I have a 2 year old Belgian Malinois mix and she is great around other dogs at the dog park or dog beach and wont be aggressive towards anybody, weather she is on the leash or not. Outside the dog parks if she see's another dog walking she will start making noises and whinning very loudly and seems to be very anxious/nervous. If I take her over to meet the dog sometimes she's fine and other times she can start to growl, I guess it depends on the dog. However, she is trained on the e-collar and when she gets into that state of mind the e-collar won't effect her and I don't want to turn the level on the e-collar up so high that I shock her. Do you think either the dominant dog collar, prong collar, or something else could help?

 Quote: Chad Brezina

something else

Maybe you could just avoid those kinds of situations, especially off leash.

she is always on a leash except for at the dog beach....avoiding the situation is avoiding the problem. You can't fix it unless you put her in the situation. She makes the noises only when she cant get to the other dog. I'll make her sit and she'll whine very loudly until the dog is out of sight. She may even lunge a couple times and I'll have to put her back in the sit position.

So I would work on desensitizing her to these situations.

Do you have any friends with dogs who could help you?

Use the search function and look up desensitization. Basically, you take the distraction and start as far away as DOES NOT illicit a reaction from the dog. (So she should be in a heel with a focus) then slowly (over days/weeks/months, not minutes/hours) move closer to said distraction until it no longer illicits a reaction. She should be neutral to all other dogs until you decided she can play with them. (Just a word of warning, your dog may be friendly but other dogs are not, and they have ignorant owners who think that their "fluffy" could never hurt another dog.) So what Lucille was saying is that, it isn't always the best idea to let her meet strange dogs, but better to let her learn to ignore them.

If you have friends who you know and trust and your dogs get along, then those would be the dogs to let her play with if you really want her to play with other dogs. There is just so much that can happen in the blink of an eye, and the best protection for your dog is to avoid some situations completely.

You should also read the article on dog parks, very informative.

In order for desensitization to work, you need to have your basic OB commands down pat, to me basics is - Sit, Heel, down, stay, come, focus. If your dog can do all of the above in a medium distraction environment, then you should be able to work on the desensitization and slowly move her up to a high distraction environment.

That's a good direction to take. You think using treats to show that when she see's other dogs it means good things(treats) are coming. I really only have one other friend that has a dog that that she has not met. I live with two other dogs but she knows them and is comfortable with them. At the dog parks she is one of the most polite dogs there to other dogs and humans. It's just outside the parks. It almost seems like she just wants to go meet the dog really bad and she can't because I'm stopping her and that starts the whinning. LOL dog psychology is confusing. I'm definitly going to try desensitizing her...and I'll post back to tell how it's going. I wouldn't be suprised if she picks up on it really quick. She's a very smart dog that can do many things like open the refrigerator, the front door when the doorbell rings, and turn on and of lights.