lunging for other dogs

[stephanie Craddock]

I'm looking for a bit of advice on my dog Max. Max is a 2yr old collie cross that I adopted 5 weeks ago from a dog shelter, he is walking a good heel until we see other dogs, when he lunges, even from a distance,this is a problem as he is a big dog 40 kilos , and actualy managed to pull me over, Then set off after the dog, because of this I'm trying to avoid these situations.
Also in the car and from the balcony, if he see's other dogs he barks and growls,with hackles up.
How can I go about safely socializing him with other dogs?
Yesterday he also lunged barking towards a person as we passed, although he has shown no other signs of aggression towards people
What should I do about that?

[Tarnador]

my dog used to do this and he weighs over 45 kilos! what I found worked was that I would practice going past dogs that were fenced in, knowing that he would lunge for them - I found that if I ran past the fences quite quickly, he was so busy concentrating following me, that he didn't try to head towards the dog. If he so much as looked at the dog as we were running past, I would jerk his leash sharply and say "no".

I also found that if I wore him out with exercise first, I could practice walking past dogs that were fenced in at a much slower pace. He gradually got better and I could walk past real dogs in the street. I also found that if I tensed up as another dog was approaching, it was more likely that he would lunge as he would react to my tension. You have to practice walking and really try to relax so that your dog will be relaxed. My dog is most relaxed when my mind has drifted off somewhere whilst we are walking and I am not concentrating on him.

Hope this helps

[stephanie Craddock]

Hi Tarnador,
Thanks for the tip, could well be worth a try, For sure Max feels me tense up, but the day it happened I was pretty relaxed, the dog he attacked, was walking in the same direction, some meters ahead, we had walked at least 10 km at this point.
Yesterday I had some headway however, on leaving the house we meet some one with a dog, I retreated some distance away, and sat him down, when he tried to jump up and bark at the other dog, sat him down, and praised, when he stayed, this was all immediately followed by another dog, and he remained sat and did'nt bark, his barking in the car at other dogs is getting less frenzied as well.