My Goldie boy will be turning 18 months soon. I made myself a promise that I would not have his bits chopped off. Since we’ve had him we’ve been really struggling with leash reactivity And frustration outside or in any new place. We’ve been thought a vast number of trainers all that seemed to never help us. He will hyper focus on dogs very far away from us even after extensive attempts at desensitisation and gradually getting him closer. It just ends in him getting very quickly frustrated. He will literally turn to stone focusing on dogs and then when we turn with him he will either lunge, do a very dramatic stand on hind legs and spin or jump up on us in frustration. Inside he’s an angel, outside he is definitely stressed but it’s been like this since 8 weeks. Anxious, loud, didn’t like being held, didn’t like being on leash. Took him to training classes straight away, worked with him lots at home. Took him out for socialisation (was usually just him yapping constantly) We’re about to work with our 7th trainer (wish us luck) but I was wondering if this is something the implant I mentioned might help with? Does it effect the coat in any way? Does it help or make anxiety worse? Thanks!

I've used suprelorin on two dogs, and I would generally recommend it before castration, but I can't see it helping in your dogs case. If he's anxious the drop in testosterone is likely going to make him worse, and it can take a long time to wear off, much longer than they market it for. It does change their coat just as if they were neutered, softer, fluffier coat, less mane, fluffy patches on outside lower back leg etc but all this returns to normal when the implant wears off.

Does your boy get off lead to play with other dogs?  If not I'd look for a local freedom field, fully fenced dog field, they're popping up all over the place and make sure he's getting enough exercise and is physically tired when you take him out for lead training, it may be easier to distract him with food or a squeaky toy then?

I would also try to arrange some group walks.

This helped two of mine who suffered from frustrated greeting behaviour.

They would bark when we daw other dogs, whose owners generally avoided us as I walked all mine together.

I knew it wasn't aggresdion as at shiws where they were able to gereet they wete fine.

I started walking each of the two OTT girls with one of their chilled companions on group walks with a dog walker.

They went out daily with different dogs.

This reduced their excitement for interacting with other passing digs, so that when I walked my gang all together therevwas peace.

They were happy with regular canine interaction outside their pack.

I have tried it and it made things much worse.  Exactly the same age he had a combination of fear related aggression, frustrated greeter, protectiveness and unfortunately he desperately needed his testosterone for confidence.  I removed it with the implant and he became more nervous of all dogs, all small children and even some adults, it was a scary time.    Small dog so the 6 month implant took nearly 12 months to wear off and I have never trained a dog so much in my life during that 12 months and even that didn't stop it getting worse.    Once the implant started to wear off, the improvement was quite dramatic.  Now at 3, he is ok with all females, he doesn't like some males (intact) and will not be happy if any dog rushes up into his face.  He is genetically reactive in some situations with some dogs.  The way through this is maturity of the dog, good consistent training and lots and lots of the right socialisation for the dog and lots and lots of picking up the right signals and understanding the triggers for the owner and keeping him below that threshold where he reacts.  I cannot and would not ever let my dog off leash to greet another dog, every meeting it has to be managed.  A nose to nose to see if he is going to be ok and then if he is ok he can be let off lead.  Counter conditioning with the dogs he doesn't like will not work with my dog so avoidance of some dogs will always be a necessity.   I do know of someone who had the implant implanted into the stomach of the dog so that it could be easily removed if the reactivity got worse.  I had no idea that was a possibility.  Her dog is so bad now with the implant that she is having it removed.  Bear in mind if you go ahead that there is a 2 week surge of testosterone at the beginning and you are best keeping your dog well out of the way of anything that triggers the reactivity during that time.  To help with the reactivity there is a Facebook group called Reactive Dogs UK, they offer free advice and also recommend force free qualified trainers local to you if you think you need some help.

Yes, He had been going weekly to have off lead play for the last few months hoping that would make things better but we've noticed it's made him hugely worse so we have just put a stop to it. 2 of our previous trainers got us to stop letting him interact with other dogs as they felt it was making him worse. I just can't understand what is going on and why no other trainers have been able to tell us. I've had one say he's anxious another said he's overconfident and boisterous.

We noticed when he was at this place with the other dogs that he is just non-stop. Other dogs will rest but he will pester other dogs to play constantly but also look hugely stressed. It's just so exhausting for us to not understand. I tell you I've tried so hard to get to the bottom of it and paid out so much for training and trainers. Since he was young we've done every impulse control game under the sun. Perfect indoors. Never helped outdoors no matter how slowly we transitioned it.

Some dogs are just like that and he is also very immature still.  It's nothing that you have done or not done and it is really important to accept what it is that you have and then learn how to manage it the best you can.  Have you read The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell.  Very helpful, it's very much about us and the things we do or don't and the affect on the dog.   Also there are some great online resources available like Janet Finlay's Canine Confidence Academy, she has dealt with reactives.  I have had it said that my boy is dominant and indeed sometimes he does try to bully, he is not good with overly submissive placid dogs, he likes to take advantage but he is also scared witless sometimes of large dogs and in the fight or flight category he will fight.   He gets funny with dogs that come near me so I have to avoid them.  Definitely join that Facebook group, as I said advice is free and we all know what it's like.

This is where the Group walks (I'm talking brisk lead walking with head collar, not an amble) helped with self control for mine, as she was too pushy playing off lead, fine with some of her male lab chums, but not for lrss assertive dogs.

By ealking on lead with other digs she had controlled interaction.

The pointvwas to teach her other dogs were not for hooning around with.

Similar to how I insist that dogs and children are not allowed to rough house.

When I had young children the dogs were taught to not join in their games, and interaction with them was quiet time.

Much safer, especially with other people8 children and dogs.

I’ve had a dog who behaved in a similar way. He really very much wanted to please, so much so that the least wrongly timed praise or reward would fix an inappropriate behaviour. Laughter at cute puppy mischief was one such reward which took a couple of years to stop the behaviour. He also reacted like yours to certain other breeds, and fear was definitely part of that.

I don’t know if yours is similar, if it were my dog I referred to I would think that as a very young pup he’d been encouraged and praised for interacting with other dogs and thereafter felt he had to interact without understanding the difference between good and bad interactions and has become anxious between fear of some dogs but wanting to please by interacting.

Can you get him to focus on you when a dog comes into view? I used tubes of squeezy cheese, and tubes of liver etc pate made for dogs. By having him at what he felt was a safe distance, and squeezing tastiness into his mouth (a tube can deliver instant continuous reward, better than individual treats). We then progressed to walking behind, or parallel to, a calm other dog with an understanding owner, and finally walking with that dog, and then with other dogs singly, and afterwards with more than one dog.

Lots of praise for calm behaviour, ignoring as far as possible bad behaviour (sometimes it’s necessary to give signals to other humans that you don’t encourage bad behaviour but are training). When you can get him to listen to you at such times, ask him for a sit, then praise, reward, tickle ears (whatever’s good to him) all the time he is calm. I taught mine to sit close to my legs being praised and petted while looking at the object dog, but praise and reward ceased when he stood or lunged. Keep yourself calm, too, otherwise he will pick up on your tension.

We had to work on almost a dog by dog basis, it took a long time (months) to get him to listen.

There has been a similar post about a naughty Goldie here:

https://forum.champdogs.co.uk/topic_show.pl?tid=151996

Your dog does not seem to be aggressive so I wonder on two things that may be adding to this hyper activity and reaction to other dogs. One is food. I had a little working cocker who came to me when her owner retired and no longer worked her and said she was unmanageable. She, although no longer working, was still on a working dogs food and going off her head with all the protein/carbs. I slowly switched her onto a Burns dry food, 'Calm and steady' or called something like that which helped so may be worthwhile considering your dogs diet, there is a reason racehorses are fed high energy food to give then fizz,  and riding school old campaigners are fed hay.
Two. Retrievers are bred to be swimmers, and to have great stamina in the water retrieving shot prey. As such they have large lungs, as do Danes and Dalmations, as coach dogs, and greyhounds as racing dogs. In association with large lungs retrievers often have large, and/or prominent windpipes. The Goldies, and Flatties, do not have a thick coat to protect their throat, such as a curly coated retriever would have or a Portuguese water dog. If you run your hand up and down your dogs throat you will probably feel its windpipe. For some dogs pressure on this is very unpleasant. I have had a number of gundogs who some of which were happy with a simple collar and lead, others could not tolerate it so many different methods of restraint I have applied, some like a harness, some the Halti, most a slip lead, or a half choke collar. My GWP who did behave very much like your dog on occasion preferred the figure of 8 slip lead when walking. You can get a figure of 8 slip lead from Rod and Gun, on Amazon. You just slip it over the dogs nose and round the back of it's neck, then there is a stopper to allow you to adjust how tight you want it to be. Works on the same principle as a headcollar/Halti. If it works for you it will be cheaper than another behaviourist and I would not get your dog neutered unless there was a clinical reason to do so.

One thing leaps out at me here, for three reasons.

> it’s been like this since 8 weeks.

This means that it is extremely unlikely to be a hormonal issue, so the implant (or indeed castration) is unlikely to help.

It also suggests that this could simply be how he is.  Some dogs are born not being good with other dogs - I have one here - and the most productive thing you can do is accept that, not try to change it.  Sometimes the trying can just make things worse.

However, it could also mean that there is something going on medically that he was born with, that has been overlooked, and could make a difference.  It brings to mind my oldest dog, who I adopted at 13 months, and who had always bullied dogs prior to that.  I was never able to make progress with it until at 6 years old, an MRI looking for something else found that she had narrowed nerve root canals in her lumbar spine.  Congenital defect.  She had been in pain since birth, and it was expressed in her behaviour towards other dogs.  There were no other physical signs whatsoever.  When she was put on painkillers, the bullying stopped immediately.

So with that last bit in mind, I strongly recommend you post about him on here, if you're on FB (I recommend joining if you aren't, just for this):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/332134427492077

That is the ACE Connections group, the FB front for TTouch based learning run by Sarah Fisher (ACE being Animal Centred Learning).  It's an amazing group and ACE looks at the whole dog, not just the behaviour: gait, diet, coat changes indicating possible underlying issues, every inch is considered.    Recently there was a case of a dog whose only indication of anything being wrong was a small zigzag pattern in her down near the base of her spine.  She too had a spinal problem that was causing her pain, but there was no physical sign of it otherwise.

Food sensitivities could also be a factor and again, show no other signs, and could have always been there.  Again on the ACE group there was a case of a dog who was sensitive to rice, and it caused severe aggression towards other dogs.  With rice removed from his diet, his behaviour resolved completely.