Dog trainer/behaviourist recommendation

Happypot

Hello,

My new rescue dog has very bad reactivity towards other dogs - he gets quite aggressive, lunging, growling and tries to bite the other dog. Have managed to stop him from making contact with other dogs but I’m afraid now to go for walks.

Has anyone been to a trainer that they found long term effective with reactivity like this? He is between 2 and 3 years old. Went to a trainer already who was unable to help. Based in south Dublin.

DBB

You're going to need to talk to a behavioural specialist, and you're looking at a fairly long, gradual process to help your dog to learn to cope with what he considers a stressful experience.

There are some good behaviourists that cover south Dublin. A regularly recommended lady on this forum, with good reason, is Emmaline of www.citizencanineireland.com. She's excellent!

Best of luck!

Faith

I think https://www.anied.ie/ are based in Dublin and they're excellent. If they're not doing 1:1 training work right now, they have a list of recommended alternatives: https://www.anied.ie/our-dog-trainers

Snout & About are based in Cork but I think they travel. Speaking from personal experience, they are exceptional too.

em_cat

+1 for both AniEd & Emmaline. While my experience is that reactivity is something that requires lifetime management, it also brings immense joy when progress is witnessed. Try to keep this in mind.

I empathise with you OP, just know that with time it can and does get better.

Happypot

Thanks all, I will look into who you have suggested. Just don't want to end up wasting my money on the wrong person again. Yeah was thinking it will be lifetime management alright, just really want him to get to a point where he is not having so much anxiety when he is out in public. He actively looks for dogs and freaks out then when he sees them. It's very upsetting to see him like that.

zedhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119668336#Comment_119668336

For our reactive dog, one thing that really helped (along with working with a trainer) was CBD oil. We had to basically switch to management with ours (walking late at night and early morning or places where you would not see dogs) as his threshold was such a far distance that we could not get any counter conditioning done effectively. Literally if he wasnt reacting he had not seen the dog.

We started giving him CBD oil to help him with his reaction to fireworks and we noticed it helped his overall anxiety greatly. He got better at socialising with my parents dogs and even started going to doggy daycare. His treshold distance became managable and we were able to start counter conditioning with im and he has improved so much over the past year.

We didnt actually put 2 and 2 together to stopped the CBD in january for a while and he ended up acting out again almost immediately. Definitely did not replace working with someone qualified, but it made a huge difference to our guy.

Faith

What CBD oil did you use, @zedhead? Feel free to PM me if you prefer than posting it publicly.

zedhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680878#Comment_119680878

We use Hemp Heroes, Ive seen it in a few pet shops.