Second dog?

NewbieBoobie

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Hi all! I’m new to the forum so please excuse any lack of etiquette!
My family have had our dog (Lurcher/Akita) for just over a year now, he will be 2 in January! We adopted him from a shelter when he was 3 months old and very little was known about where he came from (The family that surrendered him had bought him when he was 5/6 weeks old from a breeder which they would not / could not name).
Now our beautiful boy hasn’t an aggressive bone in his body (he had a case of lacking bite inhibition and excessive mouthing at first but that was trained out easily) however he is extremely over excitable and will excessively bark / pull towards other dogs in the street to the point where we have paid ridiculous amounts of money to behaviourists and trainers and no methods have worked to curb this behaviour.
We know this behaviour is because of unsocialisation, and unfortunately we have no friends or family with dogs that he could meet with, therefore we have begun considering whether another dog in the household would benefit him?
Of course this is a very big decision and we worry that he might just stay the same or even make him worse!

Sorry for the lengthy post! I just hoped that I could gather some opinions!
Thankyou!
 

fankino04

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Could you not join a local dog walking group on Facebook and ask if anyone has a calm confident dog that could meet you for walks to help socialise yours?
 

NewbieBoobie

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Could you not join a local dog walking group on Facebook and ask if anyone has a calm confident dog that could meet you for walks to help socialise yours?

It’s something we could look into more! That’s a great idea thankyou! He has been for walks with another dog a few times before and he does lose interest after about 10 minutes, likewise he has friends that he has made in the streets who he won’t bark at and interacts with beautifully!

Do you think that having another dog in the home might impact his reactions to new/strange dogs, or do you think he will just get used to his girlfriend and still react to others?
 

skinnydipper

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No, I don't think adding another dog will help and it will take your focus from your current dog who needs your attention. Also you need to have the time to train and play with the new dog. In my opinion it would not be fair to either dog.

Your dog is displaying reactive behaviour which is really just another term for fear aggression.

I have an unsocialised dog (kept in isolation for his first 18 months) who, along with other issues, displayed reactive behaviour to other dogs and people. He joined my stable pack (at the time 5 bitches) and he got on brilliantly with them all and enjoyed their company and played with some of them. It did not help his behaviour with dogs outside the home, that took a great deal of work, and if I had not had a pack I could rely on to behave then I could not have given him the attention he needed.

Don't give up hope of improving your current dog's behaviour but there is no easy fix and in my opinion you can never fully compensate for the lack of early socialisation. My dog is now at the stage where when he is off lead and he sees another dog he turns to me to see what our plan is, leash on or change direction. He is now fine to walk along off leash with other dogs who have no interest in getting in his face, if I am in any doubt about the other dog then mine stays on his lead. My dog's MO was barking, lunging, an air snap if pushed and if given the opportunity would chase off the other dog. I do have the advantage of knowing that even when sorely tested he has never bitten but there is always that potential and I do not like him put under stress and feel he has no option

You also need the confidence and control to recall your dog in an instant when some ar*e cannot stop their dog from charging across the field at your dog. (so proud of you this morning big fella)

Know your dogs limitations and don't push too hard or it will backfire. You don't want his behaviour to escalate from barking and lunging. He has already shown you that he has teeth and knows how to use them "he had a case of lacking bite inhibition".

I accept my dog is never going to be comfortable with dogs and people getting up close and personal and work around that.

I have just read your second post and see that his problems are not as bad as I first thought but I still think that getting another dog is not the answer, you could just be adding to your problems.
 
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FinnishLapphund

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Personally I would not expect the type of problem you describe to be solved by getting one more dog. If you're very lucky, maybe a really calm dog could make him a bit calmer, and perhaps thereby a bit more trainable in such situations, but I think that most likely, he will continue to behave the same, or possibly even end up teaching the new dog that this is how you behave when you see other dogs out on walks, and then you would have 2 misbehaving dogs to deal with!

You say that you've been to behaviourists and trainers, and it haven't helped, but remember that he is not yet 2 years old. Maybe he looks quite grown up on the outside, but on the inside he is still just a young dog, it is still fully possible that things can improve, if you don't give up, without keep on training.

If you have a few hours to spare one day, put a bunch of sausages in a bag, or his favourite toy if he's more responsive to that, and take him somewhere where it is likely that you'll see a bunch of other dogs, and just train, train, and train him some more.
Try using other collars/harnesses, to see if the changes makes him pay more attention to you. Have you tried using an Adaptil collar on him, to see if that keeps him a bit calmer?
Don't forget to think about your own reactions when he acts up. Try to stay calm, keep your voice low etc, so that nothing in your behaviour makes him more excited.

Finding other dogs which he can socialize with on a regular basis definitely sounds like a great idea, but I still think that what matters the most is training, and yet more training. And fingers crossed for that he might calm down a bit as he gets older.
 

NewbieBoobie

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No, I don't think adding another dog will help and it will take your focus from your current dog who needs your attention. Also you need to have the time to train and play with the new dog. In my opinion it would not be fair to either dog.

Your dog is displaying reactive behaviour which is really just another term for fear aggression.

I have an unsocialised dog (kept in isolation for his first 18 months) who, along with other issues, displayed reactive behaviour to other dogs and people. He joined my stable pack (at the time 5 bitches) and he got on brilliantly with them all and enjoyed their company and played with some of them. It did not help his behaviour with dogs outside the home, that took a great deal of work, and if I had not had a pack I could rely on to behave then I could not have given him the attention he needed.

Don't give up hope of improving your current dog's behaviour but there is no easy fix and in my opinion you can never fully compensate for the lack of early socialisation. My dog is now at the stage where when he is off lead and he sees another dog he turns to me to see what our plan is, leash on or change direction. He is now fine to walk along off leash with other dogs who have no interest in getting in his face, if I am in any doubt about the other dog then mine stays on his lead. My dog's MO was barking, lunging, an air snap if pushed and if given the opportunity would chase off the other dog. I do have the advantage of knowing that even when sorely tested he has never bitten but there is always that potential and I do not like him put under stress and feel he has no option

You also need the confidence and control to recall your dog in an instant when some ar*e cannot stop their dog from charging across the field at your dog. (so proud of you this morning big fella)

Know your dogs limitations and don't push too hard or it will backfire. You don't want his behaviour to escalate from barking and lunging. He has already shown you that he has teeth and knows how to use them "he had a case of lacking bite inhibition".

I accept my dog is never going to be comfortable with dogs and people getting up close and personal and work around that.

I have just read your second post and see that his problems are not as bad as I first thought but I still think that getting another dog is not the answer, you could just be adding to your problems.


Thankyou for the reply! I’d already had the majority of those concerns so Thankyou for highlighting them and making me think more sensibly above the excitement of a new dog haha!
It is a difficult one as we love our pup to bits and his behaviour isn’t getting us down, we have ways of working around his behaviours that we are happy with, we just wish that he could have the experience of proper puppy play, as he is such a playful boy and as much as we play with him it can’t really compare to the play and socialisation with other dogs can it? I do 100% agree though that bringing another dog into the house is probably not going to be the best for him as he is such an attention seeker, and that as you said he will never be ‘perfect’ with other dogs due to his lack of socialistation when he was younger!

To be very honest we had never even considered getting another dog until a staff member at the excersise field we take him to said that it would likely help with his behaviour!

But I am very glad I asked here to get second opinions without the Rose tinited glasses of the excitement of more doggies 😂
 

NewbieBoobie

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Personally I would not expect the type of problem you describe to be solved by getting one more dog. If you're very lucky, maybe a really calm dog could make him a bit calmer, and perhaps thereby a bit more trainable in such situations, but I think that most likely, he will continue to behave the same, or possibly even end up teaching the new dog that this is how you behave when you see other dogs out on walks, and then you would have 2 misbehaving dogs to deal with!

You say that you've been to behaviourists and trainers, and it haven't helped, but remember that he is not yet 2 years old. Maybe he looks quite grown up on the outside, but on the inside he is still just a young dog, it is still fully possible that things can improve, if you don't give up, without keep on training.

If you have a few hours to spare one day, put a bunch of sausages in a bag, or his favourite toy if he's more responsive to that, and take him somewhere where it is likely that you'll see a bunch of other dogs, and just train, train, and train him some more.
Try using other collars/harnesses, to see if the changes makes him pay more attention to you. Have you tried using an Adaptil collar on him, to see if that keeps him a bit calmer?
Don't forget to think about your own reactions when he acts up. Try to stay calm, keep your voice low etc, so that nothing in your behaviour makes him more excited.

Finding other dogs which he can socialize with on a regular basis definitely sounds like a great idea, but I still think that what matters the most is training, and yet more training. And fingers crossed for that he might calm down a bit as he gets older.


Thankyou! Yes I think we do forget that he is still a pup! He was neutered very young as well at 3 months old (Not our decision) which we have heard might make him stay very pupplike for longer? I don’t know if that’s true though! It’s hard to remember he’s only young when he weighs 47kg and stands taller than me! 😂

But thankyou very much for the advice! He is better when walking than he used to be so things are improving, not quite ready to let him off the lead yet but that’s what we’re aiming for! We will definitely try the sausage idea, we have been avoiding going out where we know there will be dogs for fear of stressing him out but we shall have to give it a try for training purposes! We know that isolating him isn’t the best idea and we want him to live a happy doggy life, it’s just finding the balance and not pushing him too far :)
 

FinnishLapphund

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Thankyou! Yes I think we do forget that he is still a pup! He was neutered very young as well at 3 months old (Not our decision) which we have heard might make him stay very pupplike for longer? I don’t know if that’s true though! It’s hard to remember he’s only young when he weighs 47kg and stands taller than me! 😂

But thankyou very much for the advice! He is better when walking than he used to be so things are improving, not quite ready to let him off the lead yet but that’s what we’re aiming for! We will definitely try the sausage idea, we have been avoiding going out where we know there will be dogs for fear of stressing him out but we shall have to give it a try for training purposes! We know that isolating him isn’t the best idea and we want him to live a happy doggy life, it’s just finding the balance and not pushing him too far :)


It seems as if that is what most owners do when they have a problem with their dog, they try to avoid the situations which they know will cause problems/make their dog stressed, whether the problem is with meeting other dogs, children, traffic, veterinarians etc. But in general, I think that it is better to do the opposite, expose them to it, as much, and as often as possible.
That is why I suggested that you take control of the situation yourself, take a day when you can spend time with working on the problem, and don't give up, even if it might seem as if you're not making any progress. Sometimes the penny drops quickly, other times, you just have to persevere.

And I can imagine that it is difficult to remember how young he actually is, when he weighs 47 kg. Actually, he probably weighs around the same as what my 3 bitches weighs together. :)
 

skinnydipper

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It seems as if that is what most owners do when they have a problem with their dog, they try to avoid the situations which they know will cause problems/make their dog stressed, whether the problem is with meeting other dogs, children, traffic, veterinarians etc. But in general, I think that it is better to do the opposite, expose them to it, as much, and as often as possible.

I think you would have to be very careful with this approach, that you are not "flooding" the dog and creating worse problems.

I think there is a happy medium. My usual morning walks are in areas popular with other people walking their dogs. I have tried to teach my dog to look to me for guidance in situations which trouble him. If I can see that the approaching dog is not under control and likely to be a nuisance then I take avoiding action (if I can) rather than have him harassed. My weekend walks are in fields, also popular with dog walkers, but with more room so in theory it should be possible not to get under each others feet, as our usual routes become clogged with sackless owners and their dogs at the weekend.

If you purposely repeatedly take a dog over threshold then you are asking for trouble, IMHO.
 
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Blazingsaddles

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Hi all! I’m new to the forum so please excuse any lack of etiquette!
My family have had our dog (Lurcher/Akita) for just over a year now, he will be 2 in January! We adopted him from a shelter when he was 3 months old and very little was known about where he came from (The family that surrendered him had bought him when he was 5/6 weeks old from a breeder which they would not / could not name).
Now our beautiful boy hasn’t an aggressive bone in his body (he had a case of lacking bite inhibition and excessive mouthing at first but that was trained out easily) however he is extremely over excitable and will excessively bark / pull towards other dogs in the street to the point where we have paid ridiculous amounts of money to behaviourists and trainers and no methods have worked to curb this behaviour.
We know this behaviour is because of unsocialisation, and unfortunately we have no friends or family with dogs that he could meet with, therefore we have begun considering whether another dog in the household would benefit him?
Of course this is a very big decision and we worry that he might just stay the same or even make him worse!

Sorry for the lengthy post! I just hoped that I could gather some opinions!
Thankyou!
I’m a great fan of getting the dog focused on you. How you do that - treats/squeaky ball/whistle/whatever gets his focus on you away from whatever is causing unwanted behaviour. Practise in the home/garden. Use a cue word & practise, practise. It will take time.
 

ponyparty

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Yep agree that with a second dog, your original dog is more likely to teach it to be reactive, than the other way round.
I can't walk my mum's dogs (one of whom is reactive - the other was the "original" dog and totally ignores all other dogs) together with my own dog as it sets my dog off. Where he would usually walk past and ignore other dogs, he'll actively seek them out. I think, in hindsight, it was walking him together with those two that set him off originally! I ended up getting him neutered at 18 months old as a result, as I thought it was too much testosterone at play, but actually I now think it was because I had moved back home with my mum for a while and we were walking our dogs together a lot and he picked up this behaviour from hers :( he's fine with most other dogs now.
 
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