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Dominant male schnauzer

19 10:08:13

Question
We have a 3 yr old (neutered) male schnauzer who is extremely dominant. We live in a high rise condo and if we see anyone when we go out for walks, he barks at them.  (if we see another dog he barks/lunges and is uncontrollable) We are on our 5th trainer and on her first session, he peed right in front of her when she walked in, then tried to poop on her when she sat down.  We have followed the advice of previous trainers and do not allow him to sleep w/us, we eat before he does, I pretend that I eat out of his bowl before I give him his food, walk through doors before him, etc...but nothing seems to take him down a notch.  He is extremely protective and acts as if everyone is a threat to me.  When walking, he never relaxes but is always "on guard"..turning, pacing and will bark at anyone that goes by.  Any suggestions on how to make him understand that it's not his job to make everyone/everything go away?

Answer
If this were my dog, I would put him in a Gentle Leader Headcollar.
http://bargraph.com/gentleleader/ (Hint: the more dominant the dog, the more he will fight it. Just ignore him and leave it on all the time as long as someone is home with him.) It seems that he still has no respect for you and is trying to run things his way. You also need to get him into on-going obedience classes for several months and work with him every single day.

I would also do thirty-minute long downs with him at least three times a week. Scroll down to the next-to-last article slightly over halfway down the page... "Training the Natural Way by Wendy Volhard". http://web.archive.org/web/20071022223519/http://volhard.com/general/artbywv.htm

Since most schnauzers hate water, you might also try shooting a stream of water in his face when he is unruly. He barks, you tell him, "BE QUIET!", in a very firm voice, and spray a stream of water from a spray bottle right into his face. If he is quiet, praise him quietly with a smile on your face..."gooood dog; good QUIET!" You could also give him a piece of kibble as a treat as you verbally praise if he is behaving.