ROTTIE - 3 YEARS

Question
We have a wonderful Rottie, she is just 3 years of age and in most ways lovely. However, we have two MAJOR problems with her, the first is, she is absolutely obsessed with the TV. She knows every jingle and rushes to the TV to watch. It doesn't even have to have dogs on, anything will do.

The second and most problematic is that if we are out with her and she sees another dog she goes mad to get to them, and I do mean she pulls like mad and gets very very excited. I know the main problem is that she wasn't very well socialised as a baby as we have another Rottie who is much older and is very possessive of her and caused trouble with other dogs !!!  However it is getting very difficult to take her out - if there are no other dogs in the vicinity she is fine, she sits to command and waits for us to get to her but if she sees another dog, off she goes. She is NOT aggressive, she just wants to get to them and say hello.  Unfortunately, other dog owners and dogs are terrified when they see a large Rottie bouncing towards them and we therefore keep her on a lead, but being so strong she can pull me off my feet. I suppose what I am asking is, is there any way to stop her and get control ?  We would love take her out and socialise her and spend time out and about but this behaviour spoils things.  DO you think you can help ?

Answer
Even though the book was written to help owners of aggressive dogs, I like the protocol in Emma Parsons' "Click to Calm" as a way to train a dog to give full attention to the handler.  Unfortunately, it may require you, at first, to do much of your training where there aren't any other dogs.  You build distractions slowly, proofing the dog's behavior at each stage;-)  
In terms of the TV, she is probably intrigued either by the noise, or by the movement (dogs see contrast and motion well, but their acuity in seeing fine detail is not as good as ours).  If you don't want to spend a ton of time training, you could try a "calming cap" (Premier Pet makes them).  That might block enough of the visual to keep her from being all that interested.  If not, go to plan b and train a solid down/stay. and leave it.  Make it fun - she gets great stuff for NOT blocking the TV.  Free lessons on skills training: www.clickerlessons.com (not my site, but I like it).