How to stop dog trying to attack other dogs

[BellaTheDog]

We have adopted a Jug. She is really sweet. However, if she sees another dog on the dog walk, she goes crazy, barking and growling and trying to attack them. Honestly, she’s like something from a rabies video.

Is there anything we can do? Thanks.

If you decide you’re not rehoming, I’ll add a few bits.

Our behaviourist was also £200 but that was a one off. We didn’t need any follow up.

Why was your dog near your mum’s cat? It sounds like you are doing too much too soon.

Just walk the dog on pavements for now.

There’s no way it’ll cost you thousands...

We were quoted £250 for the initial consultation. The behaviourist said she could go to a week-long Boot Camp to learn to be around other animals. I was afraid to ask how much it would be.

Our initial consultation was all we needed though.

I have a reactive dog and feel so sad for yours, stuck with owners not willing to put the work in and most likely will end up being passed from pillar to post keep telling yourself it’ll cost ‘thousands’ to justify it but it’s simply not true. It’s your decision to rehome but you owe it to her to do it responsibly and not just give her to the first person willing to take her off your hands.

The behaviourist you consulted sounds dodgy as hell, reactive dogs don’t ‘learn to be around other animals’ - can you imagine how terrified a fearful dog would be being forced into this situation? What is sending her away for a week going to teach you about managing her behaviour in the long run?

I have sympathy for you as having a reactive dog is exhausting. But you have to change your expectations and focus on doing what you can do to make her feel safe. You will only get frustrated if you think she’ll just ‘calm down eventually’. No you’ll have to work bloody hard to help her.

My dog can be reactive, we have found walks that are pretty much deserted at quiet times. I have learnt how to help him feel safe when another dog is about (he’s food obsessed so that helps) and I’ve become adapt at quickly changing where we are going to avoid a dog. Oh and I’ve become very confident in saying ‘my dog is a rescue and is scarred please can you call your dog away’ (and when this is not effective a certain ‘look’ 😠😠😠😠)

If you can’t afford a behaviourist you need to be spending every free minute reading and watching videos to see what you can do. You need to learn.

I wonder what you have actually done so far? What changes have you made?

Also given the chance my dog would kill a cat.

The key phrase here is ‘given the chance’. I am very very very careful about where he is let off lead and I would NEVER take him to a house with cats.

@BellaTheDog

We were quoted £250 for the initial consultation. The behaviourist said she could go to a week-long Boot Camp to learn to be around other animals. I was afraid to ask how much it would be.

Which behaviourist was this? Because these "boot camps" are almost synonymous with people using outdated, punishment-based techniques; old school ex-army and police dog handlers feature heavily. These issues cannot be solved in a week, and the techniques used will make your dog worse.

Punishing a dog for being scared really doesn't work. At best, the dog will become too scared [of the handler] to bark - so now the dog is double scared. This sort of thing has a nasty habit of causing other, worse, behaviour problems to emerge not long afterwards. Modern dog behaviourists work to change the emotional response of your dog to the thing they perceive as scary. This invariably involves taking the dog from believing that spotting the trigger is scary, to spotting the trigger means a yummy treat is coming.

Furthermore, dogs are crap at generalising learning from place to place. Even if the dog did miraculously learn to cope with other dogs at boot camp, she'd likely not apply that learning to your local park. One week of the dog at boot camp would also mean that you haven't learned anything about how to help your dog, so even if the dog behaves well for the behaviourist, they won't behave well for you because you haven't learned the techniques.

If you post a link to the behaviourist you identified I'll be happy to have a look at their website and see what I can glean (any red flags, for instance, though frankly talk of a boot camp is a red flag in itself).

As I said upthread
*Literally anyone can call themselves a behaviourist, and there's very little correlation between the amount you pay and the quality - I've heard stories of absolute charlatans charging upwards of £800 while the qualified one down the road charges

‘tried to kill the car’
can you be more specific?
Please do not rehome her yourself, contacts. reputable rescue preferably a foster based dog as she will not do well in kennels.

*cat not car

Find an actual registered behaviourist... you’ll find you probably only need one or two consultations.

Thanks for all your replies. The behaviourist very much gave the impression that we would need many sessions, in addition to this week away. Although this was based on what I had told him, he hadn’t met her. If this is not the case, then I would happily pay for one or two sessions.

I am also spending a couple of hours a day researching and trying to teach her not to be so reactive.

The thing is, I believe she WANTS to be good. But is this enough to stop her high prey drive?

The reactivity and prey drive are separate issues - if the dog has a high prey drive around cats and small furries, no amount of training will make that instinct disappear. The Facebook group linked to above is a great resource, I’d urge you to post on there to get advice from qualified trainers - they will also be able to point you in the direction of a good behaviourist near you.

@redpeppersoup I can’t see the Facebook link.

Every dog has problems OP. Being reactive is one of the most irritating ones, but you can improve on it with the right advice (Def try another behaviourist!) and hard work. Don't give up yet! Lots of good advice in this thread.

Not sure you'll fix the cat problem. A couple of my dogs have been very enthusiastic about cats! Just don't take them to houses with cats. Problem solved!

@BellaTheDog someone had posted a link to it on the first page - it’s this group

You know, I’m having second thoughts about her. I think she CAN learn. This morning I taught her to ‘sit’, she knows not to lick me as I don’t like it (but licks other people) and this evening I told her off for begging at the table, so she spent the entire meal sitting on her bed, not begging. She also didn’t try to attack anyone in the street today. I am always kind, never mean, but say a firm ‘No!’ with wagging finger, or ‘good girl’ with a rub of the head.

Do you think there’s hope? Can she change? I’m not bragging, but I think she could be quite intelligent.