Stopping a Doberman mix From Reacting to the Sight of Other Dogs

By: David Codr

Published Date: March 16, 2018

Jake Dobermand SHepherd - Stopping a Doberman mix From Reacting to the Sight of Other Dogs

For this Omaha dog training session, we worked with Jake, a 3 year-old German Shepherd Doberman mix who charges and reacts to dogs on walks or if they pass by his home.

Jake is a really playful dog, but I could instantly tell he was a high energy dog who wasn’t getting enough exercise. He ran around in a circlet, checking windows checking in with the humans, grabbing toys to run around with over and over. It wasn’t until about 90 minutes in that he actually laid down and rested his head.

Your average dog needs 45 min of exercise a day for a minimum. Jake was not your average energy dog. He likely needs 1.5 – 2+ hours of exercise every day. I explained how great the fetch is for dog exercise, showed them an indoor exercise tip, suggested they get an iFetch and get back to regular walks.

I recommended a few other dog behavior tips such as starting a daily exercise journal to track his activities and their impact on his behavior. Other suggestions include some home maintenance like covering the bottom half of his windows so he cant see and react to the dogs, people and trucks passing by on the street.

Another suggestion was to incorporate more rules and structure to help Jake see his humans acting as leaders in his mind. There were a number of indicators that told this dog behaviorist that Jake had gotten the idea he needed to be the security dog for the home. This was absolutely related to his reactive behavior.

I showed the guardians a focus exercise that should be really helpful as Jake responded to this positive dog training exercise fantastically.

Because Jake was so reactive on walks, I spent several minutes offering tips to help the dog behave on walks. You can get some free dog behavior tips on teaching a dog to behave on walks by watching the video below.

As mentioned in the above video, teaching a dog to be calm on the walk starts inside the house. If the guardians practice the leashing process as described, they should find Jake much easier to walk.

While the Martingale collar will give the humans more control on walks, my preferences it to train a dog to walk with a loose leash in a heel position instead of correcting. This is a much more enjoyable experience for the dog and the human.

We will have our own Lidia come by next week to start teaching Jake to stop pulling on the leash on walks. This will take some time and practice, but based on how smart Jake is, Im excited to see his leash training progress.

To help the guardians remember all the dog behavior secrets I shared with them in this in home dog training session we shot a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.

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This post was written by: David Codr