Here's my issue,

I have a 6 month old Male DDR German Shepherd, he is great most of the time.
He knows sit/down/stay/come, performs all with little to no hesitation.
He was quite the little biter when he was younger, I redirected and dealt with it and it has since gone away almost entirely.

My new issue is this, when walking him if we come upon another dog or sometimes people who he wants to go meet he becomes very excited, pulls, barks etc.

I can coax him away after a few seconds but afterwords he turns his attention to me, he will jump up on me and nip at me or bite my arms/legs, not hard but he wont stop and he has actually ripped some shorts and shirts doing this.

He will eventually stop and then all is well he will act like nothing ever happened and we continue on our walk.

Now I do my best to correct him when he is doing this but it only seems to escalate his nipping and jumping.

My question is why is he doing this? is it a dominance thing where he is challenging me because I didn't allow him to do want he wanted IE getting to the other dog or the people, or is it that he is just overly excited and needs time to cool down?

How should I handle this situation? I have started putting his prong collar on him during our walks but I haven't used it yet, I heard it was a good idea to get him used to wearing it on walks before actually using it.

He is a big boy, 67lbs @ 5 1/2 months with no fat and although I can easily still man handle him if needed his growing size is making these incidents quite annoying to say the least.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you may have.

Scott~

I will be the first to say I am not a pro trainer. It sounds to me like your pup is getting bored of just going for a walk. He wants some fun action play time with you. I would always walk with a tug toy. The minute you see an oncomming distraction take your toy out and play a little tug with him or see if he is happy just carrying it. When you have a pup you might have to look a little crazy in public but you need to keep your dog focused on you and he wont if your boring to him. So liven up your walks and play tug for a few minutes here and there. If nothing else it will save your shirts and shorts. He will most likely outgrow this habbit in time but this should manage it for now. Good Luck. I hope it works for you.

If this dog is not a protection prospect, my advice is turn and run away playfully and then play tug. Teach an appropriate behavior before you use correction.

You, the owner, are supposed to be the coolest thing in your dog's world. You are more interesting than dirt and way more fun than another dog -- you just need to show your pup that!

When you see people or other dogs, turn around, calling, clapping, praising, running and when your dog is focused on you, pull out a toy for tug of offer a jackpot (a bunch of treats in a row). Don't do this if the other dog(s) are loose, they will chase you and your pup.

Be consistent, put in on cue "look here" or something and your pup will learn that you are just too cool. IMO, this is not a case for prong (but keep putting it on the pup so he gets used to wearing it.)