Need advice about dog aggression.

[kiritiger]

Hi, I recently moved in with my bf and his dog. The dog is lovely in a lot of ways but was previously used to only being exercised by chasing after a ball in the back yard. Now we live in an apartment, he has to be walked on a leash which he hasn't really ever done before. He is a 2.5 year old JRTx. He previously lived with other dogs and did go to puppy training when he was young. He is fine with other dogs if they are in the apartment (or inside any other house, we take him to peoples houses who have dogs and they get on just fine, even if he doesn't know the dog very well). The problem comes when we take him for walks. He gets 4x 15 min walks per day plus 1x 1.5 hour long walk. We were doing 30 mins at the dog park too. He is aggressive to other dogs when he is on the lead and at the dog park. He lunges and barks. At the dp every time a new dog comes in he runs over barking. Most dogs ignore him and he then stops barking but he had an incident a couple of days ago where another dog took offence to this (I don't blame him) and it nearly started a fight. What can we do about this aggression? He can't seem to be distracted by anything once he starts lunging and barking.

 

[JillA]

Some dogs get defensive of owners and even their leads - can you use a flexi lead and enable him to get a little further away from you while still being under control?
It is something that responds well to reinforcement training (think clicker training) to teach an alternative behaviour - a down or a sit, when another dog hoves into view. It needs to be thoroughly taught and conditioned and enforced to overcome that adrenaline rush that happens when another dog is spotted.
Having a muzzle on him can help - not only will he feel too disadvantaged to go for it but it will alert other dog owners that he can be a problem.
Other than that you may need a structured desensitisation programme with a calm dog known to be non reactive, and the best way to do that is contact a good behaviourist in your area. It is all about body language - he may be territorial, or scared and getting the first blow in to keep other dogs away, and someone with plenty of experience will be able to decipher it.

 

[kiritiger]

Thank you, we have a flexi lead and we will be researching pros in the area. He hasn't actually ever bitten, on leash we don't get him near enough and off leash he will run up to them barking but stay a couple of feet away and bark at them. Most dogs he's done this to just walk away and ignore him in which case he just runs back to us (sometimes while still barking). But one or two dogs he's got very intense with and it was leading to a bad place. The other owner called his dog away and we clipped his leash on and took him away, made him sit until he was calm again, then left the dog park.

 

[twiggy2]

sounds like he is nervous in the big wide world not aggressive-if he was aggressive no dog would just ignore him. can you arrange to walk him with just one other confident dog he gets on with for a while so he can build up some trust with a dog that is confident in the big wide world and then start introducing him to other dog in a controlled environment before letting him run loose with them?
I would introduce him by just walking them parallel to each other but so not contact can be made, you need to all walk with purpose and ignore any noise when he is settled and confident then let him off to say hello but keep walking then when he is settled again let the other dog off. keep doing it until he does not react to other dogs when out and about-it may take a very long time. I would also stop taking him out for just 15mins at a time as going out is exciting or nerve racking depending on your view point and it is not enough time for him to work through his emotions and return home in a calm state of mind

 

[kiritiger]

Yep, could very well be nervousness. We could borrow another dog. There's a few he gets along with well. We kind of have to take him out a few times a day because we live in an apartment. Once he's barked at them once (and they haven't reacted) he doesn't bark at them again, sometimes he'll go back over and say hello nicely and even more occasionally he will actually play with them (usually dogs of a similar size to him). So I think there's hope, and I think he would definitely enjoy playing with other dogs once we teach him how.