Dog owners— reactive behaviour advise needed

[lovesdisney]

I have a 16mth old choc lab, she is a fantastic dog, great with humans kids and our own dog.
She is brill off lead and has good recall.
We have been to training classes since a pup and have done socialisation, bronze and silver good citizen and working toward our gold.
She is an excitable dog but I’d say calm down quickly.
Her only niggle is pulling on the lead which I have been working on... mainly on the way to a park he will pull like a steam train.. this calms down after the walk which usually involves off lead run around.
I use a Baltimore head collor for longer walks which is amazing g but she doesn’t like.
She has recently started barking at other dogs and grumbling... she does this with the dogs at dog class in the waiting area who she is familiar with... and when our walking if we great another dog.
I have looked into this and think she has reactive frustration due to excitement of meeting other dogs but due to the lead and situation gets frustrated... but not sure why she grumbles at them.

Any ideas how I can solve this problem as it’s not a behaviour I want... I have read that by telling her off won’t work and that rewarding her for good behaviour- the calm behaviour is more reinforcing than chastising bad behaviour...

[disjunkie]

It probably is frustration but if you can afford it it may be best to get her assessed by a behaviourist to make sure and get the best advice on how to fix it. Alternatively I’d probably try the Look at That (LAT) technique, basically you start at a distance that’s far enough away for her not to react and reward when she looks at the other dogs and looks back at you, then gradually get closer and closer. There’s lots of YouTube videos that show how it works better than I can explain it but it seems a highly successful technique for reactive dogs.

[Sitron]

First of all your girl is beautiful - I am biased as our home was graced with two Labs - sadly though no longer with us.

Our two would also pull like a freight train - not fun with two. Labs as you know are very clever and very good at training their owners

Our girl behaved in a similar way to what you describe as she got older (18months is like their teenage stage). It's a dominant dog behaviour.

Praise and reward does work but you have to get your timing right otherwise you can accidentally reward an undesirable behaviour.

I would have a chat with a dog trainer for advice and some practical help. We also learnt a lot from Jan Fennel (The Dog Listener) - reading her books really helped us understand our dogs much more.

[Rebelrebel]

For the pulling turn and go in the opposite direction to where she is pulling you, when she behaves turn and go back. The barking I had the same problem with my lab up until she was about one and then it was like she'd run out of barks , she very rarely barks now, strange how it just stopped I do wish she would at night if she wants to go out instead of whining as I can hardly hear her as she's downstairs. The excitement is difficult to contain, Molly has the same enthusiasm for people, other labs and big dogs as she did when she was a pup, she's nearly 9 and she'd give Tigger a run for his money with all her bouncing, I like that though, it show's character. If people ignore her she's good but just saying hello to her and its like she's on a pogo stick. Last year another lab owner stopped to talk to me, Molly went crazy, she asked me how old Molly was and when I told her she tutted and said her dog was 18 months and that she was training her, what stuffy old woman she was

[merlinsmum]

Your girl is beautiful. Our lab is a bit shouty / grumbly with others. He has arthritis and doesn't like younger boisterous dogs bouncing around him. He really hasn't got a nasty bone in his body though.

We bribe him not to be shouty - he's very food orientated. We say 'sweets' and he knows not to shout / bark or he doesn't get one (they are dog treats not real sweets)! Once youve worked out the trigger, I think positive reward training works well with greedy labs generally.

[mrsnicola]

Hi
Our chocolate lab is exactly the same, she’s 7 and last 12 months or so she barks at other dogs, not all the time mainly smaller dogs. Strange we just try to distract her x

[SimonB]

Our Labrador used to pull. During training they said when he did it to stop dead until he stopped pulling so realised he wasn’t going to get there quicker. I also increased my walking pace slightly which helped.

He never pulled on the way home though.

They are like big kids sometimes.

[shazza1961]

My girl was /is like this, sometimes she barks at allll the dogs, other times she isn’t interested ... but I can tell when she is gonna be ‘barky’ her shoulder and stance ‘perks’ up... so I talk to her telling her to behave and feed her ham 😃😃 and when we have passed without a fuss I give her loads of praise xx if she has got one on her and ignores me, I just apologise to the other owner and pull her away saying ‘this way’ and quickly walk off xx