Kathy's prodded me and run off to college....
Ooooooh juggling life, baby, dog........ eek, tough job!
Have to echo what Lisa has asked about Ty - the more info the better really.
Firstly - i know JUST how bad it is when you fear walking your dog because of an uncontrollable element, ie someone elses dog. I have had a similar situation here - its extremely unpleasant.
I would expect these other dogs are 'defending' their property, which is quite normal if totally undesirable, and more so if they spend a lot of time outside with nothing really to do but make pains in the backsides of themselves (the devil finds work for idle paws!)
Im not surprised your dog wants to retaliate - if you went past someone who screamed abuse at you every day adn you felt threatened, couldnt run away.... I bet eventually you would snap and give some abuse back - I know id want to!
What i think i would do, is teach Ty that when he goes past this house, he gets a great treat - whatever is his favourite, food or a raggy toy may help, if you have a tuggy game with him so he can get his frustration out on that rather than aggressing back at these other dogs.
Is it possible to get to a distance from these dogs where they are going nuts but HE isnt yet reacting, although is aware of them? If so, thats when you want to start giving him plenty of treats. Go closer, keep up the raggy game or treats - if he starts to react, back off again. And all the time (hard part.....) stay cheery and positive and happy, not panicy and shortening the lead etc, as this will tell him there IS something to be worried about.
As well as this - id teach him a few new commands. Behind me, where he steps behind you so you are between him and anything he finds threatening. (Treat in hand, to his nose then draw it back behind you and when he is stood behind you, give the treat. As he gets the hang of this ask 'behind me' and do it. Eventually you should be able to do this anywhere with just the command and a hand gesture, but take it slowly at first and practice everywhere you can.)
The other is 'watch me' where you ask him to pay close attention to your face - show him a treat and hold it up to your face, his eye will follow and when he gives you eye contact, reward him. Gradually lengthen the time between eye contact and reward.
This will give you more control over where his attention is - if hes focussing on you for a treat he cant be shouting at the other dogs.
More training stuff: Do little (5 minute, 10 max) clicker training sessions for various tricks, behaviours etc - doesnt *really* matter what you teach him, its the learning process thats important as he learns to seek new ways to please you (ie get you to click adn reward him), and you bond much better.
Do these everywhere, kitchen, living room, hallway, outside in the garden, on the pavement - basically everywhere your dog goes, train him. Because dogs are quite context specific - a command or cue learned and understood in one place may well NOT be in another (which often explains why dogs behave wonderfully at training classes but seem to completely forget it elsewhere!).
Other things to amuse him: Food is incredibly important to dogs and these days with dry food etc they can hoover up a days nutrition in around 5 seconds. Normally, eating raw food this would take up to an hour or more, so you can see that a LOT of a dogs day would be spent eating (or looking for the food to eat).
If you cant provide raw meaty bones for recreational munching, and not everyone can (i only provide BIG raw bones in summer out in teh garden as the smell makes me heave), the next best thing is a Kong - if you havent seen one it vaguely resembles a large red or black rubber space weevil (if youve seen a space weevil..... you probably havent
).
Anyway, this thing is hollow, its pretty much indestructible even by the biggest of dogs (get the giant black ones).... stuff these wtih food, taken from his daily rations (or of low calorific value) and then he can spend his time getting the food back out again.
Stuffing a kong is quite an art (as is de stuffing one for your dog), you may need to start off with easy things so he gets the idea and gradually make it harder. You can stuff pretty much anything that dogs can eat in it - i smear some marmite and cream cheese in the bottom so they can smell it but not get to it easily, then some dog biscuits, a few bits of cheese, some veg etc and then some more cream cheese and a bigger biscuit to wedge up the end. This takes my dogs HOURS to empty. In summer we do chicken stock, frozen into the Kong - mmmmmmm chicken lollies!
The other thing thats good are interactive toys - ie, toys that are fun for the dog to play with on his OWN. Most dog toys are pants unless a human is involved.
There are some really good toys around though - Dr Noys Plush Toys are good,t hese have a pocket inside which has a squeaker in, you can leave that in or remove it and replace it with food - good for dogs who like to rip open toys.(www.click2treat.co.uk)
For dogs who like raggers and squeakys, there are Mr Twisters (wilkinsons and online) which are combination of rope, ball and squeaky all in one.
Then theres one of my favourites, I-qubes, Intellibones (and a few others i forget the name of) - the I-qube is a semi rigid fabric cube with holes to slot soft squeaky eggs into - you put them in, hand it to the dog and he has to get them out. Hours of fun. The intellibone is a bone shape with a series of rings over it, again soft toy - put the rings on and the dog has to pull them off. You can get those from www.traininglines.org.uk (and they do clickers and clicker books and all kind of other things too).
Hope that all helps (and you can decifer my ramblings!)
Em
