Yapping!!

[Beargrins]

My five year old dog's barking when out on walks has reached an unacceptable level. He seems to have got worse in the last couple of years and was a lock down pup so missed out on much socialisation past puppy classes.
His trigger is other dogs. He is OK when he gets to know them but the noise he makes means he either scares them or winds them up. I've seen a vet who can't find any problems and a behaviourist who advised calmness, letting him find his level of tolerance distance etc but I don't seem to be making any progress. Has anyone else had any luck and suggestions with this as walks are becoming a nightmare!

The distance mentioned by the behaviourist is key. Look up LAT/Look at that training.

One thing that can really help is to teach them to focus on you and engage in an activity that distracts them from whatever is bothering them. You need to do this away from the trigger, so that they have built the pattern of behaviour without major distractions.

So maybe start at home teaching your dog, with lots of treats as lures, to walk by your side while giving you eye contact, or to sit in front of you and then spin behind to between your legs, or at your left or right heel. It will give him something else to think about, develop his relationship with you, and build a series of motor patterns that he finds rewarding that you can begin to use around increasing distractions.

The theory is that you keep your dog far enough away from other dogs so that they can't react, and then you slowly decrease the distance as you work on desensitisation.

However, the reality is that it's almost impossible for most people to walk somewhere where they can always keep their distance. It's so common for other dogs to bomb over to you, or to walk round the corner and find yourself in a head on greeting with a strange dog that sets yours off (speaking from experience).

I don't say that to make you feel hopeless, but because I know you'll get a lot of responses telling you to just avoid other dogs when in reality that's almost impossible to manage on any kind of extended basis.

I work to do as much desensitisation with mine as possible but sometimes he does have to meet other dogs and I just have to manage that as best I can - normally with a distraction (food or ball) and an apology to the owner if he does kick off.

We did Dogs Trust Reactive Dog School with my little yappasaurusrex. She has got better, we still have episodes but she's come on miles from where she was! We have even managed a dog walk with my dad's dog, albeit kept at a distance. She has a proximity alarm!

www.dogstrust.org.uk/dog-advice/dog-school/reactive-dog-classes

Thanks all.
We live rurally and I honestly think my little yapper is better in places where there are loads of dogs all together. I took him to a big dog show last year and he was much better. He's a nightmare here as dog walkers pop up out of the blue and he's taken to scanning the fields to check! I do the "look at me" thing and he's pretty good but once he's spied a dog the red mist comes over I can't get his attention back.
I think I need to do more work with him at home. The look at that training looks very promising and I'll look into the Dogs Trust training.