For almost two months now, we’ve been going out almost every morning to socialize our shepherds around other dogs. From a very young age they showed strong reactivity. They would go after any dog, big or small. Though they never had any bad experience. That was just their nature. It’s actually quite typical for working line German Shepherds. They’re built to guard, protect, control. But we live in a city and we travel a lot with them, so for us it was important to teach them something else. To rely on us. To understand that we decide when and how to react. So about two months ago we started working on it seriously. They were already around 8 months old at that point. Individually they were fine, we had already worked on that. But together they would trigger each other a lot. We also got them used to wearing muzzles, because there were moments when other dogs would suddenly come too close, and we didn’t want to risk anything. We gave ourselves one month. Every morning we walked around the neighborhood. Some days we didn’t see any dogs. Other days there were too many, sometimes too close, sometimes unexpected. It wasn’t perfect. Not even close. After the first month, they started responding to corrections, but they would still react pretty hard at times. Now we’re finishing the second month. They still react when other dogs bark at them, but it’s not that explosive anymore. In this video, the owner got distracted with a work call, and they reacted at first, but then settled down pretty quickly. Honestly, if the focus wasn’t lost for a moment, they probably wouldn’t have reacted at all. But real life is not perfect. So we just keep going. Every morning, same walks, same repetitions. And you can see it. Step by step, they’re becoming more neutral to other dogs. If you want to see how it all started, check the highlight “They lost it”. It’s worth watching.