Greeting on lead dogs.

Vito has become a nightmare when we meet another dog onlead. He has always been highly excitable around other dogs but he seems to be getting worse when we are walking.

I use a halti to try and have a bit more control over him but he's now taken to standing on his hind legs. he's a big dog so this is intimidating to other dogs and owners.

He is nothing but friendly to other dogs and he's just desperate to get at them, i'm now finding myself avoiding other dogs when onlead walking. He is well socialised and when offlead plays great with all dogs

Do you have any advice?

I think avoiding other dogs whilst on-lead may make the problem worse (as well as being difficult to do) as he will then be even more excited at seeing another dog if it happens less.

Could you find someone with a calm dog who is happy to walk near you when on-lead regularly to get him used to behaving calmly near other dogs?

When he is off-lead playing with other dogs can you recall him away? Think this may be helpful as teaching him self-control whilst you then let him go back and continue play as a reward.

Cherry had the opposite problem as she was very reactive when she saw another dog but the solution may be the same as I taught her the "watch me" command where your dog sits and looks at you (ie away from the other dog) and gets a high-value reward for doing so (cheese/liver/favourite toy).

However, walking away from the other dog when he starts getting too excited may teach him that he needs to calm down or he loses the reward of meeting the other dog?

PS-he looks lovely and I would rather have your problem than what I had with Cherry but appreciate he may scare other owners with smaller dogs if they don't know him.

Yes, I agree with Kerryowner.
Avoiding this sort of problem may make it worse. It did for us and then it took even longer to sort out.

What worked well for us was to find a nice training school that operates outside, not in a village hall because that just added to the excitement. We didn't participate in the classes for a while, but just hovvered around the edges, getting closer occasionally when the other dogs were engaged in their training and not interested in us.

We rewarded for good behaviour and took him away from it if he was bad and ignored him for a while as time out. Then tried again. The same method as Kerryowner actually.

Finding a good dog school that will let you do that is one stage up from using a friend and their dog because you've got more dogs and your dog won't know them to start with.

In a few weeks we were participating in the classes and he was more manageable in the real world.

I choose to avoid dogs I know will be challenging i.e. ones that are being a nightmare themselves. Eventually I hope to be able to walk past them but I'm not going to push it.

Good luck

I think above advice is something I would try if that was mine, I know when we have come across excitable dogs on-lead....and the owner says...sorry he/she just wants to greet but is excited, I always suggest Reah.....she is the calm one out of ours and has a no reaction to this behaviour, and usually (well upto know) the other dog has become calmer and greetings go off well

I have tried walking with my sisters calm dog but he just goes bananas, trying to get to him all the time, it's impossible to walk them together, if she walks ahead he cries and barks trying to get to him.

He gets to play with lots of dogs offlead as i worried this was why he got so excited but it hasn't made a bit of difference.

We went to dog training (in a hall) where he would get super excited but as we were all so close together he would usually get to play onlead with the other puppies- i don't know if this has made him think that onlead time is play time too, when really i want him to think the opposite.

YEah, sounds like you need to do what we did then. You need to start far away until they are calm then get them closer over several sessions.
It won't happen over night.

An outside run dog school (not agility!) will be the best place to start.

There is also a difference between playing with loads of dogs and behaving well with them. As well as working on lead, we took our dog to socialisation classes where the dogs mixed with others specially picked by the behaviourists and they learnt off each other how to behave.

We thought ours was friendly but he was actually pushy and forcing the other dogs to play. Socialisation classes helped stop that.

Bella can be a bit like this.She loes other dogs, but can be overexcited, and will often pull towards them when on lead.
For me what helped was discovering something she loved MORE than playing with dogs...that was playing with her ball!!!
I have taught her to sit or lie down before I throw her ball, and have worked on getting her good at this....Then on walks I have been pracitcing her recall by sometimes rewarding with treats...then randomly sometimes rewarding by producing her ball from my pocket (MUCH better as far she is concerened than any treat! )
Then, I have used the two things so that whenever we see another dog I can recall her, and clip her lead on AND produce her ball and get her to sit/down perfectly focused on the ball till the other dog is passed. If we know the dog I will then let her off-lead to play...if not I wait till the dog is passed then reward her by letting her off to chase the ball...
She is getting much better, and calmer with other dogs, though she still loves a good play!...I'm hoping eventually she'll sit and wait without me waving her ball in the air LOL

If you want to meet up any time I am pretty close to you??
Ben has pretty good body language and is pretty calm to walk with

Mia - well she loves a dog who bounces I bet they would play together great

But we can practise some calm walking things (and I can get to see your cute wee boy )

Thanks very much for your offer, I don't drive though but my husband does so we could maybe arrange something?

Oh and he's not so wee anymore!

I think I'm going to find new classes as well though- the classes we have gone to so far i don't really rate, there's too many dogs and although he can do all the basic stuff he's no better at the things I need him to be- it was the trainer there who suggested a halti for him which I found really disappointing.

Self control- no, his recall has only ever been up to much if there's no doggie distractions.