Need help w/Maggie & other dogs

[Karen Jones]

Hi, I could use some advice from all of you!
We adopted Maggie about 7 months ago. She is great with all people, kids, etc. She is also very good in situations like the groomer's, where I leave her for 3-4 hours at a time. The groomer has told me that she wishes all of the dogs were as good as Maggie! (This is a place where there are usually several dogs loose in the grooming area at any one time.) Maggie also has one good "doggie friend," a Westie who lives nearby. She sees him almost every day and they play together beautifully.
So here's my problem. Maggie is TERRIBLE when it comes to meeting strange dogs on-leash. I'm just about ready to not even try it anymore, but it's hard because there are so MANY dogs in our neighborhood, and when we go out walking with her, we often meet up with other people we know who have their dogs with them. Every time I try to let Maggie meet another dog (both on-leash), she will sniff the dog for less than a minute, then snarl and snap at him/her. It doesn't matter if the dog is male, female, old, young, shy, etc.
She also has a reaction when we walk by another dog when we're out walking, although that has gotten a little better with time. I just keep her close to me (we use a Gentle Leader) and try to distract her by talking to her, offering treats, etc.
Is there anything I can do to help Maggie be nice to other dogs when we meet them? It's one thing to just avoid these situations when we're out, but it has also happened when we've been, say, at the vet's, and there are other dogs on-leash in the waiting room.
Thanks!
Karen
PS I should mention that Maggie was adopted from the shelter. She had two families before us--the first family had to give her up when they were evicted. The second family only had her for about 4 months; they said that they gave her up because she didn't get along with their other dog--so that might be a negative experience influencing the way she is now--as well as because she needed an operation on her hip which they couldn't/wouldn't pay for (the shelter wound up doing it.)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/Karen24/Maggie_on_the_grass_ .jpg

[Luciann]

hmmmm, from what you have said it sounds like if the dog is not on a leash she if fine. It could be that she has had a really bad experience with other animals while on a leash this is what she is relating it too.

I know with my two my female is animal/human shy and will snap at stangers if they do not give her time to decdie to approach. My male is okay as long as he does the approaching. I joke that they have little dog syndrome, scared of everything that charges them.

[David Crandall]

OK, I'm going to cheat a little, but here's a copy of a post I just made in another thread. Since you've already noticed that there's really no pattern, that puts you one step ahead.

Treat the heck out of her when she sees another dog (if you distract her and she doesn't notice it's there, then she'll never learn to associate it with anything positive). Try to get her the treats right before she starts to bark, growl or lunge.


We rescued Bozie when she was 9 (she's now almost 11). She has a lot of dog disliking issues. She has bitten our other dogs, but has never gotten to any others. That's not for lack of trying. She goes after some dogs pretty hard. Some dogs she does just what your's does. She gets excited, gets close and starts sniffing, then starts growling and lunging.

Try to look for any patterns in which dogs she goes after. We've noticed that she will usually tolerate females, but will go after any males.

One thing we did which has improved this a lot is praise and give her treats any time she sees another dog and doesn't bark; we also give her a treat when she hears another dog bark. If she sniffs another dog for a few seconds and doesn't growl she gets lots of treats and praise. We slowly built up to this. Each time she'd have to be a little closer to the other dog before she would get a treat. This hasn't completely solved things, but it's made it so there are a few dogs in the neighborhood we can be around without being on edge. And she rarely responds to other dogs barking at us now, which is a huge improvement. We're headed in the right direction. The key is to make it a positive experience whenever other dogs are around.

That said, I don't think we'll ever get her to actually play with other dogs.

With Bozie, we've gotten to the point that if she sees or hears another dog, she comes running up to us excitedly. She'll also run up to a couple of the dogs she knows sniff, and then run back to us. It's almost made getting near dogs a game for her. She also gets an immediate "no reward" when she does start growling. I didn't say this in that other post, but it's a long, slow process.

Dave

[Karen Jones]

That is very good advice from both of you. I am going to start carrying treats with me when we go out. I think we are going to have to give up on "meeting" new dogs for the time being--just back up and start over with first getting her to respond positively, consistently, to just walking by another dog.

Karen