Puppies
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Reactive Malinois puppy
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Reactive Malinois puppy
My 8 month old male mal is reactive with other dogs. Covid and other circumstances hindered socialization early on and about 5 months old he got extremely reactive. He would run away if he could, but when leashed, he would lung toward the other dog (large or small doesn’t seem to matter).
I tried working with trainers, but all local are positive only. I’ve worked with a few, but my own past and experience with them doesn’t give me confidence. Their engagement games are slow and he gets bored, he wants to run, jump, chew, chase – be a mal puppy. We found an agility trainer locally who’s a positive trainer but fast paced. My puppy is engaging with me so much more. She changes the course each day so he has to adjust. we make noises to get him used to things.
I’m seeing improvements, huge improvements to me, but it’s not over. I expect I’ll need more assistance but reading and seeing so much anti-balanced training, I’m getting a little lost and confused. I feel silly as this isn’t my first dog, and I’ve used an e-collar quite successfully in the past, but it was years ago and I’m second guessing myself and can’t decide when the time comes to go to the e-collar, or even IF it is warranted.
I’m in Canada, if the borders were open, I would take him down to a trainer in the US who could assess, advise and help train both me and my Mal.
I’ve even tried to reach out to some of the Youtube trainers that I thought might help to pay for advice over the phone without success.
I like this site and Robert’s approach. I found it before we got the puppy and I followed because it made sense. I’m afraid that I’ve got caught up in all the current political correctness and maybe screwing things up.
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