My friend's service dog lunges and barks

[kittycelt]

My friend/coworker has tried everything the trainers form the agency have told her to do to get her service dog to stop lunging and barking every time he sees a dog when they are out and about. She was told to socialize him by getting a friend's dog in a safe setting, but that worked for those couple dogs, and no others. They told her to try to distract him when she sees a dog coming, but she does not always see them. She is in a wheel chair and her dog has nearly hurt her a couple times lunging at other dogs and I just feel like one of these times he will hurt her and then he will have to go back. She does not have the strength to wrestle with him, she is worried he will break his leash, which he has done at work once, and I am worried she will be hurt badly.
He is a lovely golden retriever and I adore him. When he is with me, away from her, he has no problems with other dogs. I dog-sit him once in a while and while he won't heel for me, he is very well behaved otherwise. He has a huge problem being taken away from her and only calms down when he cannot see her and realizes she is not going to come get him. He is very protective of her and used to push me out of the way when I would try to help her when she was hurt or her chair had a problem. He does not do that any more because he is used to me, but he is still really possessive and will take things from my hands if they are hers.
He has tried to bite a pug once that I was holding, and he looks like he wants to bite the dogs he jumps at so we are worried he would hurt another dog if he got free and I am terrified he will hurt her. Please, someone help!

[Nettle]

While all of those issues are relatively minor and easily fixable, your friend is not able to do the necessary work, and I think the agency has been derelict in its duties by supplying a half-trained dog with fear issues.

IMO the dog should be returned and either its training properly finished before it is returned to her, or another dog supplied.

[Mattie]

We have a lot of success with reactive dogs like this on here but as your friend is in a wheelchair she cannot put in the work involved to help this dog. That trainer will have made the problem worse by putting him in a situation with other dogs that he can't cope with. Turning these dogs round properly takes a lot of time and patience, at the moment your friend will end up hurt if she continues with this dog.

My husband was in a wheelchair so I understand the problems, all my dogs at that time were all taught to walk properly next to the wheelchair, none were reactive to other dogs, if they had been we would have had to let the dogs go.

They told her to try to distract him when she sees a dog coming, but she does not always see them.

Of course she can't always see other dogs approaching, she is quite low down compared to us, being in a wheelchair she should not be asked to do this either, it is far too dangerous for her.

The Agency has a duty of care to your friend, they are not doing this, their advice is putting her in danger.

I agree with Nettle, this dog should never have been given to your friend, he isn't suitable for her needs.

[emmabeth]

I can only echo the sentiments of the previous two posters..

The agency here needs to SEND someone out to work with her with these issues, she is not in a position to fix these problems herself and if they cannot help her with one to one training or take the dog back either temporarily or permanently, to retrain him they have NO business providing service dogs for people at all!

[kittycelt]

Thank you all for your input and advice. I agree that the agency needs to come out here and help her! I have been telling her that they need t get their rears out here too. She loves this dog and there is no way she wants to give him up, he just needs some help. I am going to show her the posts here and hope that the agency will come out here and do the right thing. He really is a good dog except for these couple of things.

[Dogwoodblossom]

Also, something to keep in mind, while I'm sure the dog is perfectly sweet, he has a really stressful job. And sometimes it's too stressful. Not every dog is cut out to be a service dog. As much as your friend likes him, it might be best for him if he were placed in a home where all he had to do was be a family pet.