Ideas welcome please

Hi,
The problem is a 3yr old male rottweiler who the owner has not socialised him with other dogs. He was ok until whilst a puppy the dog was bitten by a GSD.
When the owner takes him out on a lead, muzzled, he is fine until it meets a dog that is loose and starts coming towards the rottie. The rottie then lunges towards the dog in a very aggressive way with intent to attack. The owner obviously loses control.
It happens with any dog even if the approaching dog is very submissive and just wants to say hello!!
In my opinion the rottie has fear aggression. He knows that the owner cannot protect him so he takes it on himself.
I would appreciate any comments please?

I think the first step would be for the owner to get control - could they introduce a headcollar to the dog to get control before he lunges? A Halti will work even under a muzzle. However, the owner does need to learn to use the headcollar correctly and ensure the dog isn't yanking itself around by its neck.
I would recommend an APBC behaviourist who'll use positive training methods to help the dog become less fearful - the APBC website will have a list to help find a local behaviourist. Might also be worth looking into some kind of workshop for reactive dogs, I went on one with Casper and we learnt how to judge how near he could go to dogs without reacting, how to distract him, etc. and it definately helped.

I had this problem with Cherry although she is a lot smaller than a Rottweiller (so probably easier to handle).

I used a gentle leader head-collar and high-value food rewards and taught her "watch me" to break eye contact from the other dog.

I had a book called "Click to calm-healing the aggressive dog" by Emma Parsons which I found helpful.

I also had a session with a very good behaviourist which helped me as it built my confidence up and showed me that Cherry was not a "nasty" dog as I had thought but just scared.

I must add that I do think people are thoughtless to let other dogs approach another dog if it is on-lead and muzzled. They must realise there is a problem!

I now shout out "She has an infectious skin disease" which makes other owners grab their dogs before they get within Cherry's head-butting range! She is much better now but has very poor eyesight so gets stresssed if unfamiliar dogs come charging up at her.

I agree in part with the fear issues and lack of protection from the owner.

Here's how I would address it.

1, do some basic training in sit/down and recall/heel.

2, Allow the dog off lead one side of a fence with calm dogs the other, recall any time he is aggressive, praise the rest of the time.

3, once he's good like this allow him and the clam dogs to mix, same princple as above re aggression from him.

4, have him walked on a lead while these calm and familar dogs runa round him loose, run up to him ect. Use heel and down to prevent aggression.

5, take him out and about and do the same. Stick a ''dog in training tabard'' on him at first so he gets left alone.
Build up to off lead when out and about, might be best to do off lead first as he will be fairly social by this stage with a good recall ect.#

I would continue using the muzzle until the owner feels he can dispense with it.

If another dog bothers him recall him and put him in a down or sit stay, then get between him and the other dog and ''encourage'' it to leave.

Adam