I find this type of reactivity very difficult to rehabilitate because unless you have the support network to constantly work around new and stable dogs, the progress is dismal. Dodger and I have perfected the "art" of avoidance and management when it comes to strange dogs
. We have pretty much been stalled at this stage since his reactivity surfaced. It was easy to address the early and distinct reactive behaviours - ie: alerting, staring, tight/tense body, growling etc... But trying to work on direct socialization in enough contexts has been virtually impossible.
I have a dog that is the same way and in his case it is very situational, all his bad experiences have happened at agility trials. Therefore he is much worse at agility and not as bad with strange dogs away from agility. Give a few minutes and his own comfort zone, he can be off leash with strange dogs.......away from agility lol.
His reactivity has greatly reduced at trials. For years I 'managed him' and his space, then I got proactive and started to train him to deal with his issues. His progress has been awesome, strange dogs can now bush by him with no reaction except to make eye contact with me if he is very worried. We do have regressions but only after another incident. Last year I had two such incidents on the same day within an hour or so, at the Ontario Regionals. Not good.
Luckily he is a small dog and I can carry him if I think I need too lol.
I agree, I don't think it ever goes away, we can get them very good and for a very long time, but all it takes is another bad incident to have them regress again even if that regression only lasts for a while. Start over, keep training until the next one.
I often wonder if my dog thinks I am lying to him.........I train him, tell him it's ok, that he can trust me that nothing will harm or scare him and then BAM somebody's dogs puts a paw on his back, runs up into his face to 'play' because that person has a 'friendly dog' and they are not paying attention to it while they chat with their friend or stand there watching a run.
Then my dog reacts and they jerk their dog away, muttering something to the effect of 'aggressive dog'..................frustrating?? beyond words.........
if other people would pay attention to their dogs and be careful...........my dog would have no reason to react especially after all the training I have done with him
Ok, my rant is done .........for now.