Although I reddit stalk all the time I wanted to formally join just for this group.

-I have a 3 year old Labrador mix named Kodak.

-We got him from a no kill shelter about 4 months ago.

-He had quite a bit of behavioral issues when we got him. He isn't perfect but we have made a lot of progress.

-I don't know a lot about his history (cause shelter) but the shelter we got him from gave us a decent file and has a big social media presence so I was able to piece together somethings:

• He was under shelter guardianship for about a year
• He went through at least 2 fosters home in that time if not more
• He was adopted less than 6 months after being there but re-homed after the elderly lady who had him fell when he went after a squirrel
• I don't know what happened with the rehoming but he was back in shelter a couple of months later
• The shelter informed us that he had picked up by the police department after they got a report of an aggressive dog near some garbage containers (I don't know if this was before or after the rehoming event)
• He has what we thought initially was a scar on his face we realized after having him a little while that its actually a bald spot he has given himself from his nervous scratching (we realized when it started to fill in)
• The bald spot gets better and worse depending on how stressed he is.
• We went as far as putting him on trazadone after feeling completely frustrated with his behavior and found it to be a good training tool
• We took him off the trazadone after we realized that it was damping his personality so much that it had become unclear to us what when he actually needed to be trained
• we give him the trazadone situationally now
• OKAY THATS BACKGROUND

He is leash reactive we knew this when we got him and hoped with some training and stability would make him calm down. While his other behavioral issues have greatly improved his leash reactivity has kinda gotten worse in some ways better in others

• He doesn't ALWAYS react if the dog is within a certain distance depending where we are he is okay ignoring them.
• We live in a big apartment complex that is very dog friendly and there are a lot of areas to specifically for dogs to hangout, play, do their business.
• He has recently become very territorial in these areas and is more likely to react than when we are out on a walk.
• If he sees another dog doing their business around these shared spaces he gets worked up wants to pull towards them, sometimes barks, always has to pee over where they have peed.
• Dogs on property are suppose to be kept on leash and but a couple of owners refuse to follow these rules and their dogs (who are friendly) have come running up to Kodak. Now every time he sees these dogs he freaks out and becomes aggressive fast. (which I understand if I had some unwanted individual sniffing my butt without consent I may react similarly everytime I see them.
• If he sees a fenced in dog he pulling to go up to the fence and once again becomes aggressive
• We had a dog trainer come by and she told us not to let him near other dogs especially if he is on a leash but rather to stop stand a safe distance aways and give him a lot of treats.

The trainers advice was great! Until he stopped reacting to dogs that are a certain distance. We can't get closer to these dogs cause we are just out and about (excuse me sir can you and your dog just stand there while we slowly work our way up to you and your dog). We have a pretty quite dog park that I take him to early morning on weekends this is nice cause sometimes I can position us in other people's paths and preemptively do some treat training. Although he is very aware of the dog I can regain and sometimes even keep his attention and he doesn't try to dart after the other dog.

SO MY QUESTION IS:

How are we supposed to make progress if I can't take him to a doggie daycare or a busier park. (We just moved so we don't actually know a lot of people here and even less with dogs and nobody I would actually feel comfortable asking to help with this). More importantly in my opinion, what is the deal with this new found aggression towards other dogs just doing their business?

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.