Disney is 4 1/2 now and I would say for the past 2 years approx, he will bark at every dog we see (yet he was fine at training class). For the first year of this, we worked on it when out by giving him the "watch me" command which helped a lot as long as I saw the dog first and could distract him quick enough. Occasionally he would still think that barking was much more fun but on the whole. he was much improved. However, for the past year he has been wearing a muzzle when out and because I couldn't treat him, he wasn't interested in listening to a word I had to say and we were back at square one. Now that he is no longer wearing the muzzle, we have started again and he is doing really well. If he doesn't respond to the "watch me" command, then a stern "leave it" will do the trick. When he is looking at me, he gets praise and bits of his high value treat. I'm just not sure if this is the right technique to use with him as, even if I walked the entire length of the street/park praising and treating him, as soon as he realises no treat is forthcoming, he will turn around and bark so he is still getting to carry out the behaviour (albeit to a much lesser extent) with the added advantage of a tummy full of hot dog! So just wondering really if I carry on with this technique but tweaked slightly or try a whole different approach altogether?
