I have a 19 month golden retriver. when we got him i was told he was 8 weeks and only having had small dogs in the past , though this was correct until i read his vet card and papers and saw that he was actually only 5 weeks old! too late, the breeder was on holiday (obviously why she wanted the pups gone). i now have problems and am assuming it is because he never learnt that essential "doggy language" and socialisation. he was socialised at puppy classes and used to love the showring - up to age of about 1 year. When he was 7 months we got a lab bitch specially for showing and the two ador each other. Problems now developing are: 1. he hates the showring and doesnt want to b away from the security of where we are sitting, 2. when we attend gundog group sessions we cannot let him run loose with all the others as he growls, sometimes goes for them and "eyeballs" them constantly. we have been advised that he is very confused and this is the reason for his behaviour. He barks constantly while we are at work or out in the evening and the neaghbours are getting annoyed.
I am toying with the idea of doing Tellington touch and also some form of "talking to the animals" to try and communicate with him. Please, all advise gladly accepted.
By the way, i live in south africa where resources are pretty scarce, also books etc and it costs an arm and ten legs to import from overseas!

I have a  fear agressive Springer, and the best thing I ever taught her was 'watch me' - take a food treat (hopefully he works for food?  If not, withhold his favourite toy for a few days, then reintroduce it for this exercise) and hold it just at your face level so he can see it. When he's looking at it for a few seconds, introduce the word 'watch me' as you toss it to him.  Repeat this time and again, until the action of you bringing your hand to your face gets him looking at you.  Then you can start to gradually lower your hand each time so its at chest level, rather than your face, but reward him when he's looking at YOUR FACE.  This then makes the hand to the chest the signal to watch you, which can be used along with the verbal command when necessary to break the 'eyeballing'.  At the same time, concentrate of giving him strong 'leadership' messages, by not allowing other dogs to harass him........

HTH

hi digger
thanks for the advice. we took him to a behaviourist this weekend and have now enrolled him for a clicker workshop, but we discovered a very interesting thing - he will not look a human in the eye, even when he looks at your face it is with downcast eyes! and very fleeting. Her advice was similar to yours so she was trying to teach him the look and we discovered this. I am amazed as his actual major problem is missing out on essential socialisation which means he should actually not even be aware that he should not eyeball alpha dogs (which we have always tried to make my husband as the pack leader). we really discovered so many interesting things, we actually realise now how many small things can also influence him. he totally lacks self-confidence so we are going to work to build that up. the clicker course is 7 weeks and includes a confidence course and tellington touch. will let you know how it turns out.
by the way she explained his lack of interest in food in stressful situations as to do with the brainwaves - the wrong ones kick in and he cannot control the fear so food is of absolutely no interest to him in certain situations.
janet ( in sunny south africa)

Just to add I took this advice from Digger and would certainly recommend it - can't remember if it was given directly to me, but I picked up on it when we had issues with Sparky "eyeballing" other dogs and giving out the wrong messages, leading to him being attacked several times. It works a treat if you persevere with it. We also used it to stop Sparky going over to people and jumping at them - he now automatically sits or lies down and watches me now when another dog is approaching. It has certainly made for less stressful walks (and I must admit, it's a lovely change to hear "Ah, isn't he well trained" when I was so used to pitying sighs and shaking heads!)
Tracy