I've mentioned on here before that I am an owner of an 8 month old lab/chow cross, he's lovely, but big and strong.
We've been having one to one training lessons for the last 4 or 5 weeks and he's coming on really nicely, walking very well to heel when there are no distractions. I've mentioned to the trainer a couple of times that my problem is when he sees other dogs, people, bikes, cars pretty much anything that he wants to say hello to. On our training walks she's got him to walk past people and bikes, introduced him to chickens and mostly he's been well behaved if perhaps a little excited, but we've never bumped into another dog.
When I walk him, we walk where we're unlikely to bump into people and I don't live near people so very solitary and I know he needs socialisation.
Today I arranged to meet another lady who I'd met at the trainers who has a dog that's a bit nervy around other dogs because he's been attacked several times. Her dog was fine, we didn't walk side by side but were in chatting distance, Monty pulled, tugged, lunged for the whole hour, completely forgetting everything he's learned. Just at the end of our walk we bumped into the trainer who had a group of three dogs with her and who were being trained together, Monty went bonkers leaping, trying to get to them, pulling me. So she saw for herself what he was like.
When it was my turn for the lesson she took me to a field and had her border collie with her, that dog was so great, so well behaved it's what I aspire to be, and we spent the entire hour walking past her dog, walking next to her dog, making Monty sit and stay next to her dog, but all the time he was lunging to try and get to her to play. He's not aggressive he just wants to play, but he's a big boy and it's obvious I'm struggling to keep him in check when he gets like this. It was fine with her obviously but I worry about being with other people. I will say he was much calmer by the end of the lesson, but that could also be he'd spent two hours in crazy mode.
At the end of the lesson I was so stressed out and my shoulders are absolutely killing me from being pulled all the time that all I did was book my next session and leave and I forgot to ask the trainer what I should be doing at home.
I'm not in UK and while my language skills are fine face to face I struggle to understand on the phone so I can't ring her and am too busy to drive down to see her.
So after this lengthy message I'm asking you wise women of The Doghouse what should I be doing during the week to try and get my crazed hound into a calm pooch. I live in a hamlet and was thinking about walking through with the dog, but what scares me is that although my dog is on the lead the other dogs are allowed to roam and they come at us in groups. It scares me that he will be attacked and I won't be able to do anything. However, I do need to do something because at the moment I'm not enjoying walking him because of his reaction to other dogs.
So if you've managed to get to the end of this and have any words of advice or experience then I'd be very grateful. I've got to the point tonight that I'm thinking of booking him in one day a week at the local kennels so that he can hear, see and interact with other dogs - completely crazy I know but at the moment I feel I need a controlled environment and at the moment everywhere I look there seem to be packs of French dogs roaming the streets. (Possibly a hysterical overstatement but you get my drift).