Well i see from your first sentence that you are triggering her to go up a notch when you move her to the other side, that is when you become tense and she takes over. When you walk her , does she listen to you at all, like when im walking my dogs they look up at me for direction, i look back at them and tell them good dog good heel. If they see some one in the distance and they start to focus on it, i tell them NO!, HEEL if they do not break focus and glance up at me they get corrected and i move them back into the heel if they have not done it.
Its hard to give advice without seeing you walk her, but i still think going back to the basics to get her to focus on you some what is the place to start. When you are out walking do not move her but make her follow you when another dog is coming towards you, if she focus on something tell her NO and say it with force and go in the opposite direction a few steps, turn around tell her to heel put her in the heel and walk on if she focus again do the same thing. You have done it her way for to long , now its time to do it YOUR way, you are the human and need to let her know that when the leash is on she must listen to you, you are in control not her. I use words that come out with force like HEY, NO, A (like saying act without the ct on the end) as i say them i give a quick jerk to the leash, trust me she will look at you. As soon as you change your mindset that you are in control and not her you will see a change. It doesnt matter if she wont work for treats or praise etc make her do it and when she does do what you want still tell her shes a good dog and give her a pet and continue.
I have worked with her like you are describing and as long as the approaching dog isn't too close, she responds like you are saying. We've done focus exercises with her since day one.
There comes a point where nothing I say or do will get her focus back. And again, this is very typical for her breed. It's not a lack of effort on my part. Certainly, I'm willing to do more focus exercises if that's what it takes. I just want you to know that this is something we work on and always have.
I've tried the turning in the opposite direction thing. When I do that, she gets worse. I think because now the approaching dog is behind her. I will literally have to drag her gagging body down the street. Like I said, she's in a snug martingale right up behind her ears. It's effective leverage against her pulling anywhere but she'll hang herself from it before she stops trying to get to dogs that are too close or who are acting aggressively toward her. She is very serious about keeping an eye on things that she perceives as a threat. Making her sit has the same effect.
Keeping her moving forward and past the dog has so far been the most effective way to deal with her. I put her on the other side(and keep in mind that I notice the other dogs way before she does) so I am between her and the other dog. Not because I can't control her but because I don't trust the other owners to keep their dog on a short leash. Remember I'm talking about a sidewalk, there just isn't that much room between us. She's used to being on either side of me so I hope that the act of moving her isn't triggering her to the presence of another dog. Also, I don't move her and tighten up the leash. If moving her is the issue, I'll stop doing it and have her wear a muzzle so she doesn't snatch up a small dog.
Once the dog is past us and moving away, she'll make one or two efforts to get another look at it before going back to her normal walk. And I correct her for that too.
I do praise her whenever she is doing what I want. But please remember that my dog does not care about what I think. They've been bred to make their own decisions without input from humans.
Again, I am fully open to the idea that she is reacting to something I'm doing. But because I realize that she takes her clues from me, I try to project all the right signals. So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't know exactly what it is. And I don't really feel like I'm not in control of her. Her behavior never gets her anywhere. It's not like she wins anything when she acts out, and she's nowhere close to being able to overpower me. Is there more to it than that? Does it just take a long time before they get the point?
As per Hector's advice, I've started keeping her in a much stricter position when we walk. That and the turning around has really helped with her pulling. We were doing the stop and wait for her to look at me thing but she was happy to do that all day. And for dogs across the street or dogs crossing our path more than 15 feet or so away, keeping her moving and correcting her works fine. She just came off of a month and a half bout of pano so she wasn't getting out as much. Maybe using the stricter walk regimen will help with the dog reactivity, but we haven't been doing it long enough.
Most of the dog reactivity advice involves counter-conditioning and gradually moving closer to other dogs. That is what we were trying. Because I have nothing to bribe her with, there wasn't much progress. So now, we want to try something else and get some outside advice to point out our mistakes and try to understand why she is reactive to other dogs. Is it just a dog aggression issue or is it a dominance issue? Maybe she's just overexcited. Remember, once she's done posturing she'll get along with other dogs for the most part. Does it even matter? Maybe I'm too worried about the why, but that's how I roll.
I'm hoping an actual behaviorist can pinpoint what is triggering her so I can direct my efforts in the right place. I will certainly let you all know what she says. It will be interesting at any rate.
If nothing works, I'll ship her to you and get a poodle.
