1yr old Shihtzu Mix Acts Like He Owns the Streets
My dog is a 1 year old shihtzu mix.He is not a bad dog. I’ve usually gotten praise on his behavior at the vet and at daycare. However, whenever he is on a leash he acts a whole crazy mess. He sees a person and he becomes lazer-focused on them barking, wanting to turn around and get at them. He used to get up to two legs and try to hop (thankfully we have stopped that, but now he just tried to pull really hard to try and get me to move towards them). Other dogs on the street aren’t much better, he acts like a psycho, 1 dog spotted on a walk and he is barking his head off for a whole block. He acts like a psycho to dogs that are his best friends at daycare too. He’s seen a dog that he plays with all the time, barked his head off, went inside to play and literally did a 180 in attitude.
We were using treats to encourage him on walks, but we stopped for a while as he had a stomach issue and we needed to wait until everything was back to normal to continue. Kenny has made a lot of progress since we first started. He no longer barks at the window where a cat always sits, he will sit down when there is something I can tell is going to stress him out (but once I release him he is full steam ahead even though the threat is gone), and he will sometimes not react to a person if they are four buildings away. I want to hire a professional dog trainer but that really isn’t in the cards right now due to cost. I just get so tired of being the neighbor with the ‘psycho dog’ and wish he would act how he normally acts in every other situation.
I just want some advice on how to handle training him and also a little bit of hope from some people that have possibly their own ‘ loveable psycho’ and have been through it.