Unwanted behaviour on leash

Hello folks

As some of you might remember I added Misty to my home just before Christmas. She is a rescue around 3 years old, who's history is not fully known. She's an absolute angel:luv:
However when we are out walking she goes a little crazy on the lead if she sees another dog. She turns into a screeching banshee, growling and doing a high pitched bark/yelp. Sometimes it sound as if she wants to chew the other dog up. Not that I believe she actually would, she is a gentle little soul at all other times. If we meet dogs when she is off the lead she greets them with good manners, and doesn't make a peep. Is this a frustration thing?

I've been ignoring her behaviour as I don't want to re-enforce this by doing the wrong thing. How should I react to this? We are looking about to try and fing a dog training class to try and do some socialisation, but no-one is running one in our area at the moment

Well one of the things the trainer at Max's puppy class has us do if the dog gets too excited is just call them excitedly and turn around and walk in the opposite direction. It might mean that you go in circles for a bit but it might help.

I have no advice, only sympathy ... I have the same issue. I attribute it to some unfriendly dogs in my neighborhood whose owners make us cross the street if we cross paths. They seem to have gotten very protective on leash ... it is getting to be a real problem. I'll be checking this thread with anticipation of new techniques to try.

My guys are also fine off leash, so it's definitely a leash issue for us too.

welcome to my life Faith used to be GREAT around other dogs, but the bigger the dog now, the more she barks on walks.

This is how I've been dealing with it. . If we see another big dog that she starts to bark at on the street, I immediately start a "training session" with her while the other dog passes and distract her from it so that she focuses on ME. I make her sit, stay, etc. For us, Faith gets "in the zone" and I think half the battle is getting her attention to stay on me and not letting her "get to that point." If it's a nice dog (there's one black lab who I KNOW is nice) I won't do anything . . . I'll just continue to pass by. Kosmo is up nose to nose with the dog and Faithey is of course still scared, but she's getting better with the more exposure she gets. I would like to get her back into obedience school to get her to hang out with other big dogs though. I don't want her being scared of them forever.

Well we tried the calling and walking in the other direction, but this just seemed to make her worse. The other dog owner looked at us as if we were nuts, her dog was a large lurcher, who didn't even look in our direction

Yet 10 minutes later she was all tail wagging as we met a Lab in the field while she was off lead

Count Daisy as a full-fledged member of the dog-reactive-while-on-leash club! I am working on it by trying to distract her by putting her in a sit and trying to keep her attention with treats as the other dogs pass by, with some very limited success.

I used to say to the other person walking their dog when Daisy would start her shenanigans, "Don't worry, she's very gentle, she just gets too excited. If we let her meet your dog, she'll be very friendly." I don't say that anymore because I'm not sure it's true anymore. She has snapped at the face of some other dogs in recent months. She's never made contact (except with ear hair once), thank goodness. Of course, I never want her to attack another dog, and I also live in fear that she'll get her clock cleaned by an intolerant big dog one of these days. It's really her only negative attribute. Other than that, I would say she is very close to the perfect dog.

There are times that I almost despair of her ever acting normal on a leash around other dogs and think I will simply never be able to take her on walks where there are lots of other dogs around. So I will be watching for advice, too. (BTW, Daisy has been through 3 obedience courses and has her CGC. She managed to pass the meet and greet with a dog only because on our second try, they used a distractor dog that she had been exposed to throughout the class, so she didn't go crazy. The first try, they used an unfamiliar border collie and Daisy was a menace, lunging at him before we even got close. So our CGC is kind of "tainted," if you know what I mean. She passed every other test with absolutely flying colors, but around strange dogs, she turns into a wild animal. I used to think she wanted to go tell them off, but now I wonder if there is some fear causing it.)

I may look for a trainer around here and see what I can find. The one local lady I know who does in-home training and runs classes is a nutcase who I wouldn't trust around a potted plant, let alone my sweet Daisy! She has a "quiet stick" which is a 4 ft. long aluminum rod and if a dog in a crate barks, she goes over and whacks the crate to get them to shut up. She presents herself as this great dog lover, but keeps the dogs she boards in a windowless, mostly un-airconditioned building. And it gets HOT here in the summer. When I commented on how hot it was, she said "Well, I just turn the air conditioning on in the afternoons." Uh huh. Not very likely, and very stupid if she actually does that. Sorry, getting off topic here! Thinking about this woman gets my dander up!

OK, guys, this is really weird. After writing my previous post about how crazy she is around other dogs on her leash, we just got back from the vet and Daisy met another dog (a 16 year old OES/Cocker mix) VERY politely and didn't go crazy at all! Yeahhhh!!!

Maybe she was too shell-shocked from having her anal glands expressed (one was badly impacted, the other not at all), that she was mentally worn out too much to react as she normally does. Or maybe it's a trend!

Dogs can feel very insecure around other dogs when they are on the lead - because they know they can't manouevre or run away if attacked. Both mine get worried by any dogs resembling staffies (Oliver has been attacked when on lead at least 3 times, and Aled picks up the worry from him) - though they're fine with them off lead. At the moment I am trying to get them to sit and watch me (and the titbits in my hand!) when we see a dog approaching, so they get rewarded for ignoring the other dog. Aled, being a rescue from a puppy farm, has never really met bigger dogs, so I shall take him along to training class after Easter when he is a bit more confident. We created chaos on the bus yesterday! I sat near the stairs to the upper deck, not realising there was a boxer upstairs already; he got off before us and coming downstairs met my two eyeball to eyeball, who promptly barked their heads off! If I'd known the boxer was on the bus, I'd have sat at the back of the bus; if I introduce Oliver to the other dog in the queue at the bus station, he will ignore him on the bus.

Kate, Oliver and Aled