicker and started charging it. We are also working on his other commands as basically he has sit and shake paw, but no down or stay, his recall is so-so, and the rescue had started to teach him to walk on a lead but he's not too great at that either. I am hoping that learning other commands and good behaviour will help a bit with the walking too, as at least he will get used to paying attention to us.
He gets very very excited when he sees another dog and just wants to go charging up to it to initiate a play session. He doesn't seem to notice whether the other dog is friendly or not - it can be a growling nasty thing and he still wants to run up and try to play. We can set up encounters with friends' dogs to start training him to behave better, but I can't stop us from meeting other dogs or people when out on a walk. Earlier today I briefly managed to get him in a sit and relax the lead but he almost instantly leapt up again and it was physically very difficult to restrain him and keep from getting to the other dog.
So are there any tricks to calm a totally over-excited dog, or do I just hang on to the lead to prevent him escaping and wait until it is all over? I am not sure I can always do a 'let's go' because he is very strong, but I don't want to accidentally reinforce his bad behaviour.