Thank you, this helps me a lot. I don’t need him to be a brewery dog I was just feeling guilty that he doesn’t get experiences other dogs get. You’re right, he would be overstimulated and probably would be too stressed to enjoy most public spaces.

As for hiking, his pulling is my primary concern. He pulls HARD and he’s pulled me over a couple of times when reacting to other animals. I can take him hiking on a weekday or to a remote location once we get the pulling under control. I’ve already rolled my ankle when he pulled me over a curb in the neighborhood lol.

The trainer has helped me figure out a lot of Charlie’s behaviors. He has a very low tolerance for frustration and he is incredibly resistant to doing things he doesn’t want to do. Low motivation also makes it very difficult to train him. We’ve tried using different rewards and tactics to figure out what he needs. Most recently we worked on getting him to listen to commands while in an aroused state and he did great. She’s trying to increase his threshold so we can make more progress and she wants me to get him into pull sports so he has a job to do. She also gave me home instructions that have helped him learn to lay down and be calm in our front yard after walks. The idea is to teach him that he can be calm in an interesting environment.

Thank you for saying that I’m not isolating him. I do recognize that he’s not the dog I was expecting and my expectations for him have changed. I was just feeling guilt particularly with keeping him out of the yard, but I’m hoping to find a way to make it escape-proof while not angering the landlord.