Every dog owner can understand the friendly behavior of its pet. But it doesn’t mean that the dog will show the same attitude towards other dogs. You may have realized that whenever you take your dog for a walk, he/she could frustrate you and others by reacting towards other dogs.
Is it easy to train your dog to get along with other dogs? Short answer is Yes. You can easily train your dog to change their aggression into love for other dogs. But it does require a lot of patience.
Today, we are talking about the tip to train your dog to get along with other dogs. These tips are very easy and don’t need professional help except in extreme cases. Without wasting any other time, let’s start talking about it in the below sections.
Introduce Them With Others
The first rule to train a dog in such cases is to let them be aware of others. Outdoor interaction with other dogs is the best possible way for it. Every society must have a common park where every dog owner comes for a pet walk. You can also take your dog to such a place so your dog can get used to others.
The environment plays an important role in such situations. Make sure to take your dog for a walk whenever you see a limited number of people with their pets. In fact, decide the time beforehand and make sure there are no more than a handful of people outside. It will help your dog not to get scared of the crowd during the training.
The entire idea supports the interaction of your dog with others. Yet, maintaining distance is essential during the training to not face any bad experience.
When your dog stares at other dogs, and is positively responding, make sure to lose the lashes and reward your dog with a treat. Rewarding your dog will bring trust in the dog’s mind that meeting other dogs is not a wrong thing.
When your dog shows positive intentions toward other dogs, you can minimize the distance. However, Keep an eye on the behavior of your dog when they are closed to other dogs.
When you feel the dogs are comfortable, make sure to lose the leash and leave them to play. The interaction time should be shorter in the first few days, so you would not face any issue.
Generate Obedience Power
Whenever you are introducing the dogs with others, your dog needs to obey your commands. For that, it’s important to teach your dog to sit, stand, heel, and other commands. It will help you to control your dog verbally and will have more impact. Learning to control your dog via commands plays a vital role especially when you go out for walks.
Flooding
Flooding is a very tough and dangerous technique that you can teach your dog to interact with others. You can consider this technique as a way to remove fear from your dog’s minds whenever they see other dogs.
Flooding is a robust approach where you have to force your dog to face the fears. As a result, your dog will learn to stay normal and will become less sensitive in the presence of other dogs.
If you are applying other techniques, make sure to skip this one on your dog. Different techniques can create stressful experiences for your dog.
Dog-on-Dog Aggression
It’s also a significant problem where a dog seems to be very aggressive towards other dogs. Past dog attacks, human abuse, hormones, and chaining are the reasons for such behavior.
If your dog also has this behavior, you can go for professional rehabilitation. It helps your dog to forget past experiences that created aggression in the behavior.
Don’t Ignore Their Behavior
As a person yourself, you don’t prefer friendship with anyone you meet for the first time. The same is the case with dogs to become friends with other dogs.
It will take weeks or months for your dog to get used to other dogs for friendship. Yet, it’s not an alarming situation. Your dog must need a break to understand the behavior that prevents them from interacting with other dogs.
For that, you have to call an expert who can tell you about the reasons for making your dog friendly with other dogs. You can also state the behavior problem by looking at the body language. Sometimes, your dog feels stress, fear, or discomfort while meeting other dogs. In this case, make sure not to ignore your dog’s behavior or it will worsen the situation.