please help my 9 month old has no recall when playing ( or pestering) other dogs. for a time it got better but he is totally deaf . when no other dogs about he is great, have tried treats and toys and when kept on a lead is fine, although he now has taken to lunging at other dogs. have had him since he was 11 weeks old and is very social and loving boy. gos to training although we are on a break at mo and goes to a doggy swimming pool once a week where he socalises with other dogs. he has at a minimum of 2 walks a day and has a large garden to play in so he cannot be bored. i have booked him in to be castrated next week as at the end of my passience with him. fed up with appoligising to people when he wont leave thier dogs alone. please has anyone any ideas that i can try????
also last night was walking from one field to another and didnt see the collie on the far side. my lad ran over to see it and tried to play. i was a long way off but looked like he was just trying to play the dogs owner walked off so fast and put his dog on a lead was heading towards a busy road and although i shouted at him to stop he kept on walking towards the road all i could hear was cars rushing past and my boy ablivious to the danger. i had to shout at the man 5 times before he stopped walking by the time i got there they where standing right next to the railway line. i said thank you to the man and he just muttered obsenities at me. althiough my lad is large he is obviously a puppy and was very upset by this mans attitude. but more so cross with myself for not being able to be in control of the situation. sorry to go on but really do need ideas to rectify this situation. any help will be greatly welcomed

Welcome to Kevin-world! Your dog is being a perfectly normal canine teenager. This phase lasts from about 8/9 months till about 18 months, and the easiest way to deal with it is to go back to basics and ride it out. Castration is unlikely to have any effect I'm afraid - surgery is no substitute for training.

You say he can't be bored. What mind-exercises do you do with him? Now's the time to start lots of training-games with him - thinking is very tiring. You say he goes swimming once a week and that's when he socialises with other dogs. Does he get to meet and interact with dogs the other 6 days? The more dogs he gets to meet (especially at a difficult time like this) the less interesting they become and he's more likely to take more notice of you. As a rule dogs find their own species far more interesting than an alien one (that's us!), and the less they see of them the more exciting they become.

So, can you meet up with a regular group of other dog-walkers to walk with? In the meantime don't let him completely off the lead, but rather have him on a long line (washing line or similar) so that he has the semblence of freedom but you still have control.

he is really social we play hide and seek, loves playing fetch with his ball, walks where he meets dogs everytime we go out granted it is usually the same ones. we go training once a week he always comes to the pet shop with me and to my boys football matches as i say he is a very social lad. he is being castrated for medical reasons as he has a retained testical sorry reading my post i didnt mention it. he is also going to do agility when he is old enough , he is perfect in every other way. does sit stay walks extreamly well on a lead until another dog is present. i really feel he is well socialised. thanks for your advice i will go back to basics again.

Just wanted to say that my lab was exactly the same as you described up until she reached about 2 (she is now nearly 2 and a half).
I tried every trick in the book, but those other dogs were just far too exciting and she would run off to play leaving me apologising to other owners and dragging her away from her new found friends! I tried a long line on her, but she's such a big girl and me a mere wimp, I couldn't hang onto her for long. I resorted to only letting her off lead where I knew it was totally safe (enclosed fields) and encouraging her recall to me when playing with dogs we met on a regular basis. If she ignored me when I called I would run off in the other direction or hide behind a bush, that normally got her to come and find me and return! Now, she still likes to meet other dogs and will run in their direction, but if its not a dog I know or is on a lead (obviously for a reason) I will just change directions and run and she will follow me. (I must look like a total plum sometimes :-) ) She still has her moments, but things are so much better than they used to be.  I also think the novelty is wearing off a bit of meeting other dogs, I don't think there is a quick fix for some dogs, just lots of patience and training! Good luck, he sounds lovely!