Face to face

My Lurcher has recently started running up to other dogs on our walks and barking in their faces. It is highly embarrassing and not a good behaviour. How can I stop her from doing this?

She does need a certain amount of off-lead running each day, so I don’t want to confine her to lead-only walks forever, but at present I am faced with uncomfortable episodes when another dog appears from behind a tree. It doesn't happen with every dog, but it is happening too often.

Any advice you could give would be very much appreciated.
Maxine Dyer, by email

Walking on eggshells

Hello Dogs Today,

I read your magazine regularly and would like some help with my Border Terrier, please. She is two years old and is a lovely companion.

The problem is when she is out on the lead for walks. She barks furiously at every dog she sees. Off lead on local pasture land she plays happily with other dogs and has good recall although, just recently she was playing with another cross-breed terrier and it developed into a fight and I don’t know which dog started it. Also, my dog started humping the other dog and I have never seen her do this before. 

When walking her on lead I try to distract her when I see another dog approaching. I ask her to look at me and offer her a treat and keep doing this until the other dog has got a good way past us. This is working if I see the other dog before mine spots it and also if the other dog does not pass too close to us, otherwise I have no chance of distracting mine and thus we have the furious barking and black looks from everyone around us including the other dog’s owner. Sometimes the other dog’s owner will laugh and say they understand. 

It is really hard work walking her out now. I have had Border Terriers before but not had this kind of behaviour to contend with. My husband often used to walk our dogs, too, but he passed away. I have got this Border after he passed and so I have brought her up on my own. I have been told by other dog owners and a vet that she is protecting me.

Please can you advise me because she is wearing me out and I am not as young as I was? If I had known what I know now I would maybe have got an older rescue dog but I thought, having had Borders before, I knew what I was getting and with rescues I maybe wouldn’t be too sure of their temperament and adaptability. I like that all my Borders have been bomb-proof and fearless but this one has gone a step too far for me.

Kind regards,

Libby Coles, by email

Loud and clear

Please can anyone help?

I have two dogs who, while not being the most well trained dogs on the block, will come back when called and are fine around other dogs.

However I have recently gained a second hand Ray - too male to be a Rose - who was 18 months when I got him. He had never been allowed off a lead and had never been socialised with any other dog or many humans either. The excuse I was given was that his previous owners had taken him to a puppy socialisation class but he had been attacked by another dog so they never went back, and their answer was to not let him near other dogs, so now he thinks that all other dogs are frightening creatures that he must bark at to make them go away.

When I said I would be prepared to take him on I stressed it was subject to him getting on with my original two, and I agreed to meet on neutral territory and walk them all together to make sure they got on. However when the dog turned up - who has now been renamed Buddy - I was informed that this was the first time he had been in a car, this was all his stuff, good luck on the walk and they had to go.

It took us about three days before he stopped barking at the other two dogs indoors. Thank heavens for understanding neighbours. I called in a behaviourist who got us to join her class by at first walking him round the outside of the field that she was holding her training classes in and gradually moving him nearer until we were able to join the group, and he did calm down considerably but then she lost her training ground and gradually all Buddy’s old habits started creeping in.

After about three months I contacted another behaviourist who came out and walked Buddy with me and gave his recommendations, which were to take him to a park and let him 'bark it out' until he stops of his own accord and looks back at me and then to praise him. This trainer thought he would be bored of barking within two weeks. Unfortunately he never gets bored. I even enrolled him in a six week growl class which really doesn't seem to have done him much good back in the real world.

I now even have to take him out on his lead to go into the back garden as he barks out there. I still cannot walk him with my other two dogs and am at my wits end as to what I can do now with him.

Can anyone offer any help/suggestions?

Rebecca and Buddy, by email

Stop my collie pup developing bad barking habits!

I have a 20-week-old collie pup who is a lovely little dog. I also have a six-year-old Dalmatian-Collie cross and a 13-year-old collie.

Skye has settled well in our home and is clean and gets on well with the other dogs. He has attended six weeks of puppy classes. However, what has surprised me is that he barks at any dog he meets. I have been consistent in taking him into our nearby town, and he is keen to meet people, children, wheelchairs etc, but not other dogs. At puppy class he interacts with other owners but not other dogs.

Help!

Yours sincerely, Gill Burfitt, Llangollen, Clwyd

Ps – he is very bright and eager to learn

Barking on the lead

Hello Dogs Today,

I wonder if anyone could offer any advice.

I have a six-year-old Cocker Spaniel that we have had for one year. My problem is that she randomly barks at people and most dogs when she's on the lead, barking and lunging at them. I have been to an animal behaviorist. He advised lots of treats, but she's more interested in barking than eating the treats. She has been on Zylkene for 10 days now, is it too early for it to have started working yet? Off lead she is fine, but on the lead she barks at people/dogs across the road and I cannot even get her to focus on me.

Have you any suggestions please?

Many thanks

Sally Vincent, by email