My CC/Neo X Gunner is 10 months old and I have socialized him properly from the very beginning, and I am not a stranger to the mastiff breed. Over the last couple months Gunner started to be extremely reactive on leash and be a bit of a bully at the park. The reactivity on leash escalated quite fast, to the point where I HATED HATED HATED walking him. He would, at all people and dogs, bark, lunge, hackles up tail up curled around his back tense. I noticed that when he was at the dog park and there was a "pack leader" dog there he would be fully functional and happy, but when there was other unsure dogs there he was tense and that is when he started to be the bully. I sought out the help of a trainer to assess him, because Gunner was giving mixed signals and I was not sure what I was dealing with, aggression or fear or frustration. After the 2 hour assessment the trainers came to the conclusion that he was unsure of himself, fearful and frustrated.
There are two options in the animal world when confronted with "danger" fight or flight, and when you take away one option, flight (they are leashed), they only have one option left! So it was VERY important to start to get him to feel safe with me. I needed to let him know that "hey I got this" you are the dog I am watching out for us.
I tried more than a few techniques, the correction stuff like.. NO, leash tugs etc,,,, and as others have said, and it is true, it made it worse, I could feel Gunner get more fearful and frustrated! SO I began to set more boundaries at home to show him, without physical touch of any kind that I "OWN" the window, the couch, the door when someone comes in, EVERYTHING. If he barks at the window, I do not tell him NO, because it is normal and good that he is alerting me to something. Instead, I will get up and walk over to the window, stand in front it and create a "line in the sand" so to speak and claim my space and I inspect the window, and I remember the first time I tried this I almost cried because he stopped barking and pacing and actually sat and waited for me to finish inspecting.... was amazing! It is a mental game not a physical one (not that I have EVER laid a hand on my animals, I just mean less about dragging them on the leash or pulling them back from the door or window etc).
As for walking outside on leash, everything I am doing in the home is helping with being out in the world! I try to make every walk a good one, or at least end on a good note. I don't go to very populated areas where there are SO many stimuli that he would be scared. But what I have started doing is basically trying to keep him interested in me! Even if that means feeding him a whole bag of treats, turning my walk into a brief jog, squeaking a toy anything that gets him into a happy zone rather than a "OMG what is coming my way zone", I find this helps me relax and subsequently helps him to!
IT IS A LONG ROAD, but when you have a good moment even a brief one you feel like things will be better!! We had a small victory yesterday, we came up off the beach and past 4 people and he did not bark once, his tail was up and he looked but I said "Gunner” and the moment he looked at me I treated him and then pulled out the toy and jogged up the hill, he was visibly happy, THEN at the top of hill across the road there was a woman walking a black poodle, now this type of occurrence is what he reacts to horribly!!! He noticed the dog immediately and started to stare I could see his body start to tense and point towards it, but I immediately put myself in between him and the woman /dog and squeaked the ball and the moment he broke eye contact with the dog I treated him and I started jumping around like an idiot, playing and got him to play with the rope end of the ball, he totally forgot about the dog and was just happy and excited.
I don't know if any of what I have said would help, but I know how you feel, as I am sure many on here do! I was soooo worried Gunner was "aggressive" and I felt like a failure because I could not understand how he could go from being totally fine for the most part to a jumping barking lunging beast! But then after talking with the trainers, something clicked and I realized that he is not dog aggressive because he can be around dogs and he does not WANT to fight, will he ever be bff's with every dog, Probably not, but he is not DA. And with people, well he had never once growled or barked or lunged at a person except on leash, and only when they were walking towards us. He is leery of strangers but as long I get him to tolerate them, I am perfectly ok with that! I started putting the pieces of the Gunner puzzle together and realized that I needed to step up and take the pressure of him, so he did not feel like he has to be "on" all the time to protect himself, that is my job.
