He will turn 2 tomorrow. Ibizan Hound, sensitive soul, funny boy, greyer of hairs. I took Breeze to try out some scent work with a dog trainer friend of mine. He did really well! But that's a story for another day. Before we got started we had a walk around her fields, and she observed that Breeze was following the path her dogs had taken that morning almost exactly, and stopping where they marked. He was showing no interest at all in following the paths of animals and wildlife that would also have been roaming that field. They even have a resident deer!
Based on this observation, she suggested that it might be worth trying out the reversible castration implant, Suprelorin. The theory being that while underconfident dogs will suffer from the loss of testosterone and feel even LESS confident if they are castrated, if a dog is ONLY underconfident because his testosterone is busy telling him 'be a man-dog! be a big strong man-dog!!' then curbing that may remove the nervousness altogether. It's something she has tried with one other dog and it has worked wonders for him. But obviously that's not the biggest sample size! I can't remember what age he was when they tried it.
Personally, my feeling is that he has just turned 2, and has continued to improve in most areas over the last few months. We had friends to stay a few weekends ago and he didn't shout at them once, where he would have shouted at ANYONE who came into the house a few months prior to that. People are not as scary as they used to be, he's settling down more easily on a night-time, and generally he's calmer and less anxious.
However - he is still VERY agitated by other dogs. He watches them like a hawk, will shout at them if he crosses his invisible mental threshhold. This is not always distance, more like intent and also based quite strongly on what the dog's human is doing. It's also unpredictable in terms of size - there was the cutest, fluffiest, tiniest black spitzy thing puppy that he thought was going to gobble him up whole, and any lab or big muscly dog (these ones at least make more sense) is also a horror to him. Scout and he have also had a couple of skerfuffles in the last month, something that hasn't happened for a long time. He will also NOT pee in the garden unless he's absolutely desperate. I take this to mean that he'd rather hang on to it and mark every single thing possible in the outside world. He can go ALL day without peeing no matter how much prompting I give him. As soon as we leave the back gate he'll pee on everything, and is VERY intense about sniffing any responses.
My initial thought is to give him 6 more months then re-assess. We live in a seaside resort town, so summers are always very busy for us. When the schools go back and the leaves fall down and the rain starts and the sun disappears..... so too do all the dogs. I don't know where they go, do they go home? Do they hibernate? Do they dissolve? Whatever happens, they disappear, and so dog-free or low-dog walks are easier, and more places open up to us for walks. So I think if I spend these next 6 months working on his feelings about other dogs, and letting his puberty wrap up (am I overly optimistic thinking that it *must* be over soon?) then hopefully this will all go away on its own. If he's still overly bothered by it in 6 months time then I can consider the alternatives.
Those are my thoughts so far.... what do you think?
P and Breeze are so similar in so many ways, and I was having pretty much this exact conversation with a trainer/ behaviourist I know the other week! I really trust her opinion, she is quite amazing a d keeps herself very well educated- she also reckons it might be worth trying with P for pretty much exactly the reasons you've outlined (I've been researching Suprerolin a bit lately, not sure if you read the most recent additions to this thread 
). 
