Admit defeat ?

[thefootofourstairs]

Had ddog for 9 months now . He barks and lunges at other dogs and barks at strangers who try to interact with him in any way ( neighbours , people in the street etc )

I have been to a trainer / behaviourist .
i have spent hours and hours implementing the advice .
we pass a dog and i do the 'watch me' feed treats thing . This is ok when under threshold but he never gets any better . we can never get any nearer . There is no improvement .

I have asked people not to touch him especially people coming to the house and i always give him a kong or something when anyone calls but still he hates people . Again , no improvement.

Sometimes it seems to make no sense . Like just now we went to a quietish park and managed to walk past a dog without him barking at it , taking the treats . we then sat on a bench where he could see the dog from a distance while having treats . All good , but then we walked back past the dog to go home and he went ballistic . Then again at another dog , then the neighbour who stopped for a chat ( even managed to nudge at her ankle) . A tad embarrassing !
i feel defeated . Should i just accept that he will always be this way ?

If you want to give him an other chance, try a dog training class. There he will be exposed to lots of other dogs and people, giving you the opportunity to face the problem head on! You will be surrounded by people with lots of dog experience that are happy to help.
Remember, persistence will pay off in the end. But depending on the dogs age you are looking at min 12-18 months of training class.
Try these, they are inexpensive and everyone is welcome:

www.thekennelclub.org.uk/training/good-citizen-dog-training-scheme/information-for-dog-owners/good-citizen-dog-scheme-training-clubs/

We took our terrier to dog training once a week for three years, but it included agility training which is great for settling dogs down and getting them to work with you. It was an APDT class, we tried the Kennel Club before that but our local group had some pretty old-fashioned methods. Wasn't clear how old your dog is but if nine months that's still pretty young. Even if older I wouldn't dispair yet.

When did it start and how long have you been training him for?

He’s still very young - do persist - 9 months is the worst age for dogs he will improve!

I had exactly the same problem with my dog. We started group training January 2017 and he now is happy around people he doesn’t know and can tolerate dogs more. He was so anxious before and barked for the whole sessions for the first three weeks but slowly improved. Please don’t give up yet.

As a behaviourist I agree with what your behaviourist has said but sometimes dogs need a bit of oomph, a bit of a push.
If he was mine I'd walk him with other dogs. Maybe muzzled to start with and ignore his fuss/noise/dramatics. I'd reward when he's calm amongst the strange people and dogs. It's called flooding and can be a bit controversial but it does tend to work.
He is very young and it needs nipping in the bud before you have a lifetime of unwanted behaviour.

He isn't 9 months old . I have had him and been training him for 9 months . His age is almost 3 years .

Thankyou for the encouraging replies . The trainer does also do obedience and agility classes . We have been to her one to one and also 'good buddies' sessions once a month .

sorry keep posting before finishing ! meant to say that i will contact her again and ask to join the obedience classes .

I have a 2.5 year old JRT that is exactly the same and have come to the conclusion he is territorial. His behaviour on lead is better if we are far far away from home! No one can come to our house though without a barking snarling frenzy. But he has been very good with 1 year old DS so far so there are some good points!

Mine also doesn't like children luckily ds2 is 19 now and he is the loveliest dog with us ( unless occasionally if we accidentally touch his back end and surprise him , we get a growl then) but we love him to bits , he loves nothing more than snuggling up with us and he is really funny and cute . i so wish i could cure the problems he has !

I know exactly what you mean! He is generally fine with us unless we try to move him when sleeping on top of us. Have had a few nips from that. He seems most affectionate first thing in the morning for some reason!

Do you walk him with a Yellow lead? Harness?

The 'yellow dog' scheme has been really helpful for us. She wears a little bandana saying 'I need space' and her lead says 'nervous'.

Also fb have a reactive dog group - so helpful. Good luck!

“Sometimes it seems to make no sense . Like just now we went to a quietish park and managed to walk past a dog without him barking at it , taking the treats . we then sat on a bench where he could see the dog from a distance while having treats . All good , but then we walked back past the dog to go home and he went ballistic . Then again at another dog , then the neighbour who stopped for a chat”

To you they’re they’re all unrelated things... to him that’s one big period of high arousal and then once he’s gone over threshold it’s going to take less to send him over again.

What’s the follow up advice from the behaviourist been?

Are you giving him space to recover between sessions? My rommie dog was a bit like this, he would react to certain things but not others. There's a brilliant group on FB, reactive dogs UK i think it is...they explained trigger stacking to me. If my dog had a bad walk full of reactiveness, we missed the next walk & did brain training instead. It kept him occupied but gave him the space away from his triggers.

Walking alongside other dogs helped too, oddly. He was always muzzled as precaution, but we found that if we simply joined a walker & kept moving forward he slotted in no problem. Took some time but eventually he could be walked with another dog by my walker alone.

thanks i will have a look at the facebook group . Hadn't thought of recovering between sessions . Have been walking twice a day , maybe just once is better ?
Haven't had any more advice from the trainer . At the good buddy sessions he was reactive at the start to whichever good buddy dog we were put with but really calmed down and seemed accepting after a bit . We would walk around a field and do various activities with the chilled out good buddy dog within a tolerant distance ) and also he has been fine from day one with my sister in laws dog , she brings her to my house every couple of weeks .
Tonight dh only walked around the block and a dog was sat in an open doorway behind a baby gate and ddog went absolutely nuts . This morning an off lead (huge) puppy came bounding over to him , throwing lots of treats down seemed to help with that one .
I wouldnt mind if i could just see a slight improvement at least then id know i was doing it right .

We just played it by ear. Some days we had three good walks, other days i would pull him in after 10 minutes & he wouldn't walk again that day. As long as he gets wee breaks & some brain stimulation it won't hurt him

It took a while with my boy & i will be honest, some days i was at my tether's end. But every now & again he'd surprise me.

Join the reactive dog group - it's brilliant. He's probably never quite under threshold. Beverley Courtney who has done free training for the group says it takes 3 days for cortisol to leave a dog's system. Lots of games at home instead of walks and walks at really unsociable hours when you're unlikely to meet other dogs and people. Basically, get him to reset.

ok , i have requested to join the group , thanks for that :)
i have also just googled trigger stacking and found some interesting reading ( never heard of that before ! )

I am a bit confused though , is it better to avoid other dogs and people as much as possible or be around them and practise with treats etc ?

I started off when i first got ddog going to the park , then all over winter i instead , walked around the streets where there wouldn't be any off lead dogs to scare him . Seeing no improvement and with the nice weather i have started taking him to the park again armed with high value treats . Am i doing the wrong thing ?

I think it depends on how you introduce the triggers & how often. Also depends on how you relate to the triggers; if you tense up as soon as you spot a potential issue, dog will sense that.
The best thing i got from the group was that primula cheese tubes are your friend. Bloody stuff was a godsend

How did you use the primula cheese ? you mean whip it out when another dog is in the vicinity ?

I used to just have a tube of it in hand all the time. If i spotted something he would react to, he got a good lick. He went potty for it

Is he castrated? May also be that he is picking up that you are tense when other dogs are near. Try to keep calm and brain training good ie a piece of cheese wrapped in newspaper as it wears the dog out. Good luck

yes he was castrated before i got him . I do make an effort now to be calm although sometimes my blood is boiling when people allow their off lead dogs to get in his face even after i have said ' he isn't good with other dogs'
cheese wrapped in newspaper , i will try that . i often put some of his dry food in a squashed plastic bottle he loves that .
Primula cheese also going on the shopping list , i can always have it on toast if he turns his nose up ( doubt it though - greedy bugger ! )

Oh and buy Colgate toothpaste and use that flip lid with the primula cheese so you can flick and lick. Lovely!

@thefootofourstairs our dog has been the same on walks. He is only 9 months old though, and we started the training a few weeks ago. It is working really well for us. But, we avoid triggers. We don’t take him to parks etc. Just walks in our local area, and if we see another dog, we cross the road. (Doing this until he is much more confident). He is now ok with people going passed, and just looks up at us for reassurance and a treat.
We also don’t use a flexi lead. We use a training lead. This allows him to decide his distance and doesn’t get pulled back by the lead, which causes him distress.
We have also been advised to avoid dog classes, and group dog walks just now, as this will stress him out and set him back. So, unfortunately, you may have to stay away from the parks just now.
We would love to take our pupp to lovely parks and different places, but just now it’s great not to have him barking at people ( he will bark if someone gets too close/ tries to touch him/ or if they are very loud).

Hope things get better for you all.