In my opinion the solution begins with management. That means control the environment you allow these dogs in while you deal with the training.
I am a balanced reward based trainer, which is how I structure my training program. Simply put this means I start training with "markers." When my dog understands the language of Markers, I use markers to teach behaviors by using high value food rewards.
When I am 110% done with the food rewards and if the dog has toy drive, I will add toy rewards after I teach the dog “the rules of play” (that’s another subject though).
Here is the rub. 99.99% of dog’s out there will eventually reach a point where the distraction they face (in your case that’s another dog) has a value that is higher than your high value food reward. At that point the dog will not follow your commands.
At that point the handler needs to give a correction that is strong enough to change that dog’s behavior.
Now the purpose of corrections are not to "correct a dog for bad behavior." The purpose of a correction is to change behavior. What that means is that some dogs may only need a verbal warning to change behavior. Some dogs may change behavior with a slight pop of a leash or a tap on the butt to redirect the dog. But there will be some dogs that require a very strong leash correction with a prong collar for it to change its behavior.
Learning how to determine what level of correction to use requires handler training and a willingness to do what is needed to change behavior. Some people simply will not apply the level of correction that their dog requires. They think there must be another way. They are always wrong and they always end up with a serious problem, because at the end of the day they have allowed their dog to practice bad behavior.
What also happens when handlers administer ineffective corrections is the dogs become desensitized to corrections. That is when the real mess starts, because that dog just went to a whole new place where it now really needs a serious correction to change its behavior. That new level is much higher than it would have needed if the owner had not TRAINED THE DOG that it can handle nagging corrections.
So, if you want to change your dogs' behaviors you need to learn.
You may want to consider the online Basic Dog Obedience course we released a few weeks ago. It has 150 videos in it and is designed as a 6 week course that is open to students for 12 weeks.
I produced my first obedience training video in 1982 and revised it more times than I can remember over the past 30 years. The course contains the full version of my DVD Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Pet and the full version of The Power of Training Dogs with Markers.
There is no question in my mind that this is better than taking a dog to a local training class. Dog training classes have 20 to 30 dogs. This is a HUGE, HUGE distraction for any untrained (or aggressive) dog which results in the owners being more concerned about their dog acting stupid than they are in hearing what the instructor is saying.
Here is a link to an article I wrote titled Ed Frawley's Philosophy of Dog Training. You may want to read it.
Regards,
Ed Frawley
