My Doberman male puppy is 3 months and 2 days old as of today. I take him for a short walk every evening. We walk about 3/4th - 1 mile. There are a lot of out of control dogs in the neighbourhood that fence charge and are just ill behaved. There are also a few stray dogs on the street that run freely on the streets.

While walking whenever there is an other dog barking, I ask my puppy to focus on me ( look into my eyes). He does that most of the times even though he might be a bit agitated. However today for the first time, when we were passing a house that has a really aggressive fence charger, his hackles went up. No amount of coxing would make him look up at me as we continued walking. his entire attention was on this dog that was barking aggresively. I quickly walked away from that house and praised him for loose heeling. But his hackles did not go down for a good 40 seconds afer we had passed the house.

Isnt he too young to have this sort of a response? He did that only to this dog and not to other street / housebound aggressive dogs today. Is this likely to escalate to all dogs.


Most importantly what should I do? Should I avoid that street or take him to that street often and desensetize him.

Please advise.



Edited by Ramachandran Subramanian (06/07/2010 08:18 AM)
Edit reason: Bad english

Guys, would appreciate your help on this issue.

For the sake of the pup, I'd probably avoid that street all together for awhile. Then I'd walk on the other side of the street when and if going that direction again.
Distractions like charging dogs take time to work through, if ever.

Having to look into your eyes is a bit too much to ask of a 3 month old pup under that distraction level. I'd settle for a relatively loose leash and not getting worked up about it. But I wouldn't allow that totally focused, intent stare either.

I agree with Randy. That is a heck of a lot of distraction for a puppy. Sounds like he is doing great with the attention work but I don't like to push a puppy too quickly. You mention at times he seems agitated; to me that is the signal the distraction is too much.

I'll work with a puppy with a distraction that he is curious about and wanting to check out but any sign of agitation or defensiveness I would step way back to a point the pup is comfortable and progress slowly.

 Quote: randy allen

For the sake of the pup, I'd probably avoid that street all together for awhile. Then I'd walk on the other side of the street when and if going that direction again.
Distractions like charging dogs take time to work through, if ever.

Agree 1000%. Wayyyyyyyyy too much for a pup. He's just coming out of the Fear Imprint period. Here's what I just read about puppy development in this period:

 Quote:

Fear Imprint Period

Experiences a puppy perceives as traumatic during this time are generalized and may affect him all his life. It is a fact that a dog is most likely to develop an avoidance response if subjected to physical or psychological trauma during these four weeks.

Source:

http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/DevelopmentalStages.html

You need to gain control of this pup's environment.

So, I took my puppy today for the walk and made him sit in front of the houses with the crazy barking dogs. I made him show his posterior and sit facing me. He was such a darling, even though he resisted a bit at the begining. Once he figured out that he was supposed to sit in front of every barking dog, he just did it with a little bit of guidance and looked at me with his ears back and I just wanted to give him a big fat kiss.(I resisted the urge ).

Is this the right thing to do ( not the kissing thing, but the making him sit showing the other dog it's rear end)

Ram

The reason why I am doing this against most of your advice ( which was to avoid the route ) is because if I avoid the route(s) I have no way of taking my puppies for a walk. I have no route that is with out 7 or less crazy dogs.


Is making him sit facing me showing his butt to the crazy pooch a viable alternative?

Why bother wasting everyone's time answering your questions if you are just going to do what you want anyway?!

that was not my intention. i value the advice of this forum , or else i would not be wasting your time by asking questions.

rather i have no way of avoiding bad routes as i have no good routes, as i have mentioned in my post. kindly consider my question in that light and make a suggestion.