Can a pup taught..

[Powertothepetal]

To ignore other dogs mature into a polite adult?

Pup is 12 weeks old, I have an older dog and many dogs do not like her.
I pretty much never allow her to meet other dogs due to the large number that take offence to her and because of the large number that take offence she isn’t very friendly herself and will usually growl at any dogs that approach her.

The puppy has met a few dogs (like two or three) but I’ll be honest, I don’t want him meeting other dogs.

I feel pretty traumatised from the (many) bad experiences over the years with my older dog and I quite simply don’t trust other dogs anymore.

I had a dog aggressively go for my older one just a few days ago and today narrowly avoided yet another aggressive encounter.
Today has just cemented it for me really.
The last straw as it were.
I really don’t want my puppy meeting strange dogs.

But I also don’t want him maturing into a truly aggressive dog from lack of socialisation (my girl isn’t truly aggressive, she growls but it goes no further and she only growls if they approach her).

Anyone who has seen my other posts will know the pup is a nervous little boy.
He is really good at walking past the dogs outside school now to get his biscuits and has been pretty good walking past dogs on lead (copying my girl probably) though sometimes stops like he wants to interact with them.

Today, on the way to the woods (where we later met yet another aggressive dog) there was a spaniel behind us (the same type and colour that tried to attack my girl a few days ago) and his behaviour was noticeably different, stopping and looking back at it then racing ahead (not in a happy puppy way, like he was speeding forward out of fear).
I don’t want him to be scared of other dogs, nor aggressive to other dogs, but I really would like him to completely ignore others and walk past.

Is this possible?
For him to be confident and non aggressive while only interacting with my older dog?

And if so, how?!

IMO dogs do need to interact with other dogs to really be fairly bombproof with strange dogs tbh, but that doesn’t mean random ones.

If you don’t know any dogs you’re happy for him to meet, that’s what some form of training class might be good for.

You need to walk him separately and treat him like a puppy who needs to learn socialisation.

If you don’t expose him to other dogs the likelihood is that he will become fearful or overly interested in other dogs. You will end up with a dog that is terrified of others or one that will leg it at the first opportunity to play with them and won’t come back. Socialise your dog but don’t allow long periods of play with them, allow them to greet each other sniff etc and then move on

Doggy day care for a few hours every couple of weeks? Just a suggestion, I've never used it so no idea if it would be a bad idea.
Otherwise the obvious one would be puppy classes for safe socialisation.

If you don’t know any dogs you’re happy for him to meet, that’s what some form of training class might be good for
I have my own dog, my in laws two dogs are alright (he has met them once before) and that’s about it really.
Could possibly try my friends spaniel.

If you don’t expose him to other dogs the likelihood is that he will become fearful or overly interested in other dogs
Expose as in properly meet or just see and be ‘around’?
He sees dogs everyday, my DDs school is dog friendly so he is used to walking past other dogs and sitting politely near them.

“I have my own dog, my in laws two dogs are alright (he has met them once before) and that’s about it really.
Could possibly try my friends spaniel.”

Yeah... I’d try and meet the in laws dogs and your friend’s dog regularly over the next wee while.

“Expose as in properly meet or just see and be ‘around’?”

Properly meet, so that for instance if you bump into an eejit dog like mine but offlead - mine is 12 months and “friendly” ie, needs a lesson in consent, lol

Because you don’t want what should be a minor inconvenience to then stress yours out because he hasn’t enough experience with other dogs.

Or say you in a couple of years want to walk with a friend with a dog, you want yours to go, oh, ok, extra dog and not...

I would book him into a couple of different puppy training classes and work your way through the groups with him.. That way he will learn to be comfortable around and alongside other dogs, without actually interacting with them directly.

My old girl was never interested in other dogs, except our own, even off lead she would totally ignore them and I’m pretty sure that was because she attended two different training classes herself and also came along to my older dog’s advanced class with dh, just to observe while I trained the other dog.

I could take her anywhere, dogs on/off lead and crowded dog parks or beaches etc and she just did her own thing, completely ignoring the dogs around her.

many dogs do not like her

Obviously you get the occasional dog aggressive dog but to say the dogs don’t like her and you don’t want puppy to interact with dogs seems a bit like you don’t want to admit that your older dog isn’t friendly?

Puppies need socialisation, they need to play and learn with other puppies, they need to meet all sorts of dogs they can and have a sniff of.

Obviously you get the occasional dog aggressive dog but to say the dogs don’t like her and you don’t want puppy to interact with dogs seems a bit like you don’t want to admit that your older dog isn’t friendly?
I literally wrote in the OP my older dog isn’t friendly herself
By ‘not friendly’ I mean she growls if a dog approaches, she doesn’t lunge, bark, chase, bite or anything like that.
And many dogs don’t like her, that isn’t me making excuses, they genuinely don’t, we can be walking past on lead and they will just go for her.
I have had dogs before come up to her before she is aware they are there to have a go.

Our dog went to daycare for 13 weeks.

As a result he is very well mannered around dogs. He is not remotely interested in other dogs though, this may be his breed or just his personality.
He is never aggressive, just has a sniff then moves on. I think in part it's because he's very well socialized with other dogs. They aren't that interesting to him.

What socialisation did your older dog have? I do think it's very very unusual to have a dog that most other dogs just go for - are you sure she's not giving off vibes of aggression or fear?

Because you say "she's not aggressive but she growls" - but growling IS aggressive behaviour. So I suspect her body language is saying something to the other dogs that you're not noticing for some reason.

I think you need to socialise your puppy alone and away from your older dog. A dog that's constantly being "gone for" doesn't sound particularly friendly or well socialised to me and it's not something I'd want to pass on to a youngster.

Dogs should be able to meet, sniff and walk past other dogs without any drama. They don't have to play or anything but you can't avoid other dogs forever so they do need to be able to be around them without issue.

Your older dog is likely giving off a vibe. I has a spaniel and when he was young and fearful he would get other dogs reacting to him. Now he is very confident he very blurry rarely gets a reaction. My point is your younger dog is likely to get a better response from other dogs if you socialise him well.

@Powertothepetal

Obviously you get the occasional dog aggressive dog but to say the dogs don’t like her and you don’t want puppy to interact with dogs seems a bit like you don’t want to admit that your older dog isn’t friendly? I literally wrote in the OP my older dog isn’t friendly herself By ‘not friendly’ I mean she growls if a dog approaches, she doesn’t lunge, bark, chase, bite or anything like that. And many dogs don’t like her, that isn’t me making excuses, they genuinely don’t, we can be walking past on lead and they will just go for her. I have had dogs before come up to her before she is aware they are there to have a go.

She may well be giving off tense body language signals, which some dogs will definitely then decide to have a go (not excusing it btw, they shouldn’t obviously be just off lead being allowed to)

The problem is that it can create a bit of a self fulfilling thing in that dogs who are worried about other dogs end up having even more negative encounters.

Which makes it even more important that your puppy gets some positive ones...

What socialisation did your older dog have?
Extensive!
She’s a collie and I knew they were prone to nervousness so she was exposed to people, dogs and new environments everyday.
She met loads of other dogs as a puppy and young dog.
Even as a puppy dogs didn’t like her!
I just think they find the way she naturally carries herself threatening.

I have had multiple occasions where dogs have gone for her when she hasn’t even known the other dogs are there and has been happily trotting about sniffing things so while she probably does now tense up after multiple bad incidents i won’t have all of the blame being placed on her being ‘tense’ or giving off ‘bad vibes of aggression’ because that clearly isn’t the case if she’s super happy running about, sniffing, minding her own business and has dogs aggressing.

This isn't normal. Dogs need to play, they are social animals.

I'm not placing all the blame on her at all, but now you've said she's a collie that does explain a lot. Collies are generally very aloof with other dogs and don't really like playing or socialising, so she may be giving off an air of "fuck off" vibes and the other dogs are interpreting that as aggression on her part.

I walk collies and I do think many dogs don't like their stalking/herding mannerisms - it can look a bit threatening, even if the behaviour isn't directed at them.

What colour is she, out of curiosity?

She’s black tricolour

Oh collie... yeah, some dogs do have issues with collies just being collies.

“i won’t have all of the blame being placed on her being ‘tense’ or giving off ‘bad vibes of aggression”

It’s not blame - if I wander about with my resting bitch face, it’s still not my fault if someone has a go at me... not that I’m suggesting your dog is doing that, lol, but it’s the human equivalent.

It’s honestly ridiculous how many people let their dogs harass other dogs minding their own business whether that’s aggressively or to “play” and it definitely seems to have got worse over the last ten years or so.

But the practicalities of that for you does mean that it’d be a good idea for your puppy to have more experience with other dogs rather than less.

Mine is currently on lead only round other dogs, because he really likes other dogs but has no social skills (he’s a rescue I got at 5 months old) and his recall is a work in progress, but about every second dog we meet comes over anyway because they’re similar and their owner just lets them bounce about from dog to dog. So while it’s irritating for me, my dog is just going, yay dog and then we carry on.

You want your puppy to be able to take things like that in his stride, which if he never spends time with other dogs - he might not.

You’re quite right to have him focus on you passing random dogs, but you want to balance that with some mixing with reliable dogs too.

I think the breed plays into it too. A collie is a people dog. A Beagle is a dogs dog

Some misunderstandings on socialisation on this thread.

You will never "socialise" a nervous dogs to dog by meeting dogs. Never ever ,you will however cause a huge amount of issues and long term damage.

Doggy day care for this dog would destroy it.

All interacations and encouters with dogs need to be calm, positive and have distance to allow the dog to work at its own pace.

I would stop all interactions with unknown dogs and if your dog is happy increase the interactions with your Mums dog (if it is calm and everyone is enjoying it). Your dog also has your other dog to interact with. Most adult dogs do not actually want interaction with other dogs it is a behaviour they learn from their owners.

When seeing random dogs out and about (at a distance) let him look at them and then mark and reward - whatever he is doing. Controlled Unleased goes into this in more detail.

To help stop dogs going for her look at ways you can interact with your dog when other dogs are around, so small quiet games. THe middle position is a good position and other dogs tend to find it boring so will leave you alone. Gentle hand touches to move your dog away from other dogs also helps to make you look boring to other dogs. Walk your dogs away from other dog with them in calm heel work position is also a boring invite to other dogs.

It may help you to look for a prodog trainer in you area as they spend a lot of time buiding up dogs confidence but not through meeting dogs but through other methods that dogs love.

Our dog is a dream around other dogs. Purely because she 100% absolutely ignores them. They can be clambering over her, sniffing her, chasing her and she does not bat an eyelid. Because of this, no dog has ever taken offence to her.
We socialised her well when she was younger, around lots of dogs. At around 8 months we introduced a ball.
As long as she knows you have a ball in your pocket or bag she completely ignores everything else.
She may be a bit too ball obsessed if I'm honest, but I prefer that to her running off to other dogs any day of the week.

I feel like it’s good for dogs to have a few dog friends or various breeds and temperaments. But that doesn’t mean they need to be friends with every single dog. These charts explain dog socialisation traits quite well.

What @PollyRoullson said, great advice.
We are struggling with confidence too just now, dog was attacked recently he’s fine but shaken so having some ‘downtime’ from walks whilst he processes it. But loves his games in the house and garden.
My pup is very friendly but perhaps too friendly and bouncy so trying to stop the jumping up. It’s hard work at times!!

Some dogs are pretty much "socialised" despite what owners do. They are the lucky owners, the genetics, breeding, temperament of the dogs is programmed to be a socialable dog.

It was nothing the owners have done, it was not the socialisation the dog received it was in fact just the way the dog is.

Socialisation can do more harm than good for many dogs.

If you have a nervous dog people immediate reaction is to make the dog see more dogs.

What tends to happen is that there are more opportunities for negative encounters and the dogs fear grows.

A few months or years down the line they all then need to spend mney on behaviourists to help them.

If a nervous dog is allowed to avoid situations and watch situations they find hard from a distance, be allowed to let their confidence grow, be allowed to learn methods to cope (away from dogs) the outcome will be a calmer happier dog.

The problem is also made worse by many owners not having a clue about body language or their dogs emotions. Yesterday a lady being pulled on a lead by a 12 month old vizla said he is fine just on the lead because of dodgy recall and encouraged an encounter with my 16 week puppy. Her dog was growling and snarling and she laughing said "oh he is so excited and wants to meet your dog". I politely said my dog would not enjoy that waved and walked away! Her dog was overaroused, over threshold and nothing in the meeting would have been positive for either dog. She could however have used the experience to work on focus with her dog.......