I have recently adopted a 10 month old yellow lab/golden retriever mix (not what you'd expect to be aggressive!), which seems to have a bit of fear aggression to other dogs (very friendly to humans). I have a haltie for him to teach him not to pull, but when out walking him, if he sees other dogs he whines (sometimes growls, depends on the dog and how close it is), directly stairs at the other dog, and pulls on the leash to go over to the dog; I have also been looking at his stance, which seems to be tall, with ears perked and tail up and slightly wagging). At first I didn't know that it was even aggression, as I interpreted it as him just wanting to go check out the other dogs. But with the growling and some of the other dogs reactions to him, it seems like there is a bit of aggression (he seems most aggressive when dogs come up to him that are not on leash). I have let him go up and sniff some of these dogs and there has been no biting or snarling at all (we've met about 10 or so dogs up close); he just sniffs them and then loses interest and is ready to walk on. I even brought him to my parents and he played with their dogs off leash and was fine (although he does growl when they try to take his toys).
I'm wondering if this might be leash reactivity, but don't really know how to find this out as I am too scared to let him off leash around other peoples dogs as I don't want this to result in me not being able to control him if he does happen to bite. Just wondering if anyone else has experience this and what you have done to train the dog not to react to other dogs like this.
Any advice would be much appreciated!