[scharfg]

Hi there this is my first post to the site.

Last September I moved to a new town into a house with my 5 year old black lab unfixed male. The neighbor has a ~6 year old male Keeshond looking dog (they got it from the SPCA so they don't know exactly what it is).

Both houses have fenced yards and the dogs are allowed to roam the yards freely. Things went along okay until the dogs began fighting between the fence boards (carving up the fence planks and drawing blood). My dog would walk towards the fence, go stiff legged, tail up and give a menacing bark which would draw the other dog to the fence and then they would go at it. I called him off a number of times and scolded him but he continues to do it when I'm not home and even sometimes when I am despite my verbal lashing.

I have spent a great deal of time training my dog with obedience and for hunt tests, he's a great dog in all ways except when it comes to the neighbor's dog. My dog has challenged other dogs in the past at hunt tests but that is quickly over and we don't see the dog again. With this situation at home I had hoped they would get use to each other and over time the feelings between them would have gone away but that was not the case.

About 4 months ago I was walking my dog and I noticed a dog was loose a few yards away. My dog went over to greet the dog and then I noticed it was the dog from next store which had got out. Well it didn't take long before they got into a serious fight, I seperated them scolded my dog and started to walk away when they got into it again. I would have let them sort if out but it was looking pretty serious and I did not want to have to look at vet bills etc. The other dog has very long hair so I'm not sure how much he can get hurt but I didn't want to take the chance.

So I'm looking for advice on how to correct this issue.

My idea was to bring them to a neutral area (like a school field) and have both of them leashed and very far away to start and just walk them back and forth under owner's control, slowly getting closer and closer and correcting for bad behaviour (or have one dog sitting beside a fence so you can put the leash around a pole for correction support and walk the other dog closer and closer to each other). Once you get a good correction then stop the training and reward the dogs with some ball/walk time. Then repeat the exercise a couple more times, then come back the next day and repeat until you can walk the dogs under owner control beside each other with no issue (this could take many many days). Then once they are good on neutral ground amp up the situation and bring them near to each other's house and do the same thing until you can walk each dog in each other's back yard with no issue.

I look forward to suggestions from you folks on what I should do.

Thanks!