Be careful, this could be permanent, or temporary...........

The main thing is not to allow your dog to rehearse his inappropriate strategies so that he gets better at them!

He is generally going to get success due to his size, so you need to avoid him practising to be a bully.

ps if you have a long line, make sure you wear gloves.........

Oh Yeah I will, I fell for that one when I first got him and still bear the scars of burn marks!!!

I'm now getting him to sit and wait until excited dog passes or so I can throw the ball for my other two to keep him calmer, he's doing really well and the doggy sweeties also help as he's majorly food orientated, having him on a line just ensures that he can't jump on another dog. He's fine if the dog is calm he'll say hello with a wag of his tail and is quite happy to move on it seems to be just lively bouncy dogs that he reacts too.

I've just read your blog on Bailey - another reason for this problem might be that he cannot see them? He is unsure what is coming towards him - other than that from what your blog has shown me - he has come on leaps and bounds - keep up the good work.

Hi Guys

Spoke to a behaviourist from the APBC website last night and she said that there was no stopping this behaviour now as Bailey is too old

The best thing I can do for him is to minimise his contact with other dogs and only let him near calm older dogs but for the next few months to work on reducing his stress levels.

As we've moved house and have changed our walkies route and there's more dogs around his stress and reactive levels have risen which is why he is 'having a go' at more dogs. I've got to revert back to our old walkies route as he is familiar with it and there are hardly any dogs there which should lower his stress and rectivity.

This 'scruffing' is the only way he knows to let another dog know he's not happy as he's never learnt the body language way cos of his sight. Muzzling him will only make matters worse and stress him even worse as it will remove his only form of defence.

It makes sense to me what she'd said what do you guys think???

Hi Guys

Spoke to a behaviourist from the APBC website last night and she said that there was no stopping this behaviour now as Bailey is too old

The best thing I can do for him is to minimise his contact with other dogs and only let him near calm older dogs but for the next few months to work on reducing his stress levels.

As we've moved house and have changed our walkies route and there's more dogs around his stress and reactive levels have risen which is why he is 'having a go' at more dogs. I've got to revert back to our old walkies route as he is familiar with it and there are hardly any dogs there which should lower his stress and rectivity.

This 'scruffing' is the only way he knows to let another dog know he's not happy as he's never learnt the body language way cos of his sight. Muzzling him will only make matters worse and stress him even worse as it will remove his only form of defence.

It makes sense to me what she'd said what do you guys think???

I think in a way - minimise his contact - early morning walks/late night. But when he's comfortable with them change it so you're going out later in the morning - there's a chance of meeting another dog even if it is just walking past them on the lead. And it may take you months to get from stage to stage - but whats months when you can walk in a park with him ignoring other dogs? I don't know if I've already said this but a "watch me" command when the dog walks past him - even if it's across the street. Benjie gets treats whenever a dog walks down the other side of the street - so dogs = treats - it also stops him barking at them if I see the dog before he does.

No dog is too old, if he was like 10 or older I would say that that would mean your work is more difficult but as he is only 5 (sorry it's a guess) I think you can change the behaviour - you'd just have to work damn hard at it - Benjie is 6 and his behaviour is improving everyday with dogs - in fact he walked past several in Skeggy Market in close quarters and wasn't bothered much - just a little grumble...

I think Bailey's blind though (hence the username). I'm not quite sure if it would quite work with the dog focusing its hearing on the owner or not - maybe the other trick of using a "touch" (nose to palm of hand) would work? Though obviously the hand would have to be placed right infront of the dog.

I'm not entirely sure I would agree with the behaviourist in the sense that the dog is "too old" - you can certainly teach an old dog new tricks! However, some of her stuff makes good sense. I went to a reactive dog workshop with Casper and we were told to avoid reactions were possible and if he did have one, then try to avoid dogs completely for a while. If interactions are stressing Bailey out then it's definately worth temporarily resorting to his old routes with minimal interactions but I'm not sure I'd avoid dogs forever. How old is Bailey? Sorry, I can't remember off the top of my head. If you don't feel he has much to gain by having doggy interactions and he's getting on, then perhaps it is better to just leave it and not worry about desensitizing him but if he's still got a few good years in him yet and you feel it will add something to his quality of life then I'd suggest a second opinion from another behaviourist on how to work on this. Was this conversation over the phone? If it was, then I would suggest you have a behaviourist come out in person as they can then give a better idea of the reason behind Bailey's behaviour - I would be a little wary of someone who can assess a dog's body language without actually seeing it (if I've interpreted right and it was done over the phone - if not, ignore this!)

Ah yes I forgot about that - but he can still sense when they are around...

I've just bought a new harness, it's the Hi-Craft complete control (although I didn't buy it for that reason, I want to get away from collars because she's getting knotty ears lol!) Anyway, I was most surprised when I read all about it that it's supposed to have a "calming effect" on the dog because of the pressure points. I haven't used that one because it's actually too small even though it's the large for gsd's but because of this theory I am going to revert back to my JigSaw harness which is quite a wide one, so it will strap her up good and proper for the calming effect, so I will let you know how we go with ours

He is blind and he's only 3!! I know he's still able to learn as he's learnt so much in the 2 1/2 yrs I've had him
He's luckily quite intelligent and will do anything for food! I've started training him some tricks at home too, he's learnt play dead this week and he does one and two paws but he puts them on me rather than in my hand, he'll 'dance with me! he knows sit, down and all the basics as well as a few safety commands of careful ( he's coming up to an obstacle) follow me ( to get around obstacles) this way ( so he knows which way we're going or to recall him in the right direction!) he also jumps on command too even though he has no idea what's on the other side!! His wait isn't so good if I move away from him, he'll sit and wait as long as needed if he's next to me but he doesn't like being left which is understandable. Just trying to stimulate him in other ways really.

I spoke to the lady over the phone last night, I think she was right that the the change of walks and meeting lots of new dogs has added extra stress onto him and made him more reactive, I took him back to old walkies route today and he seemed much happier and had a good run around instead of sticking to me, so think I'll continue with that. We never saw another dog either so no added stresses for him

His nose and ears are fantastic - much better than my other two's and he must sense another dog as he suddenly just knows when they are close! He doesn't lunge or pull to get at another dog (thankfully) he's really well behaved until the other dog is within reach I'm working on getting him to sit and wait when passing another dog is unavoidable and if I hold a treat tight in my fingers he's so immersed in trying to get it, as long as the other dog doesn't react he's ok - well getting there!! He'll also walk along side me trying to get treat out too - good job I don't mind my hand being covered in doggy spit

Yeah, I found that a harness has calmed him down - I've got a TTouch lady coming out on saturday too, I explained over the phone his issues and she said she could show me some techniques for helping him reduce his stress so fingers crossed.