Obsessed with other dogs

2960 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Gnostic Dog, Mar 24, 2016

kjw319

Discussion Starter · Mar 13, 2016 (Edited)

My 11 month old Newfie is completely and utterly obsessed with other dogs, actually any animal. He has been that way since I got him at 8 weeks, but I thought with some training and maturity he would grow out of it. He has not.

He goes completely rigid with excitement and lays down as soon as he sees a dog. It does not matter if that dog is walking a block down the street. If he thinks he will not get to meet the dog, he immediately starts struggling to get to the dog. A few weeks ago, we were walking on the same block where his dog friend lives. We weren't going over there, but Samson tried to pull me to the house. My fiancé and I both pretty much had to drag him away, but only made it two houses before he completely refused to budge. He refused all of my usual tricks: walking our other dog away from him, other commands to distract him, and treats. Nothing worked. After 20 mins, I finally grabbed the jeep to load him up.

Samson is a smart dog who learns quickly, but he is extremely food motivated. He can sleep through anything but a food wrapper. I would have thought I could at least get his attention with that, but I have even seen him spit out turkey. I try to stand in front of him to get hIm to focus, but he makes every effort possible to only look at the dog.

We take him quite a few places, so he is exposed to other dogs. The nearest town to us is very dog friendly and the downtown is popular spot to walk. Samson makes it difficult by laying down every single time he sees a dog. Did I mention a lot of other dogs are intimidated by his size and otherwise friendly dogs sometimes freak out? Samson can't take a hint and just keeps trying to play. It is exhausting sometimes. Thank goodness he isn't at all aggressive or I would really be in a pickle.

As I have been doing all his training myself, I'm wondering if an official obedience class is my answer. He does really well with just about everything, though, and I want to try everything else myself first

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Turtle11

· #2 · Mar 14, 2016 (Edited)

I feel your pain. We have an 11 month old mastiff mix (also a big dog likes yours) and he LOVES other dogs too much as well. He just wants to play!

I'm hoping someone will come in with more advice, but maybe my story make make you feel better in the meantime...

Our dog is okay if the other dog is farther away, like across the street. He will stare, but I nudge him and we keep on walking. I carry treats with me all the time, and have taught him to look at me when a dog approaches and then I give him a treat. However, if the treat is not 'tasty' enough for him, then...aargh.

When he is sitting somewhere in public with me and a dog is there that I don't allow him to meet, he starts whimpering...and then everyone around stares at us...so embarassing, cause it sounds like I am hurting him.

We took him to the big state parks in Colorado which allow off leash dogs. Only recently in the past month, he has started not listening to recall and will run long distances, out of sight from us, to play with another dog. We have decided to stop taking him for now, until his recall is better again, and I think the fact he is used to running up to any dog he wants off leash probably makes him bad on leash. He doesn't know that he can't do it on the lead.

Anyways, to make a long story short, from what I've heard, this is also the age of adolesence. Hopefully they become less interested in other dogs by the time they are 2 years. Carry the highest value treats with you and only feed it when he sees another dog. Also you can carry a squeaker toy and squeak it to get his attention.

A story to make you feel you are not alone - We were walking around the city yesterday and descending a steep set of stairs. A guy with his german shepherd puppy was walking up the stairs. My husband didn't see that puppy. Our dog nearly pulled my husband down the stairs to get to the puppy!

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kjw319

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 14, 2016

Haha. Our dogs should be friends!

Tasty treats don't even work for me, though. I've seen him spit out Bologna, turkey breast, and various other things that make him drool! It is kind of funny to see.

We just gotta hang on for dear life until their older.

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Astroquack

· #4 · Mar 15, 2016

Ughh tell me about it. My 9 month old Aussie pulls, whines and barks out of excitement with other dogs and has zero concept of personal space. As a result, he's been snapped at by lots of older dogs which does help teach him some manners. Recently, we've been doing impulse control/focus training daily and he's improved heaps since then.

Out on walks, when I see a dog in the distance, I'll pull him aside and use high value treats like cheese and cooked chicken to grab his attention. Sometimes his name alone isn't enough, so I'll do silly things like run backwards and make high pitched sounds to seem more exciting - which works. Then when he's focused on me, I'll ask for pointless tricks like sit pretty or leg weaves to keep the focus. By that point, his excitement levels have lowered. If he does start whining though and looking at the other dog, we'll move further away or out of sight and gradually work our way closer.

At obedience classes, we practice walking past other dogs calmly. We do a very close heel by having them on a short leash and holding a treat in front of their noses to keep them next to us. If he ever rushes out to greet another dog, I do a quick tug as correction before he can reach the dog so his pulling isn't rewarded.

Obviously every pup learns differently, but with my boy I found that keeping him engaged and being more exciting than the other dogs works in keeping focus. He's slowly getting better and hopefully it will tone down as he matures. I would highly recommend obedience classes, the trainers really helped me control my dog. Best of luck!

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Turtle11

· #5 · Mar 16, 2016

kjw319 said:
Haha. Our dogs should be friends!

Tasty treats don't even work for me, though. I've seen him spit out Bologna, turkey breast, and various other things that make him drool! It is kind of funny to see.

We just gotta hang on for dear life until their older.

Hah ha, my dog could play from morning until the sun goes down. He poops out every dog he plays with!

Too bad he ignores the good treats, mine will ignore the good stuff too if the other dog is especially close.

Yeah, I really, really hope that he is still not like this at 3 years old! Gosh!

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Rivonia

· #6 · Mar 16, 2016

I'm sure this not a solution, but my 9 month old Dogo Argentino was besotted with other animals (including horses! No, you cannot go jump on and lick a 700kg pray animal). We got a second dog and now he is much better, he only whines after his friends and particularly fetching girl dogs

We haven't tried the horses yet, it's just too stressful.

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Maiabean

· #7 · Mar 23, 2016

Ugh. Same boat over here. I swear, my dog is dog-oriented! She will spit out the tastiest of treats (hot dogs, homemade meatballs, cheese) if another dog is approaching. She will even ignore sticks, her all-time favorite chew toys if dogs are coming. She lies down and will not budge. If it looks like we won't get to interact with the dog, cue crying and whining lime a spoiled teenager. And unfortunately, because we live next to the woods, it's nearly impossible to go for a walk without seeing a dog (or rabbit ....but that's a whole other thing).

The only advice from our wonderful trainer was to turn away from any dogs we see on leash and start walking away and distracting the dog. Do this enough and hopefully she will calm down/grow out of it?!?
So, keep your success ( and failure!) stories coming!
So far, if I see the dog enough in advance. I can pull my pup over into a driveway, make her sit, step on the leash, and do my best to ask for simple tricks (look!, down, sit) in hopes of distracting her while thebdog goes by. Rewards happen for not lunging. And then it takes about 3 minutes for her to settle down once a dog had passed.

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Gnostic Dog

· #8 · Mar 23, 2016 (Edited)

I also have a molosser (English Mastiff) who was way too interested in other dogs, it was especially bad as a puppy and young adult. I tried all the usual techniques, ie desensitization, BAT, LAT, keeping him below threshold by constantly being on alert, and having him sit as soon as we saw other dogs. But honestly, none of them really stopped the behavior, I could manage it better, but it didn't go away, that pull was still there. With a very, very large dog, management even with tools like a headcollar, no-pull harnesses etc aren't very effective because they are big and strong enough to pull through them. If they want to go somewhere, then they go, no device will stop them. The only thing that will control them is themselves and their attraction to you, so that they are able to work in drive rather than go into instinct, and with breeds like ours they generally have a lower drive, so this needs to be worked on. Working on managing outward behavior isn't going to cut it.

So what worked for my boy, developing his attraction/drive to me as his handler. I achieved this with the five core excercies from the work of Kevin Behan's Natural Dog Training. Primarily, pushing which was what I started with, it took a couple of weeks for my boy to get it but the results were dramatic, he stopped pulling on the leash, he stopped trying to engage with other dogs while on leash, he stopped being reactive to joggers, cyclists, skateboarders, strollers etc. I have continued to work with him on the five core exercises and he is now a much, much easier dog. Interestingly he had a reasonably good recall since he was a puppy, but that also improved so that he will come directly to me quickly in a straight line* on being called.

* A dog that comes in an arc is conflicted and doesn't have enough attraction to handler.

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tange

· #9 · Mar 24, 2016

Gnostic Dog said:
I also have a molosser (English Mastiff) who was way too interested in other dogs, it was especially bad as a puppy and young adult. I tried all the usual techniques, ie desensitization, BAT, LAT, keeping him below threshold by constantly being on alert, and having him sit as soon as we saw other dogs. But honestly, none of them really stopped the behavior, I could manage it better, but it didn't go away, that pull was still there. With a very, very large dog, management even with tools like a headcollar, no-pull harnesses etc aren't very effective because they are big and strong enough to pull through them. If they want to go somewhere, then they go, no device will stop them. The only thing that will control them is themselves and their attraction to you, so that they are able to work in drive rather than go into instinct, and with breeds like ours they generally have a lower drive, so this needs to be worked on. Working on managing outward behavior isn't going to cut it.

So what worked for my boy, developing his attraction/drive to me as his handler. I achieved this with the five core excercies from the work of Kevin Behan's Natural Dog Training. Primarily, pushing which was what I started with, it took a couple of weeks for my boy to get it but the results were dramatic, he stopped pulling on the leash, he stopped trying to engage with other dogs while on leash, he stopped being reactive to joggers, cyclists, skateboarders, strollers etc. I have continued to work with him on the five core exercises and he is now a much, much easier dog. Interestingly he had a reasonably good recall since he was a puppy, but that also improved so that he will come directly to me quickly in a straight line* on being called.

* A dog that comes in an arc is conflicted and doesn't have enough attraction to handler.

What do you mean by arc? My puppy does come in a straight line bolting to me when I do recall but because I can't run backwards fast enough while he is on a long line, he tends to shift to the side slightly and doesn't end up sitting directly in front of me because he bumped into me once while running too fast to me. I've been working on it but he doesn't come in straight so does that mean he is not paying attention?
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Gnostic Dog

· #10 · Mar 24, 2016

tange said:
What do you mean by arc? My puppy does come in a straight line bolting to me when I do recall but because I can't run backwards fast enough while he is on a long line, he tends to shift to the side slightly and doesn't end up sitting directly in front of me because he bumped into me once while running too fast to me. I've been working on it but he doesn't come in straight so does that mean he is not paying attention?
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If a dog doesn't run in a straight line to you, then it means he is conflicted about coming, that is there is an attraction to something else as well as you, for example, an interesting smell.

Swerving to miss hitting you is a different thing.

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