Rescue lab distracted by other animals

[Bunionbabe]

We are looking at an 11month old rescue lab bitch. We've been told she is basically sound in most of her behaviours but gets excited, barks and lunges at dogs, cats, squirrels etc when on lead. Off lead she is fine with other dogs and wants to play. She also pulls strongly on lead and is generally very excitable and bouncy. She's a lovely dog so can these behaviours be changed with time and training? Not had a rescue before so any advice welcome.

Sounds like a typical 11 month old lab to me.

Our black lab was similar at that age, probably worse actually. Improved a little bit with age but he's very stubborn with any training, part of the reason we have him, we just learnt what to expect from him

Though it might be more down to personality.

Allowing this dog to play with other dogs will make this behavior worse.
You need to train the dog to focus on you, on a short lead initially, using a cue such as watch me. This can progress to teaching a recall on a long line, firstly without distractions.
It takes a long time, even with a puppy that is excited about other dogs.
It's very doable though. You need to become the dogs most exciting thing!

I guess I will be accused of bashing peoples training again

You will never become more exciting to many labs than other dogs or deer squirels etc

However it is pretty easy to teach dogs to orientate to you when they encounter exciting things. It will be achievable with most 11 month old labs with the correct training, consistency and time.

It sounds perfectly normal to me - undesirable and frustrating, but normal.

It's certainly nothing that can't be worked on with time and patience but it's worth bearing in mind that labs grow to be fairly strong dogs so do make sure you can hold her back and stop her from pulling you over or into danger.