EDIT: I just realized I posted this in the wrong section. Should have been "Behavior Problems". Mods, you can move as you see fit, or leave it here.
I am just so proud of Conrad right now--I really feel like with just a bit more time and effort we're going to really turn this behavior around. He's not that bad anyway, which is why we allowed him to go on with it for so long. He is leash-reactive but not to
all dogs. Just certain categories. Small dogs are okay--he just whines at them or else ignores them. Really stable-temperamented dogs who barely look at him are also okay usually. Unless they are medium/large and fluffly. Fluffly dogs he is not a fan of, especially if they are black. Chows are his nemeses. Dogs behind fences are ignored for the most part (unless they startle him as with this dog that's behind a privacy fence so you can't see if it's out in the yard or not until you're walking a foot from the fence and all of a sudden this snapping muzzle appears below the fence) but dogs on tie-outs with no fence are not in any way fine. Anyway, his selective reactivity has always made it hard for me to figure out what to do about it but I figured I'd just plunge in and deal with ALL dogs on leashes regardless of size or temperament in the same way. We move to a good distance (across ths street is usually far enough), Conrad sits, Conrad looks at me, Conrad recieves tasty liver treats. When we walk by a dog behind a fence, Conrad looks at me as we walk, Conrad recieves tasty liver treats.
Well, I have to say the past few days he has really been impressing me. Sunday evening on our walk in the local park I spied two women out walking....a black chow. I moved off to the side of the path, had Marlowe and Conrad both sit and lo and behold, they both stayed sitting (well, Marlowe laid down) and there were a few treats and the chow walked right on by with no incident. This morning we walked by a yard with two fenced chows (what's with all the chows in my neighborhood?) who always raise a stink when other dogs walk by and before I even had a chance to do anything about it, I looked down and Conrad was already looking at me with his "Um, my treat, where is it?" look and not paying any attention to those dogs at all. Then later we encountered a woman out with her Golden, on felxi, behaving fairly badly (but in a happy non-aggressive golden-y way so she was just laughing at him and cooing) and after I put Conrad in to his sit, I looked and OMG there was also a CAT across the street too, apparently owned also by the woman with the golden, so there this woman is, mere feet away from us, with a jumping around golden, cooing at her cat who is walking around on the sidewalk and doing head rubs, and I'm thinking no way is Conrad going to be able to keep it together for this...but he did! He looked away from me a couple times but I got his attention back easily with a kissy noise. The cat of course just stayed sitting there and we couldn't sit there also all day waiting for it to leave, so as soon as the dog went in the house, I made sure I had Conrad's full attention, said "Ok! Let's go!" and off we walked, and he never once looked back at the cat still sitting there.
The thing that I'm most encouraged by is him beginning to look to me before I even give a command when we see another dog. But being able to sit and look at me while a fluffly jumping around dog and a cat cavort and frolick 10 yards away is pretty gosh darn nifty too.