 Thanks
Many thanks for all your advice/suggestions. We have consulted a behavior specialist who concluded that Lenny's agression was territorial - even in the park, he is apparently motivated by territoriality when he goes charging over to passers-by who are quite far away. I also think there is a bit of fear in there. Lenny can be a nervous at times and is very submissive.
We have a number of things the behaviorist has told us to do with Lenny and we are putting them into practice. These include putting him (and Cookie) in the kitchen whenever someone comes to the door, and not letting the dogs "greet" visitors. We leave them in there for ten minutes or so, until they are quite quiet, and we then let them into the living room. This has worked quite well so far. We have also completely cut out giving them food from the table.
We have also been training him to look us in the eye for a few minutes, by holding up a treat against our forehead which we let him eat if he does the exercise properly.
The thing we haven't done yet is use a special collar that pulls the dog's mouth shut if he lunges suddenly when we are out walking him. We haven't tried it partly because he always tugs on the lead, but I guess we should have a go...
Does anyone think the water/ air spray technique is worth trying?
What's difficult is catching him in the act. He hardly ever bites - thank God - but then suddenly, from nowhere he will lunge and nip and the whole thing is over in the blink of an eye...
Sympathies to the other dog owner who's having the same problem as us.
Nom-dun-chien.
(That's French by the way - it's a mild way of cursing that might translate roughly as "For Dog's sake") |