Socializing?

So. I have an 8 year old Welsh Corgi male dog named Charley that does not like any other dog. He growls and barks and tries to get away from me to attack the dog. I know he will do damage because there was this other dog that wasn't on a leash and came up to Charley to sniff him, but Charley tried to bite the other dogs neck! So my question is how can I get Charley to at least accept other dogs? Is it even possible? Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Jane on January 13, 2012 at 5:35pm

At 8 years old I think it will be a big challenge to get him to accept other dogs. It may be possible to train him to at least ignore another dog in passing, but I don't think he will ever be buddy-buddy. If you haven't done training with a reactive dog before I would look for good positive-based training facilities in your area. Some will offer classes like "reactive rover" which are specifically for dogs with aggression problems. A few private sessions with a trainer would probably be extremely beneficial too, but they can be pricey. If you want to try and do it more yourself I would research counter conditioning and desensitization to start:

http://www.aspcabehavior.org/articles/14/Desensitization-and-Counte...

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Permalink Reply by emma & charley on January 13, 2012 at 6:00pm

Thank you so much!!

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Permalink Reply by Snickmom on January 13, 2012 at 7:02pm

I have an 8 year old English Springer with the same problem. I bought several books on training older dogs and agree with Jane. It may be possible with desensitizing and conditioning, but it would be a lot of work. I am going to start another thread about books to train older dogs (they all seem to be about puppy training). I have been having luck with Snickers, my 4 yr old corgi, but she was not as difficult around other dogs. You can also search this site for discussions of similar problems by clicking members on the top bar, then click forum. there is a search box that you can try different words like aggession and see if there have already been ideas put out that might work for you. Good luck.