Hi,
First post, first greyhound... We've had our five year old, male, ex-racer for just over a week and, generally, he's doing great. We live in a pretty rural setting and he meets sheep and lambs on pretty much every walk (on lead, muzzled, obvs), sometimes within a couple of feet, and after lots of patient 'good boys' when he's (just about) ignoring them and a few 'no' commands if he's looking a bit too interested, he is definitely showing less interest in them, which is great.
The next thing is other dogs. We've only started encountering them in the last day or so and, from a distance, of say ten feet or more, he is interested and focussed on them, but not to a worrying degree, but once they get closer he will lunge and pull towards them. I don't think it's an aggressive lunge, I think it's a "ooh, is that a dog to say hello to?" lunge, and he can be kept moving if, say, they're walking in the opposite direction to us, but when a 35kg dog is lunging/pulling it's hard to tell the subtleties of their body language...
So, I'm after the benefit of experience please. Is it likely that's it's just early days, we just keep walking him past other dogs until he's 'used to' them enough to have calmed down a bit, then try a few actual hellos? And how do we tell if it's an aggressive/chase lunge, or an interested/poorly socialised hello lunge?
Thanks very much.
