[YorkieMother]

You do not want him to get in that mode... you want to train outside the panic attack. You want to work with him so the dog coming at him does not get inside his freak out zone so you can treat and train the calm. You leave or stay out of that zone until you can drop the area from say freak at 20 feet to walking right by at very slow steps of could be an inch at a time or more if your lucky. When working a reactive dog there is no fast cure and no easy way to get this done over night or even in weeks it can take a long time. This is way socialization is extremely important so this kind of clean up work is easier done or less needed.

Short leashes teach pulling. Take an arm of a friend pull... what do they do.. pull back to stay standing.. yes???? now push you Friend what happens. they push back... Yes??? so it ingrained in normal for a dog to pull against or push against what is pulling or pushing him.

Why the gentle leader works is that it puts the pull or push on the back of the head so they lean back into it so not pulling forward.

So if your working a short leash all your going to do is teach the dog to pull.
Slack leash using be a tree or I you pull I stop or we go home or do the switch and go a different way if he pulls... Teach go sniff so he can sniff and come back the more you send him out the more he will come back it the Premark theory works on everything the more you allow someone or something to do what they want the less they want to do it.

Not sure what you mean by putting him on the side... hope it not a alpha roll as it will only increase the fear. In the dogs thinking...That dogs coming at me are to be feared cause Mom freaks out tosses me to the ground ( ouch) holds me down( ouch) and make me stay with a big ugly stranger dog in my zone. AHHHHHHHH panic sooner.!!!!

How would you feel in full panic mode you where forced to face the snake or spider or gun carrying mad person.... would you stay calm? would it make you able to deal with it better? being forced to stay and not be able to get away.
aloha rolls or being made to sit in the fear zone makes things worse. Once they can not eat a treat you in a loose loose situation get out.

behind you sitting so you are between him and the dog coming at you. It is called splitting in dog talk.. see Truid Rugrass work.. and helps calm the dog and you can teach the dog go behind when you are scared gives them an ok to be scared and allows them to learn to deal with fear. It is a time out for them.
Learning dog body languages a great help and fun too. See turid rugrass book on talking terms with dogs.
Once you learn what you do looks like before a panic attack kicks in you can move to stop it and work the calm.
yes I still have occasion to oops us into a panic attack with my dog but we get out and move on and we have built in coping skills now if we oops.... like peeing on the tree to relieve stress ( dog not me) like bad mom here is extra treat or look I have you ball lets play. Takes time to get those to but the relationship built in I will help and protect you is worth it.

JL