Don't know if anyone remember but a couple of months ago I posted a tread asking for help with dealing with my dogs extrem stress, and particularly the behavior he showed when the stress became to much to handle - he jumped up on me, biting my arms and hands, leaving bruises covering almost my whole arms, ripping my clothes and at the end even drawing blood - when we where out on walks.
We decided to get him neutered and with that I figured "might aswell change his training too" since it wasn't getting us any further. I got a really good tip on this forum to give him a "time-out" from all his "triggers" - strangers and other dogs - to help him get rid of all that stress he had built up due to over-exposure towards his triggers [at the time I didn't know that was the reason either].
I also decided to re-introduce him to the whole concept of walking, instead of just taking him out for an hour walk at each occasion [2-3 times a day, not including other activities and pee-breaks] where he would "jump" at me several times during the walk, I divided the time even more to have him be able to walk with me without "jumping".
In short I did like this in the beginning: 2min outside, 2min inside and repeat until we had been outside for a total of 1hour each occasion. And then gradually I increased the time when I noticed he could handle it. We are now at 'bout 35-45min per walk and I think that is a good level for him.
Since his stress is due to fear towards strangers and other dogs I now make sure he dosn't get into a pinch where people or dogs get too close for him to handle properly. Of course we don't avoid them all together, but now I am more aware of when I can "push" him to make progress and when we should just walk away. Thanks to that we are now even able to have smaller dogs walk bye rather close without him wanting to run away or drive them away by barking.
He has also begun to show his eagerness to work even more when out on walks now, thanks to a tecnique I was taught by a friend [we call it "sausage training"] where you put small bits of sausages in your mouth and then "spit" in your dogs mouth when he looks at you, he is now very eager to make eye-contact while walking in a heel. Most of the time I don't even incourage him to heel but he turns toward me anyway and strut his stuff beside me.
I'm also much more aware of how much pressure I can put on him, for example: when out on a walk without any encounters of his triggers I may ask him to do various things to keep his mind exercised, increase his confidence, and to have fun on the walk. If he decide to ignore me when I incourage him to, say, slow down and walk beside me I would then insist until he does [meaning I would, in this case, turn in a small circle so he has to come up beside me] or if I incourage him to sit and he dont I would walk a few steps, say the word again and put a little pressure on him by leaning slighty toward him so that he does. I would then release him and shortly after incourage him to do the same thing again in which case he always do rather quickly, and then he get his treat.
But if we where to encounter one of his triggers and he his influenced [meaning he can only focus on the triggers and go "blind", "deaf" to all other things] by that I would do something like this:
No pressure what so ever on him, I turn my side or back toward him and signal that we'r going the opposit way of the trigger by taking a small step away from it and very gently give a small tug on the leash and then quickly release the pressure to further indicate that we are going. But if he is as stiff as a rock, meaning the trigger happened to get way to close [either I didn't see them or we got surprised turning 'round a corner or something}, I make sure the leash is loos [hanging down in a U form] and then gently, and just once, incourage him to look at me and then I wait for him to do so and give him a treat when he do, regardless of how long it took. At the beginning he had a really ruff time with this but at present date he is more likely to quickly turn my way for a jummy treat than to keep staring at the trigger.
We still have a long way to go and much more to learn but I just wanted to share my exitment over the major progress we've done so far. He is very different from how he used to be just a few weeks ago and the other day I even got a comment from a woman - that use to see us when we'r out and about - saying she is very impressed with the bond me and my dog seem to have and that it shows I've put a lot of effort into teaching him.
When we started talking I figured out she have a dog that's very suitable for my dog to interact with and we've started to work together with them once a week now. With very good result so far. I wish you all the best of luck with your dog/s, everything is possible if you put your mind to it!
