# Help needed- Over Friendly Golden retriever



## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Figure out when everyone else walks.... and walk at a different time.


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## pawsnpaca (Nov 11, 2014)

Welcome to the forum! First of all, the first thing to accept is that your dog absolutely does NOT need to meet/greet every dog he comes across. In fact, teaching a dog to keep his focus on you until/unless you give him permission to interact with another dog is a great social skill to have. Your dog is in the midst of adolescence, he’s still learning about what is acceptable in his world and how to interact with both the people and the dogs in it. He could also be in the midst of a fear period, when a bad choice on his part (such as being inappropriately “friendly” with another dog) results in a snap or a dog fight and you could end up with a reactive dog who can never be trusted around other dogs. Been there, done that, and it is no fun. I would strongly suggest a few things:

1. Do not let your dog interact with other dogs right now (especially unfamiliar dogs). Keep him on leash. If an off leash dog approaches, ask it’s owner to call their dog. If an interaction can’t be avoided, or if your dog seems determined to meet the other dog, try to turn your dog and happily walk away. If that can’t be done without dragging your dog, and/or the interaction is already occurring, do your best to maintain a loose leash (a tight leash makes it hard for your dog to interact appropriately), allow a brief greeting, and then try again to encourage your dog to walk away.

2. Try to find a few tolerant, friendly, socially-appropriate dogs for your dog to play with. Its good for him to interact with other dogs, but they need to be tolerant of puppy shenanigans while still being able to deliver an appropriate correction when your dog crosses the line of good doggy manners. It may also be good to go for walks with these dogs so that your dog learns that he can be with other dogs without playing all the time.

3. Sign up for a manners class. I recommend this for ALL owners of adolescent dogs, because it’s natural for your well-behaved puppy to seemingly forget all his training as he matures and starts to test his independence. You may find this article of interest: Angst With Your Adolescent Dog - Whole Dog Journal


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

Obedience, obedience, obedience training class. There will be other dogs and he will learn to keep his attention on you, not them. If you don't get it under control now, there's a real problem brewing so do what Lisa said!


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

pawsnpaca said:


> 2. Try to find a few tolerant, friendly, socially-appropriate dogs for your dog to play with. Its good for him to interact with other dogs, but they need to be tolerant of puppy shenanigans while still being able to deliver an appropriate correction when your dog crosses the line of good doggy manners. It may also be good to go for walks with these dogs so that your dog learns that he can be with other dogs without playing all the time.


I disagree with this.

And I'm saying this as somebody who has had a lot of complete idiots come running over to socialize their terrible dogs with mine on the basis of my dogs being golden retrievers.

And there's not a lot of thought given to how dogs see other dogs. And it creates problems with well socialized dogs (the ones that are driven to the point of "correcting" somebody's awful dog and getting into the habit of doing that sooner and sooner when around other dogs to the point of them not being dog friendly at all).

The best way to socialize a dog so he is well mannered around other dogs.... it's going to classes with other dogs and teaching your dog to IGNORE other dogs.

Only exception is perhaps a close friend or relative's dog who is familiar and around very often. And even there, I would rather correct my dog myself for being a pill.... than to have somebody else's dog correct my dog. I do not ever want interaction between dogs to draw to a point where you either have an appropriate correction or you have a scarring situation for your dog who may "draw first" next time out of fear of being attacked by another dog. It's just not a good risk to take with a young dog.

Gotta add - even with my dogs there are some corrections I allow (the look from the top of the totem pole is all it takes), but there's others that I do not want to see, so if a puppy is harassing an older dog or play fighting is getting too long, I'm stepping in to break it up and send the dogs off to cool. I've never had a dog fight happen and while I think part of it is owning sweet dogs, there is also a fact that I'm top dog and it's up to me to keep the peace in my pack. I think that has helped - it definitely helped with our first two dogs who were red heads with bad tempers. They were snarky grumbly things but never had a dog fight.


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## SRW (Dec 21, 2018)

Quit bribing him with treats and letting him interact with every dog you see. Teach obedience.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Megora said:


> And I'm saying this as somebody who has had a lot of complete idiots come running over to socialize their terrible dogs with mine on the basis of my dogs being golden retrievers.


I was thinking about this while walking my dogs tonight (dark and cold.... hello January) - and wanted to make sure that I added a quick disclaimer here - this is something I feel very strongly about since it leads to so many problems with these dogs - especially a breed as soft and smart as golden retrievers. Last straw for me was being on a beach with my dogs - a beach that I drove 1.5 hours out of my way to take my guys so they'd have nice secluded offleash swimming time and I swear this couple stalked us from the trail to the lake (Lake MI) and asked us if their dog could play with mine - 2 minutes after turning their pit bull mix loose with my dogs. Nothing happened but it scared the heck out of me because their dog went charging right into the face of my show dog who fortunately was slippery as an eel + came right back to my side immediately vs doing anything about the piglike dog trying to get in his face.


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## LukeSam (Jan 2, 2022)

pawsnpaca said:


> Welcome to the forum! First of all, the first thing to accept is that your dog absolutely does NOT need to meet/greet every dog he comes across. In fact, teaching a dog to keep his focus on you until/unless you give him permission to interact with another dog is a great social skill to have. Your dog is in the midst of adolescence, he’s still learning about what is acceptable in his world and how to interact with both the people and the dogs in it. He could also be in the midst of a fear period, when a bad choice on his part (such as being inappropriately “friendly” with another dog) results in a snap or a dog fight and you could end up with a reactive dog who can never be trusted around other dogs. Been there, done that, and it is no fun. I would strongly suggest a few things:
> 
> 1. Do not let your dog interact with other dogs right now (especially unfamiliar dogs). Keep him on leash. If an off leash dog approaches, ask it’s owner to call their dog. If an interaction can’t be avoided, or if your dog seems determined to meet the other dog, try to turn your dog and happily walk away. If that can’t be done without dragging your dog, and/or the interaction is already occurring, do your best to maintain a loose leash (a tight leash makes it hard for your dog to interact appropriately), allow a brief greeting, and then try again to encourage your dog to walk away.
> 
> ...


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## LukeSam (Jan 2, 2022)

Thank you for your help! We've booked him into some classes so fingers crossed this helps.

There's no ounce of aggression in him it's just the initial excitement that he needs to calm down. We stayed with my partners family over Christmas who own dogs and we never had an issue. 

There's a good dog in him, it's just getting through this teenager stage


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

I don't think anyone suspects he is aggressive- we're just pointing out your window for teaching him to ignore other dogs is closing, and the best place to do that is at an obedience class and lots of practice.


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## SRW (Dec 21, 2018)

Prism Goldens said:


> the best place to do that is at an obedience class and lots of practice.


Maybe I am stating the obvious, the purpose of a good obedience class is not to teach your dog obedience. It is to teach you how to teach obedience. With a young dog you have to be conscious of the fact that you are always teaching.


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## DevWind (Nov 7, 2016)

SRW said:


> Maybe I am stating the obvious, the purpose of a good obedience class is not to teach your dog obedience. It is to teach you how to teach obedience. With a young dog you have to be conscious of the fact that you are always teaching.


To a point...While you are correct that we are teaching the human to teach the dog, there's a little more to it. The dog is learning to behave in an apropriate manner around other dogs, which is exactly what this one needs.


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## SRW (Dec 21, 2018)

Abeille said:


> To a point...While you are correct that we are teaching the human to teach the dog, there's a little more to it. The dog is learning to behave in an apropriate manner around other dogs, which is exactly what this one needs.


I guess I should’ve said “primary purpose”. Obedience class amounts to what? Between one and five hours per week? That leaves a lot of hours to erase anything that has been learned. That’s exactly what happens when people don’t learn how to train their dogs.


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## DevWind (Nov 7, 2016)

SRW said:


> I guess I should’ve said “primary purpose”. Obedience class amounts to what? Between one and five hours per week? That leaves a lot of hours to erase anything that has been learned. That’s exactly what happens when people don’t learn how to train their dogs.


That's why we always strongly encourage daily work at home in a couple of short sessions every day. And we can always tell if that actually happened. I always talk to my classes about proper socialization. I tell them the area businesses that allow dogs, intentionally avoiding pet stores. That way they can begin with the dog not greeting every person they see without a lot of other dogs around. Places I tell them include Lowes, Home Depot, Cabelas, Field and Stream, Rural King, Tractor Supply. I intentionally leave out some dog friendly places because I don't think a dog that's not under control yet should be there. That's places like Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann. Too many things could go wrong in those stores. I always tell them not to go to dog parks as well.


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## 3goldens2keep (Feb 13, 2019)

LukeSam said:


> Thank you for your help! We've booked him into some classes so fingers crossed this helps.
> 
> There's no ounce of aggression in him it's just the initial excitement that he needs to calm down. We stayed with my partners family over Christmas who own dogs and we never had an issue.
> 
> There's a good dog in him, it's just getting through this teenager stage


As already said, Obedience, obedience, obedience training class! But, you need to take the class with the pup! Training the trainer is almost as important as training the pup. Training is a life long process and you have to become very good at training your dog throughout his/her lifetime. This behavior is perfectly normal and suggests the pup has been well socialized to other dogs. He just has to be taught now when it is ok and not ok...that is one of the things obedience training will provide to you both...


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## MintChip (Feb 26, 2021)

Megora said:


> I was thinking about this while walking my dogs tonight (dark and cold.... hello January) - and wanted to make sure that I added a quick disclaimer here - this is something I feel very strongly about since it leads to so many problems with these dogs - especially a breed as soft and smart as golden retrievers. Last straw for me was being on a beach with my dogs - a beach that I drove 1.5 hours out of my way to take my guys so they'd have nice secluded offleash swimming time and I swear this couple stalked us from the trail to the lake (Lake MI) and asked us if their dog could play with mine - 2 minutes after turning their pit bull mix loose with my dogs. Nothing happened but it scared the heck out of me because their dog went charging right into the face of my show dog who fortunately was slippery as an eel + came right back to my side immediately vs doing anything about the piglike dog trying to get in his face.


You just reminded me of this incident at a Petsmart. Someone introduced their American Bulldog (or white pit) to mine. I didn't know "let's socialize with a golden" was a thing!? Thankfully their reaction to each other was neutral. But thinking back - I feel icky about it and very lucky. The other dog was huge!


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## DevWind (Nov 7, 2016)

MintChip said:


> You just reminded me of this incident at a Petsmart. Someone introduced their American Bulldog (or white pit) to mine. I didn't know "let's socialize with a golden" was a thing!? Thankfully their reaction to each other was neutral. But thinking back - I feel icky about it and very lucky. The other dog was huge!


Being known as a friendly breed can be a curse. Everyone seems to think that all goldens are lovable pushovers and that is definitely not the reality!


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## PalouseDogs (Aug 14, 2013)

Yes, OB classes, etc. For this particular issue, teach and enforce an alternative behavior. When another dog approaches, have your boy Sit and Stay or, better, Come and Sit or Come and Heel. Start training in your yard with no distractions. Walk around on leash, letting him sniff like he's on a walk, randomly say "Come", then Sit or Heel when he comes to you. You can give occasional treats for compliance if you want, but don't treat every time and never use the treat as a bribe. 

Dogs generalize poorly. Just because they are great in the yard does not mean they will have a clue outside the yard. So, next, take it out to a quiet street. Repeat the training. When he's good under those circumstances, find ever more distracting environments, but don't throw everything at him all at once. Find a park where people generally keep their dogs on leash, but work well away from dogs at first. Progress gradually until you can approach a dog on a sidewalk and your dog will Come and Sit while the other dog passes or Come and Heel. For the last step, it is extremely helpful to work with a partner and their dog. Most pet obedience classes will include heeling past another dog or heeling up to another person and halting for a greeting. 

Be persistent and consistent, and practice a lot under controlled circumstances. Outside of walks, give him an outlet for his energy. Retrieving burns a lot of energy, even more so if you have access to safe water. If you don't have access to water, just be very careful about retrieving in warm weather. Many retrievers will, literally, retrieve until they have a heat stroke. In my yard, I have a kiddie wading pool in the shade for the dogs to flop in when they get hot. Kind of a pain to empty and clean once a week, but definitely worth it.


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## LukeSam (Jan 2, 2022)

Megora said:


> Figure out when everyone else walks.... and walk at a different time.


Thanks.


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