I have a 1-year-old male Great Pyrenees who came from a farm at about 3 months old. He has a 4.5-year-old Lab/Husky sister who is extremely friendly and opposite.
I’d describe him as roughly 50% great off leash, 25% reactive toward certain dogs, and the remaining 25% being reactive towards humans encountered. Not all the time.
With certain dogs, on or off leash, he can become reactive and will put his neck/head over theirs in a very obvious “try me” posture.
He has always been very nippy with me and friends I walk with. When he gets excited, he’ll put his huge mouth around our hands or give us a little nip. With people he knows, we’ve generally found it funny/annoying but now the problem is that he has now started doing it to strangers.
Recently, he lunged toward a woman and grabbed the her fanny pack with his mouth, and on another occasion he tried to bite/grab someone’s butt as they passed. Obviously, that’s no longer something I can dismiss as goofy puppy behavior.
One thing I’ve noticed with his dog reactivity is that sometimes he’ll be off leash, I’ll see a potential confrontation developing, and I’ll grab his collar to stop him from getting into a fight. I’ve been told that the physical restraint/collar grab may actually be triggering or escalating the reaction, which makes sense because it seems to happen almost immediately after I grab him.
Ideally, I’d like him to eventually have the freedom to be off leash because he’s actually very good much of the time. However, I’m completely willing to take that privilege away while we work on this.
I recognize that I need to be trained just as much as he does in terms of reading his body language, interrupting him early, and handling these situations correctly.
I’m considering things like a gentle leader/head halter or working with a professional trainer/behaviorist. But would prefer to avoid trainers for $$ reasons
For those of you with large guardian breeds/Pyrs:
Has anyone dealt with this kind of excited nipping/mouthing turning into nipping strangers?
How did you teach your dog that people are completely off limits for mouthing?
Could grabbing his collar be contributing to the dog reactivity?
Would you recommend a gentle leader/head halter, or something else for managing a 100+ lb dog?
Did you temporarily take away off-leash privileges, and how did you eventually earn them back?
I know the human-directed behavior is the part I need to take most seriously, especially because he’s a very large dog