Non-dog friendly dog advice please!

Some of you may remember me saying before about Rio being my rescue and due to never having been exposed to other dogs (as far as I'm aware) for the first 3 years of his life has zero social skills with other dogs.

Important note: he's all bark and no bite, he'll snarl and want to sparr with the other dogs but has never ever bitten/ drawn blood etc.

Now, Rio was rescued October 2014, and he's come a long way and i'm very proud of him. We can now walk down one side of the road with a dog coming down the other side with no negative reaction 9/10. There's also a big field we let him off the lead to run around in when no dogs are about, and if a dog comes into the field with their owner all I do is call him back or squeak his toy and pop him back on his lead.

We've figured his main issue is having dogs enter his personal space which seems to be around a 5-10m radius of him. It's also when another dog "stares him down" in the distance and Rio will become a little fixated on them.

Now what I want to know is, should I be pulling him away or does that invoke a reaction?

I know not to reassure him and be all sweet voiced with him as I know that can be taken like praising him for the behaviour and reinforcing it.

I try to keep a loose lead and just call him to allow him come of his own accord, but what do I do if he just won't budge? As he will get a little 'loud' if nothing is done

Thanks!

Call him away but don't pull, Kerry. I'd be working on the 'watch me' command - so putting a treat up to your face and waiting till he gives you eye contact before he gets it - and also on 'this way!' using a toy, so that you get all happy and call him towards you to play.

These work really, really well. There's a great book that explains it in more detail:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feisty-Fido-Help-Leash-Reactive-Dog/dp/1891767070/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449476067&sr=1-1&keywords=feisty+fido

You need to resist the pull, as adding tension to the lead will usually just make the dog want to pull back, in other words towards the other dog.

We use the "this way!" but when it doesn't work and he's just pulling to the other dog we just have to pick him up :l he's not food orientated in any way outside and training seems to go out the window when he's fixated

You need to train 'this way' first, Kerry, making it fun and using a really high value reward.

The other thing is to avoid getting so close that he's fixated. Do get that little book, it's not very long but it's very, very good and she explains it all so well.

My Flo is a rescue like Rio so I know how hard it is to try and figure out what their thought process is. With Flo it took us a while to work out like Rio, she hasn't got a vicious tooth in her head but can appear aggressive and occasionally sound that way too.

We used to keep her on a long lead because we were so unsure as to whether she would leg it or go and confront a dog in her space but after some considerable time we worked out that she won't wander too far from us but was still a little unfriendly to dogs that pestered her.

My OH used to distract her with her favourite Toy Stix so that she wouldn't become fixated and having been on the forum for some time by then I decided to try to build on this success. As soon as Flo felt uncomfortable she would look at me or the OH For her Stix but we wouldn't give it to her every time .

This has now transposed into whenever she feels awkward or tense she looks to us for reassurance and her Stix. There is no fixation and she will now happily walk straight through a group of dogs without flinching.

The upside to this is that my OH is far more relaxed with Flo and in turn Flo is more relaxed and even tolerates other dogs pestering her to a certain degree. She will still react when in a situation where she feels cornered but that happens so very rarely.

I'm not sure this will work entirely for Rio, however, you might be able to adjust my findings and work out something that works for you