Why does my dog bark at other dogs when excited? How can I stop it?

Question

Laika gets really excited when she sees another dog and wants to go play. Lately she has started to bark when she sees other dogs. How can I curb this behaviour? Pet's info: Dog | Mixed Breed | Female | spayed | 1 year old | 10 lbs

Jennifer Summerfield, DVM CPDT-KA · Accepted Answer

Many dogs have this problem - it's called leash reactivity :) It happens because Laika is so excited to see another dog, and frustrated because she can't immediately run over to them - which leads to barking and lots of crazy, uncontrollable behavior. Fortunately, this behavior is usually very treatable with a good training plan. Normally, a training plan for these dogs involves using very tasty treats to reward calm behavior at a distance from another dog - it's critical that you're far enough away that she can be calm and take treats, which means that you may need a lot of distance at first! Once she understands the game and is doing well, you can gradually move closer. It can be hard to do this on your own at first, so I would really recommend getting in touch with a good reward-based trainer who can help you in person. He/she can help by setting up controlled training situations at first with a calm "helper dog" to help both of you get the idea of how to work on the problem, until you're ready to transition to real life scenarios like passing another dog on a walk.

Why does my dog bark at other dogs when excited? How can I stop it?

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