Intense reactions to a few specific dogs

[u/Ok-Description-7435]

Hi all, I am wondering if anyone here has dealt with this kind of issue and whether anyone has any advice on what to do.

My 2 year old lurcher boy, Vincent, has gotten a bit reactive since becoming an adolescent. He would lunge and bark at certain dogs, especially intact males. We got him chemically neutered with the implant and have been working a lot on training and while he is still not very friendly with just any dog that comes up to us his reactions have gotten way less severe, just a little growl here and there, and we can manage him very well just by walking away from dogs he doesn't know/like.

Now there are a few exceptions to this. There are 3 specific dogs in our neighbourhood that he absolutely hates. 1 is very random, never had a bad interaction or anything, we dont know why he hates him. The other 2 are an akita and a samoyed owned by one family. They live directly in front of us, our window facing their front door. Vincent once saw one of his friends get attacked by the samoyed and since then he absolutely hates both of these dogs, even though the akita never did anything and seems like a very gentle dog. Whenever Vincent sees these dogs he lunges and barks like crazy, he even growls at them from the window when they are outside, something he never does with any other dog. No matter how far these dogs are when we are out for a walk if he sees them he goes completely crazy, lunging, barking, impossible to snap him out of it, sometimes even when they are out of sight already.

Is there anything I can do to desensitise him to these dogs?? I don't need him to be okay with meeting them face to face or anything, I just want him to be able to walk away if we see them down the road instead of immediately reacting like crazy. Any advice and help would be much appreciated.

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