Hi,

I'm looking for a bit of advice. I have taken on a lovely rescue dog (1 1/2 years old lab/staffy/pointer cross maybe?) who has been perfect apart from a problem with other dogs. He will not go up to another dog and attack it and we call him away and put him on his lead if we see a dog and it insists in coming up to us. Unfortunately other dog owners still allow their dog to sniff him and at this point he tries to attack them. I m worried as I don't want him to hurt another dog as he is quite large even though he is on a lead.

I was wondering if anyone else has come across this problem and what they did to try and solve it. I was wondering if a muzzle might be the way to go and give him the confidence to start to learn to play with other dogs without the risk of him hurting them?

I feel by having to put him on the lead each time and still ending up with a confrontation is only leading to him becoming more dog scared and more likely to snap. He has played with other large dogs when passing (with the owner consent) and seems to enjoy it, but you can tell he is wary.

Any suggestions would be great as I would love to get into some advanced obedience/ dog agility but I worry that his behaviour when other dogs come up to him will prevent this.

Amber (my gsd) is absolutely fantastic with people, but show her another dog and her back is straight up and she changes into a different dog.:loopy:
I made the situation worse by keeping her away from other dogs(just because I didn`t like the confrontations).
When I started taking her where I knew there would be dogs and letting her interact with them(on lead) a bit, she got much better.
I usually take a nice squeaky toy or ball to distract her when other dogs get close.
She`s now much better, but by no means "cured".
I know wat you mean about other people letting their dogs come to her, it can be very annoying, but can also help a little(depending on the dog). I wouldn`t resort to muzzling, but thats me, other people probably have other views on it.
Just lots of praise and treats when he deserves it and persevere with it!

I will have to keep at it, I'm in exactly the same situation as you were that I just want to avoid any confrontation but by doing this it could lead to further problems.

He apparently lived with another female dog before he went into rescue He was at the rescue for 4 months so maybe it is just going to take a couple of months to build his confidence as he must have been fine before (unless that was the reason he ended up in the rescue! he is perfect otherwise and has all basic training but is scared of raised voices as he drops himself to the floor so I'm guessing he has not had a great past)

Thanks

ANOTHER WAY OF DOING IT IS TO FILL A SMALL POP BOTTLE WITH STONES AND EVERY TIME HE IS AGRESSIVE SHAKE THE BOTTLE IN FRONT OF HIM AND SAY NO IN A STERN VOICE I ONCE SAW THIS ON A ANIMAL BEHAVERIST
WITH SOME ONE WHO HAD A SIMALUAR PROBLEM TO WITCH YOU ARE HAVEING AND IT TOOK TIME BUT IT DID WORK LET ME KNOW HAW YOU GO IF YOU TRY IT !!:thumbsup::cool: