Quote: mallory kwiatkowski

There are 2 shepherds "guarding" a car lot behind my house, and when we walk past there, he is lunging and barking,

Walk past farther from them, and walk fast enough so he cannot get into lunge-bark mode. That's letting it go way too far. LOOKING at the other dogs is where you correct.

JMO.

i do correct when he is just looking.
but in trying to not break him, i am not correcting hard enough, and he ignores it, or rather, he crouches, lifts a front leg, then bounces up and immediately is lunging at them.

But when do you correct? I mean do you correct the moment he notices the other dogs? Thats when the correction should take place.
If you only do it once you get closer to the dogs and he's looking at them, thats just confusing him. Watch him intently and correct him for any sign of him going into lunge/attack mode, tail starts to raise, ears prick up, hackles, staring etc etc. Your timing is critical here and the correction has to come the second he first looks at the other dogs.

I see everyone mentioning to use a prong on him. Just remember to not use that prong if you are correcting him for the dog to dog aggression. Prong collars can amp up a dogs aggression so make sure to not use it then.

i am correcting the moment he notices the other dogs.

FWIW, my rescue Doberman showed much the same behaviors as these little dogs, ie, "come" means grovel/ignore/go in the opposite direction, acted as tho if he considered responding to a basic OB command, well, nope, sorry, i'd like to, but, ummmm, no thanks.

he "knew" the commands, but compulsion training ruined him. so we did as Connie has suggested: retrained w/german commands, using ONLY motivational training, and guess what?: this is my daughter's 4-H dog, she wins every year with him.

he's still a nerve-bag in some ways, but he is SO much more mentally stable than when he came to us it's amazing. he's just a big soft baby; all he wants is to "do it right", but i think no one ever gave him the chance before.

as to how we accomplished this: purely positive training, a long line at times, and that was it. he WANTED to please, and worked at it. i think it'd be harder for *little* dogs to finesse perhaps, but it sounds to me that you're dealing with what i did. solution: change commands, make it positive!!!

A few things stand out to me in the info presented. I will reiterate about using a fine leash and micro prong. He may not even need anything but a flat collar. I would try it first and then move to the prong.
Some of the problems I hear also sound like pack leadership issues. If your dog is ignoring you it's more than likely a leadership issue. I don't know if you've seen Ed's video on this but it's worth watching.
The advice on correcting the dog as soon as it sees the other dogs is good I think. I like to use the term "as soon as I see their wheels turning" this is the time to correct or at least touch them to grab their attention again.
I also believe the dog sounds a little soft so you have to watch the way you use your voice. The inflection and tone of your voice may be part of the problem when it comes to the submissive posturing. If you are leaning over the dog in any way, this can also contribute to it. With one of my GSD's it made all the difference between having a calm grip and having conflict during the grip.

I would lighten up on the corrections a bit depending on the time it takes your Chi to recover. Soften your no and leash corrections until you get a reaction and the dog recovers quickly. You may want to change when you correct and how you correct the recall. Your Chi may be thinking it will get punished if it comes to you. You may want to change the recall word too and start over and change tactics.

I would never pick a dog up and tell them no. You could cause other problems and they may think they will get punished when they do get picked up.

You could also act like you are going away from the dog and move away while doing the recall. Make a weird noise or something to get the dogs attention to get them to come.

You could also use 2 draglines and have someone help you calling the dog back and forth using lots of praise.

Alternate between food, and treats and start using more praise and building a better relationship with the dog so that your praise means more than the treat. You could also use toys along with treats and praise for the reward. Alternate time periods for rewards. this will let the dog know he will get a reward but, doesn't know when.

Back up a bit and go to an area that has less distrations and work on the recall more. When it gets more solid add more distrations.

I would also like to recomend marker training it will give you more time and will make it easier for you to get your timing down better. If your timing is off between praise and corrections will also slow you down as far as progress and you can also unkowingly end up praising unwanted behavior and correcting the wanted behavior.