Advice for meeting dogs on walks!

[Ace's Place]

Hi everyone.

I started to allude to this on brown dog's thread about the ball obsession. I'm looking for suggestions on how to properly train Ace so he can continue to meet other dogs and people on his daily walks.

He's really become so nice to walk with....until....he sees a person with a dog from afar. Then he sits like a statue, eyes riveted on person with dog hoping, so hoping to get closer to them. I would love to let him, and sometimes I do, but his behaviour is that when the other dog comes near he starts jumping on the other dog, might start the doodle 500 (on leash so he tangles the other dog up and then its owner, then me, you get the picture). Sometimes this is preceded by him laying down waiting for the other dog to approach.

He's such a good boy in every other way but this makes him look like a crazy, uncontrollable dog. He does get together with other dogs at the dog park, and the dog walker sometimes brings her dogs along at lunchtime. By the looks of the interactions he is friendly and excited.

So what is the proper thing to try so that he can walk up to a receptive dog and owner in a more relaxed state?

Thanks!!

[browndog]

Ours does the exact same thing! She is 11.5 months old. We still approach the other people/dogs, and she is slowly getting a bit better, but still assumes everyone wants to play! I would love to hear other people's advice on how to deal with this too. I find that if I pull back on the leash and there is more leash tension then she is worse, if I let it slack and hope for the best, she is better! I usually forewarn the person that she is a very excited puppy and that way if their dog is not good with puppies they let me know and we steer clear. If they say its okay then I let her greet them. I try to poke her and distract her and get her to look at me on the way up to the other dog so that she's less weird about it. (the frozen stance part) Doesn't always work.

[jesstat]

We went through the same thing about six months ago. Diego is about a year and a half now and is great on walks. We ended up having to work really hard on this issue and ended up getting a correction collar with the help of our trainer. Now if he gets too excited near other dogs, he gets a vibrate from the collar to snap him out of the trance. Then I ask the other person if their dog would be ok with saying hi and we go from there. We found it was most important to distract/correct to get out of the trance mode and then he would greet nicely. Poking and a tight leash just didn't work for him.

[deepnite10]

it s only natural that a dog would want to meet with its own and necessary..

however, on leash they re suppose to be giving you their attention and not other distractions..including people or dogs..

it was necessary to continue the *heal* command..over and over again..first getting Toby to walk properly..then at my side while at
a stand still..at a stand still id give the command and slap my side..he d
come to my side..and if he was nt close enough id repeat the command an
pull him closer to me..eventually he be leaning against me..

takes a bit of time..but, now im pretty confident about walking him and approaching other dogs and people without me loosing his attention..

if for some reason i see his attention swaying away..a couple light tugs
with the *heal* command brings him back in line..

[Nikkiey]

I've sort of got the opposite problem, when Juneau sees a dog in the distance he will try and get there no matter what. In fact we've been training him to stop and sit when another dog approaches just so we can have him under control and not choking himself!

So far it's been going alright, he usually does a little bum dance as he's sitting cause he's just so excited, but once I know it's okay for the two to meet I just release him and let him go do his thing. Even though Juneau's recall off leash is something that's still to be desired (we're working on it) I always let him greet other dogs with a dragging leash now, he seems to respond better to both me[listening] and with his hyperness [not trying to jump and bark].

If only we could combine our dogs so that they could meet somewhere in the middle of being a statue until the other dog is near and wanting to get to them no matter what.

Either way, practice. Oh and even though I trained Juneau to sit when others approach our technique might work for you... We used hand targeting (clicker training). Whatever side we had Juneau sitting on we would stick our hand out and when he would touch his nose to our hand we would give him a treat. This alone created enough distraction that most dogs would be able to pass without incident or him getting up. About 50% of the time now we can continue walking past other dogs (while hand targeting) without having to have Juneau stop and sit because he's not paying attention. It's a work in progess.

[Ace's Place]

Thanks so much. Good ideas for us to practice!! Ace does understand hand targeting so maybe I will try in this instance - just haven't brought treats on walks with me in so long I'll need to remember to grab a couple. Also, will try the heal command with the slap - I think the noise would alert him to me too...I agree that if we can redirect him a bit his action/reaction might be different. Not a huge problem - but I want him to be able to say HELLO to his canine friends!

[Ace's Place]

Reporting back...two things worked!!

When seeing dogs from afar and freezing, I did the thigh slap and a let's go and it did break the zone enough and start to move a bit. With practice I can see this working all the time.

Closeup when meeting his friend Fuzzy who is a "senior" I brought out the zukes treats and he immediately stopped lunging for Fuzz, easily put him in a sit and held him there for a bit before treating him. For maybe 30 seconds after he was really calm before we did the routine again...

Thanks again!!