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I have a male 100 lb. 3/4 yellow lab, 1/4 white shepherd. He is extremely smart, even for a lab/shepherd mix. I used to work for Guiding Eyes for the Blind and I can say from experience that he is above average intelligence even for those breeds. He learns very fast and is very respectful of me and the people he sees regularly, but there is one problem. He CANNOT be trusted around other male dogs.

His history here should be mentioned. He was found by his previous owners wondering around on the side of a highway, with scars on his face and some missing teeth, judged to be about 3 years old at the time. The people that found him kept him for less than a year because he had a habbit of unpredictably biting people that came to their house. My family saw a listing they put in the Pennysaver and that's how we got him.

Having some dog training experience from my GEB work, I taught him not to attack people anymore and at this point he's very trustworthy and even affectionate. And he's learned all the basic commands. I had him sitting before crossing the street without being told to do so in only a matter of weeks.

But sometimes I'm not around to walk him, and only large, strong people can fill in for me (I'm 6'7" and 240 lbs.) because he's been known to snap the lease out of the walker's hand upon seeing another male dog, at which point he darts over and attacks.

Now I've been trying to work on this, but I only feel comfortable doing so much because if you make a mistake, you've got a neighbor with an injured dog and it's not worth the risk. He's already bitten 3 dogs badly enough that they needed medical attention. What I do when another dog approaches him, if I can't avoid the situation entirely, is I hold the leash very tight and wait until the other dog is done checking him out. The times when he has bitten other dogs when I was with him, I made it very clear that I disapproved of this and locked him in a room by himself for several hours. And he responds to this, clearly concerned about my approval. But it seems to make no difference the next time he sees another male dog.

And the strange thing is how it sometimes comes out of nowhere. There have been times when I thought we had made enough progress that I could give him a little more freedom. And he'd start playing with the other dog, tail wagging, then out of nowhere just bite the dog and pin him to the ground, and not respond to anything I did other than physical intervention.

Does anyone have any ideas for how to get this highly intelligent, highly responsive dog, to stop injuring other dogs? I would love to be able to let him play with other dogs more because I know he'd really enjoy that. And it would be great for him also if he could be trusted because he'd get walked by the other people in my house who are afraid of him pulling away to attack.

You've got a very smart dog, so instead of forcing him to tolerate dogs in his space and sniffing him while you restrain him (which makes him scared, trapped and defensive), instead be the smart leader and do not let other dogs into his personal space. Respect that he doesn't like other dogs. He's old enough that "socializing" through flooding this way will not work.

I've got a dog reactive dog that I would have called dog aggressive at one point, but now she's just sensitive and as long as I don't put her in a situation that she's uncomfortable with (unknown dog nosing her rear end), she looks at me and tolerates the intruder. I treat her tolerance lavishly and quickly remedy the situation by moving her and the offending dog as far apart as possible. It's my job to protect her and respect her inability to cope with unknown dogs. I'd much prefer she let me handle the interaction than for her to take it upon herself to handle the interaction by snarling, growling, and biting. Her old way of handling things before I adopted this method was to react and lunge trying to scare the dog away from her- basically the mentality of "the best defece is a great offence."

So, my advice to you is to realize this dog has limitations with his ability to cope with other dog (a male dog probably caused the scars on his face) and he's afraid. Respect that fear and work with it. Reward the good and do not put him in situations where he can practice the bad.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles

I don't think that's quite what's going on with him.

But before I get into that I want to explain about letting other dogs sniff him. I only do that when I have absolutely no way of avoiding the dogs coming into contact, particularly if I'm walking him and an unleashed dog runs over to say hi. Otherwise I always avoid the confrontation ... but to his dismay.

You see, the weird thing about him is that he never looks timid or afraid around other dogs. Even when some other dog is sniffing his butt, he has his tail wagging and head held high, and looks perfectly content. And when he attacks, it really seems to come out of nowhere because it doesn't even look like anger, more like a misconception of what "playing" means. I've never even seen his hair stand up on his back. And when he sees another dog, he focuses on the dog and begs to be let to go say hi. Fortunately he gets along okay with female dogs so he does get to socialize some, but it would be much better for him if he could be trusted unconditionally, because he'd get walked more. My dad can't walk him at night due to poor night vision, and my mom refuses to ever walk him after helplessly watching him rip open a dog's back, and I'm not always around.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here and really at this point a behaviorist is really your best option (someone trained in canine language who can see this dog in person and see what is going one).

Your remark:
What I do when another dog approaches him, if I can't avoid the situation entirely, is I hold the leash very tight and wait until the other dog is done checking him out. The times when he has bitten other dogs when I was with him, I made it very clear that I disapproved of this and locked him in a room by himself for several hours. And he responds to this, clearly concerned about my approval. But it seems to make no difference the next time he sees another male dog.

-Holding the leash very tight as you describe would be hard not to do, but it really is a trigger to the dog to escalate his attack and to escalate it very fast. He's absolutely trapped and his only way of getting away is to bite. I'm surprised he's not bitten a person yet. Also, I'm curious how you "made it very clear you disapproved of the behavior" and your reaction to lock a dog into a room for hours is inappropriate. In my experience with training, for a reactive dog doing any form of punishment- even just scolding- validates a behavior and makes it reoccur. Yes, the dog needs to stop the adrenalin rush in their system and a "time out" is warranted, but hours is excessive. Their memories are not that long and it truly takes days for adrenalin to leave the system anyway.

I'm not sure what I'd do with a dog that's drawn blood on another dog, but in my area a loose dog approaching my leashed dog has no rights. I've even had a police officer tell me I have the right to mace an intruding dog. I worried about my aim however and choose to walk with an umbrella to scare away any unwarranted attacks. You'd be incredibly surprised at how effective a fast openning umbrella thrust at a charging dog really is at deterring any unwanted pestering by stupid off leash dogs. It's also good at jabbing and putting up a large barrier to protect my dog from the intruder. I've also heard others who have this problem that carry tennis balls and throw them at offending dogs. In my area the off leash labs would chase a tennis ball and go play with it instead of pestering us. another person told me to throw tomatoes at charging dogs. It would either sting when it hit them so we were no longer an appealing target or they'd want to eat the tomatoes. In all cases, contacts is not made with my dog. I've kicked at, screamed at, tied my dog to a tree and grabbed a charging dog and stormed it to it's own home before yelling at the stupid owners who let their dog loose. Yes, their dog is "friendly' but I quickly tell them mine isn't and mine can put theirs in the hospital. At one point I even carried copies of the leash laws and gave copies to the owners when I returned the offending dog. All of these 'over-reactions" on my part made my dog trust me more and our walks are incredibly relaxing now. OK, I have neighbors who think I'm walking Kujo, but I don't care.

Do you see the poitn I'm trying to make? Your dog will not be 100% reliable in this area, but you can make it better by just not letting the situation happen. It's not easy, but it does work.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles