Does Anyone Have A Dog Reactive Doodle?

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Those in the training group know that Murph is very dog reactive.  It's something that we've been working on for over a year.  Today we were talking to our trainer about what may have caused this initially and he mentioned that he's now working with quite a few Doodles and none of them have the same type of reactiveness that we see in Murphy.  He said they are usually excitable and "react" when they see another dog because they just want to get to that dog to play.  There is nothing dominant of aggressive in this....they are just pulling or lunging out of pure excitement. With training he said this is very easy to correct.  Murphy's reaction is completely different....he is fearful of the other dog and so he has been reacting negatively and even with aggression.  He has no interest in getting to the other dog to "play"....there is no wagging tail. Over the past few weeks he's been able to walk by other dogs without a reaction but it is so apparent that he is very afraid.  He tries to get as close to me as he possible can....which I can't allow because that won't help his confidence at all in the long run.  He is great in Daycare which is a whole different context for him.  Most importantly I am not there, and there are lots of dogs so he can't fixate on any one.  We've been trying to determine what happened to Murph to cause this, and maybe there was nothing....it could just be "hard wired".  We'll probably never know.  I'm just wondering if anyone else has a Doodle with this problem.  I'm putting the discussion here versus in the training group just to try to get a broader audience.  After our discussion today with the trainer I started to think that I've never heard of another Doodle here on DK with the same problem as Murphy. 

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Thanks DeeDee.  He's fine at Daycare when I'm not there.  He has never had an incident there. 

[shelly]

Tori has that reaction with EVERYTHING... dog, people, car, truck.... as you know we have tried and tried as well.... I'm surprised Murphy does this even with Guinness as a brother.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Shelly, I know how hard you've tried with Tori....still no improvement?

[shelly]

Yes.. she HAS improved... I just don't know why it is that she picks and chooses some people to just "stalk".... I think this summer I am really going to research this... it truly is something that I would LOVE a reason for.... but for now, I just accept her for who/how she is and love her to pieces!