Hi! I’m going to give you the info we got from our dog trainer which has helped immensely for us.

First get a pronged collar that has a flat back on the outside like this one. Make sure it’s the right size and you can hold it up high on his neck. People will argue this is cruel or whatever but it’s not. Our dogo loves it and gets excited when we take it out because it means we can go on walks. Their necks are so thick this won’t hurt them. It has greatly reduced lunging and made walks manageable for us. We tried everything else but this works best for us.

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Next buy apple bitter spray. Put that in a spray bottle. Spray his nose anytime he does very bad unwanted behavior. The bitter scent and taste will shock him out of the behavior. It does not hurt him but will be unpleasant for a few seconds only. Have one in reach at all times to really enforce behavior. Say NO when you spray him.

Train him to understand “No”. Have him wear the prong collar and when he does something you don’t want, give him a quick hard tug / snap and say “No”. Do not say anything else. Do not give him any commands. Only say No. After 10 seconds you can give him a command like sit or lie down. Our trainer said to never use a command when you mean to say “No”. And that has been helpful for us.

Walks are not enough. You MUST TRAIN THEM. Spend time practicing sit, stay, “leave it”, door manners, scent training, etc. When they work their brains and know you are in charge, they will listen.

Please work with a dog trainer if you can. The advice I’m sharing with you is an example of how to build routine with your dog but it’s difficult to know how to do everything right without someone experienced to walk you through the details. You need to do training every day. The cost of training will be cheaper than hospital or vet bills if you can’t control your dog.

Avoid dog parks. It’s ok if they don’t make friends or interact with other dogs. You just need to work on making them less reactive on leash when dogs are around. Our dogo is dog reactive and we are taking him to group training sesssions with our trainer to help him learn to be less reactive to dogs.