The thing is, Tom LIKES other dogs. He's met them on-leash and has been super excited, but not aggressive..
While it's great that he has met dogs on leash successfully it's very important to note that excitement and arousal go hand in hand and arousal is often not too far away from aggression, especially when you throw in a leash or a fence and an in-ability for that aroused dog to access the source of it's excitement. Throw in a few days, weeks, months of consistently being put in that scenerio, and boundry frusteration can turn into aggression directed at the source of the arousal but their are other factors to take into consideration like the dog's socilization history, on-going interactions with dogs be it negative or positive and of course breed tendancies and the individual's genes.
There's a saying by Bob Bailey that goes, "Pavlov is always on your shoulder" and refers to classical conditioning always being at work. Every single time Tom experinces boundry frusteration his reaction to future dogs will be based upon past situations of experincing that arousal and frusteration weighed against your hard work at counter conditioning and of course all of the other factors mentioned above such as socilization history, etc.
I don't say that to discourage you as I certainly think you can make alot of progress while he is in your care, but it's important to be aware that with consistent set backs of going over threashold, you will be moving one step forward with your counter conditioning and 3 steps back because of the environment.
I have no doubt if he had a yard, he'd be able to walk past another dog calmly in a matter of weeks, even less.
While taking Tom out of his current environment will certainly help his reactivity where he is not pushed over threashold as much, this will not be a cure all.
It took two years with some serious up's and down's to completely 99% negate (for lack of a better word) Duke's reactivity towards other dogs through positive reinforcement stratigies. It takes time, knowledge and work to set reactive dog's up to succeed and to understand how to handle them during a reaction, how to asses over months whether or not their threashold is consistently improving (I.e they recover quicker from reactions, they react less and they are able to walk closer and closer to their triggers, or are able to handle more intense versions of their triggers without reacting).
It would be misleading to potential adopters to think that Tom is going to be better on-leash once he get's a yard.
Some great games that are still worth playing with Tom everytime you bring him out, is the look at that game, attention games and targetting games.
The look at that game, requires some knowledge from the dog that a marker mean a reward is on it's way. So to get started you'd want to start out by just classically conditioning the marker to mean "reward (food is usually easiest) is coming". For a marker you could use a whistle, a clicker, a word, just make it consistent. A whistle or clicker would be more distinct then a word and more easily transferable to his new owners as your tone and pitch will be different then there's.
To pair a marker just keep your hands still at your side, make the mark and then reach into your pocket to feed him. Try not to move towards your food until after the mark has sounded to draw attention to the mark not your food (which is always more interesting to dogs new to marker training). After a few days most dogs will start to get excited and look at you after they hear the mark.
Now you can start playing the look at that game when your out when Tom notices novel things like a leaf blowing, a person in the distance etc, as long as it isn't an intensely distracting thing because at this stage thats going to be too much.
Mark and reward him constantly when he notices something novely distracting to help begin showing him the context of "You notice something, you hear the mark, you look back at me and get something yummy". Pretty quickly he might just be staring at you. That's ok continue to mark and reward. Your beginning to build your own reinforcement history bank and are classically conditioning the whole scenerio of the game structure.
When you first start using it on his arousing/ distracting stimulus do expect to have to shove the food in his mouth after the mark, until the classical conditioning your are setting up around such scenerio's really takes root thanks to your positive reinforcement bank.
Pretty soon though you can start using it when he is under threashold and see's a dog from afar and you can mark and shove food in his mouth. If you can get this kind of practice in as much as possible you stand the best chance to significantly change his response to the sight of dogs onleash.
Remeber though, as you are building up your own classically conditioned response to the sight of dogs, so is your apartment building by putting Tom in close proximity to other dogs where he get's worked up. It's hard to say which way it will go but it's absolutly worth a shot.
Best of luck!
Kayla
