Originally Posted By: Pedders
How would you deal with such a dog? One that wants to play with every dog he meets and gets bouncy, whiney and pulley when he sees just about any other dog. The dog in question is usually very obedient with the exception if this one scenario.
He needs more proofing around distractions, with other dogs appearing to be his most irresistable distraction. Many dogs are very obedient at home, or in calm environments or familiar surroundings where they know what is expected and and the environment is conducive to focusing on what they're supposed to be doing and they aren't being overstimulated or sent into a frenzy by lots of activity. But they need to be taught to be able to focus under high levels of distraction. A dog who always sits perfectly at home in the kitchen isn't necessarily going to do so in the middle of a pet store, and that's perfectly natural. It's not that he doesn't know sit, it's that he hasn't yet learned to globalize the command or developed the self control to be able to do it amidst distraction. This is why proofing around distractions is a highly important, but often skipped, part of sound obedience training. For some dogs it's harder than for others, as some dogs genetically have lower trigger thresholds for stimulation and are more easily worked into a silly, excited state.
Determine his threshold for when he just absolutely cannot control himself, and start working just ouside that. So if he goes nuts when other dogs are 20' away, at first do obedience with them 25' a way. Near, but outside the threshold so he has a chance of success. Work on focus, heeling, whatever.... Corrections may or may not be necessary, but the main focus needs to be for the handler to make herself more fun and interesting than anything else, and to block him from getting any sort of reward or reinforcement for his behavior if he does momentarily get distracted. Over time, as he gets the idea and learns more what is expected and also learns to look to his handler for the fun and for the reward, gradually move closer and closer to other dogs.
One thing we always make sure to do with our young dogs when we're socializing them is we teach them a "go say Hi" cue phrase. We let our pups and young dogs socialize with lots of people, and (rarely) the occasional other dog, when out in public. But we give them permission first. This starts when they're pups. Before we let them socialize, we say that phrase. As pups of course it doesn't mean anything to them. But later, when we're taking them out and about more for desensitization and working around distractions, we use that phrase a lot. If we *don't* say it, it tells the dog that our expectation is for them to ignore what's going on and focus on us and whatever training we're doing. Then once done with that, if we decide to let them socialize, we make sure to give them the cue that its ok. They quickly pick up on it.
One of the best ways to break a dog from a behavior is to also teach them when that behavior is OK, not just focus on showing them it's not Ok. Barking problem? Teach your dog to bark on command, and this will make it easier for him to learn when he shouldn't bark. And so on. We had one dog that the only way we could teach her not to jump up on people was to teach her TO jump up on people with a "Gimme a hug" command. Once she knew under what circumstances it was allowed, it was much clearer to her and easier for her to understand that there was to be no jumping unless she was told to.
