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You're having the same issue I will be having. Esther is the same way, to the point of being a barking insane mess when a dog is even on the television! I play dog YouTube videos often, but she goes absolutely mad when the dogs start to move and heaven forbid they bark or run. Yikes! I will not take her inside the dog park initially as I know she's going to have the same troubles yours does. She's going to be overzealous and some dogs can handle that, most cannot. She bit Abbi to the point of puncturing Abbi's neck so I'm being extra cautious to do this right. Esther is scrapper, but never Starts the fight. She's sure going to finish it, though. Or try. No one wants that and I want her to enjoy her time at the dog park as well as have others enjoy her time there. What I plan to start with is counterconditioning her response when she sees another dog. Instead of getting all excited and wanting to run over to them, but getting frustrated because she can't (barrier frustration), I am going to do the "look at that" game and give her a reward every time she looks and reacts calmly. A sweeping tail wag or silence, for example. When she's finally no longer barking at dogs on the screen (good grief this child has issues, lol), I will take her to the dog park but Not inside. We will walk around the fenced perimeter playing the "look at that" game. Slowly but surely we'll decrease the distance as she exhibits calm behavior. I expect to have to increase the distance again as they almost always do 1 step forward, 2 steps back. We have to go at their pace, not ours. And this training is Booooring and repetitive, I'll set you up for that expectation right now. However, when you're finally able to go past other dogs without a Tasmanian devil on your leash it will all be worth it! The Real pleasure will be when you see someone else dealing with the same problem, lol. There's a sort of satisfaction in having your dog behave while someone else's is being a handful. 😆 Oh, we'll also practice this at Lowe's and Petsmart. When we were at Petsmart the last time there were no dogs there so training was super easy, lol. The training does work. Esther used to bark at the neighbor's dogs and pull me towards them, or rush to them when off leash. Here's a picture of how far we are from their yard - this is not even showing the sides they have available to roam. I have a Lot of work ahead of me with this little monster. Please ignore the nose marks distorting the view. Dogs . . . you wash it, they put the marks Right back up.

Oof! That's a tough one because we are nowhere, and I mean Nowhere, near as interesting as critters to a dog. How big is he at 8 months? I recall he's an Aruban pup and I'm so curious now! Momo was Horrid about creatures. Especially squirrels (no chipmunks this far South) with their nervous twitching. It's like they're Asking to be prey. I never broke him of the hunting and honestly, didn't really try. He was our watchdog so it came with the job. I stupidly tried to bicycle with him once. Road rash over 2% of my body taught me to never try again. Adrienne calls that "single instance learning." 😆 That's what these furry beings are to dogs - single instance teachers. I swear you can practice "sit" all day long and Finally get it whereas all they have to do is hear "squirrel" once, see one, and Bam, they know it for all eternity. With Gertie I did the "look at that" game and treated her every time her rump stayed on the ground or she didn't flinch when I pointed out a squirrel. I can now walk with her on leash and not get my arm dislocated (thank goodness she's only 42 lbs), but off leash forget about it. Crows are the worst! I actually allow her to chase those because I can't stand them, but she still has to wait for a release. Does she? If I see them first, yes. If not, nope. Most of what I have for you is stories, and lots of them, about our experiences and what worked and didn't work. The "look at that" game is the most effective tool in my belt. It's how I'm teaching Esther to stop being so insane when another dog is anywhere near (it's barrier frustration - she wants badly to play but can't so she barks, growls, whines, and pulls on the leash). If you haven't seen that one in the training, yet, I can find the link for you. It's been posted often here so a search for "look at that" would likely turn it up as well. I have to get back to work, but wanted to drop that tid bit of info before I go, and to let you know you're Definitely not alone and there is hope. :) Gertie is far better than Momo ever was and Esther is going to be even better than Gertie. I think the flirt pole may end up being your friend as well as "leave" is another tool for this situation. If he's all excited about bunnies then I'm going to guess he's got a strong prey drive and getting that energy out of him before walking around may help. The flirt pole is a great way to train "leave" and "drop" for dogs with prey drive. A shorter leash at night may help, too. You'll have more control and he'll have less distance to build up speed, which means less tug force on your poor arm. Remembering he's from Aruba (I think you adopted him from there, but my memory is fuzzy) and my recent visit there I have another curiosity stirring. Aruba was really quiet during the day and it started coming alive around 9 pm. I wonder if that might have somehow affected his day / night cycles. Do the pups sleep when the humans are partying, or do the dogs also come alive at those hours. I don't know that it has anything to do with the issue at hand, but it Could affect his evening alertness if it's something he learned or if it's ingrained in the breed. From what I read they do have a high prey drive to the point of being poor matches with households that have cats. They were bred to hunt the iguanas, of which there were Tons when we were there. It's a very interesting breed.