Still having issues with Ben on his lead

[Icaraa]

I accept that 9 month old Ben was probably let off his lead too early on, but we can’t change that now. 

Hes fine walking around on his lead until he sees something he wants to go and investigate, or when he crosses the road. 

So if he sees a dog or person on the other side of the road that he wants to go and say hello to and can’t he goes mad. He starts jumping up and biting his lead and our arms.

If he’s on the same side as whatever it is that he wants to say hello to then it’s no problem, as he can do so and then he doesn’t do the crazy jumping up.

I can usually get him to stop this by kneeling down next to him and telling him to calm down. 

However this isn’t really tackling the issue as he just keeps doing it the next time.

 

[GentleLake]

You need to teach him an alternative behavior and enforce and reward it each and every time.

[urge to herd]

Teach him to 'sit' whenever he sees another dog. On his side of the street, on the other side of the street, wherever. This is a good general thing to train in any event. You might find that it's easy for him to sit when there's a dog on his side of the street, but he loses it when the dog is on the opposite side of the street.

You're teaching him that sit means sit Each and EVERY Time a human says the word. Proofing will likely be needed, and need to be reinforced in different situations.

Reward the heck out of your boy when he sits on his own, in the peace and quiet of home. That will lay a good foundation. You might want to randomize, then fade the rewards later on, after he's sitting every time he sees a dog, but for right now, show him how great he is for simply putting his rump on the ground.

Good luck!

Ruth & Gibbs

[jami74]

13 hours ago, Icaraa said:

 He starts jumping up and biting his lead and our arms.

I'm still working on our boys lead manners. We've got it pretty good when there are zero distractions but he'll lunge and bark at cars, people etc. I've taught a down when there's a distraction coming up and then he looks at the thing then back to me and when he looks back to me I drop a treat between his front legs. If it's a very big distraction then the treats are rapid fired, if he's calm and it's not such a big deal then he gets to watch it. He's nearly eleven months and there's definitely been a noticeable calming down in the last month, almost like he has a second to think about it before he reacts. We've done similar with people, I take him places where there will be people but they are not too close, then when we see a person he sits and looks at me for a treat.

He was much younger when lead biting was a problem but what worked for us was the 'leave-it' command. We taught it with things he's never allowed to have rather than bits of food that he gets afterwards. The lead biting got crazy at one point so I bought a brand new lead and spent a few days teaching a 'leave-it' command on the new lead, starting really calmly  with it just laying motionless on the floor to the point where I could shake it and wiggle it about and try to entice him to a game and he wouldn't touch it. Then started using for lead walks and he's not bitten a lead since.