Ok, I have a question! *waves hand wildly* (Wow CreatureTeacher, aren't you busy! lol) My 9yr old, male, neutered, Lab/Rottie mix is dominant to other dogs and is aggresive toward other male dogs. I'm not going to go as far as saying I want him to love all dogs, but how can I teach him to tolorate or at least ignore other dogs? He has learned to ignore our Grandma's Mini Schnauzer, Molly, and he is learing to ignore a freinds Golden Retreiver puppy, Mattie, but I would never let him off leash around them.
Blackie was neutered at age three and wasn't socialized hardly at all with other dogs when he was a pup. He has also been attacked by various dogs in his life time. (Mainly our neighbor's two Aussies.)
On our walks, he carries his tail in the 'don't you mess with me or I'll eat you' manner and if he sees a dog, he starts pulling on the leash to get at it. If a dog comes up to him, he attacks it. (We live in the country so none of our neighbors have their dogs contianed except for one neighbor who owns two Greyhounds and a Cocker Spaniel.)
I think I'm making him sound worse than he really is, so I'll give you an example of his doggy aggressivness:
My mom and I just started our walk with our dogs. We were about halfway down our 1/4mile lane, when our neighbor let her Chocolate lab (Justice) and her Boxer (Daisy) outside. Daisy came running up to us because she wanted to play. She went running up to Rose (my mutt) who, thankfully, is tolorant of other dogs. Mom was holding Blackie back as well as she good because he was strianing on the leash trying to get at Daisy. (Rose just stood there, her tail up strait, her hackles raised, sniffing Daisy's mouth while Daisy was being submissive.)
Well, while Mrs.D___ was trying to get Daisy up to the house, Justice decided to come out and see what all of the fuss was about. Justice went up to Blackie and Blackie started growling and half jumping on Justice. Luckly, at that time, Mrs.D___ was able to get her dogs, and we continued our walk.
Another example:
Dad, my siblings and I were going down to our creek to watch the construction work that was going on. (They were repairing the bridge that goes over it.) I had penned Rose up because our dogs are enemies with three BLue Heelers that live down there. Blackie was nowhere to be seen though, so I pocketed a leash and a bone, thinking if we saw him on our walk, I'd clip him on the leash to keep him out of trouble. Well, sure enough, when we got into the woods, here come Blackie all good natured, wagging his tail. I was going to put him on leash then, but Dad said don't worry about it, so I didn't. Well, up comes our neighbors Boxer (his name is Gage) and he is being friendly, but Blackie didn't like him up so close. Gage got right next to us, when Blackie chased him away. Gage ran back a little bit, so Blackie came back up next to us. Gage came back up next to us too, so Blackie chased him away again. This continued until Gage got smart and went home. I then clipped Blackie on leash and we walked down to the creek. Well, on our way home, a neighbors Golden Retreiver came up to us and Blackie kept on trying go after it. He was ok with Gage, but he was going after the Golden Retreiver with a 'I'm gonna fight and nothings going to stop me' additude. The dog decided coming up wasn't such a good idea, and went home.
Ok, sorry for the novel. Any idea on how I can get him to ignore other dogs? Thanks for reading the really long post! lol