I got pitbull puppy about 6 months ago and he is now about 8 months old. I have never owned a dog before and experienced many things you have. His name is Bosco and he is a great dog (getting better every day). After the first couple of months of getting him me and my wife were like holy Sh*t what did we get ourselves into! We had a serious talk on many occations about getting rid of him as we could not handle all of his energy!
Like others have said watch cesar he has been a ton of help for us!
To me it sounds like your dog has to much pent up energey that he needs to get rid of! We use to take Bosco for very long walks and it wouldn't even faze him! So I started taking my bike and made him run beside me on the bike. That worked much better! he would actually get tired out and would listen much better to commands after a good run (not a walk). We would sometimes take him for a run beside the bike and then go for a walk after so we could train him not to pull on the leash for walking. If we tried just walking him with no run first he would pull like crazy! The run before hand is key.
Bosco is a very social dog. We take him to the dog parks, bring him around other friends with their dogs, we started this from a young age and does well around other dogs. When Bosco was younger we used to leave the leash on him while he played with other dogs and people so if he got out of line we would correct him with a stern NO and a quick correction with the leash. If he did it again we would respond with the same corrections only the tug on the leash would get harder and harde each time. Eventually it will sink in! The other thing that really help us was a pincher collar. A regular leash did nothing, the choaker also did nothing. Put on the pincher collar and a swift tug on the leash and he will listen real fast! He now wears his pincher collar all the time except for bed time.
he is still a work in progress as he is only 8 months old but has come a very long way since we first got him! For us the single most imoprtant thing is excersize! Without it we would have been hopless. the second thing was the pincher collar.
If you don't have room for a treadmill, or have a bike, try some roller blades or even get one of the those doggy back packs and put some extra weight in there to tire him out quicker. You have to tire him out before you try to train him or he will not listen. If we are expecting company or throwing a party we will run Bosco on the treadmill for 30mins before everyone arrives and he will behave much better. I also run him before I take him to the dog park or anywhere else there may be other people and dogs and he will listen to me. The key is to tire him out.
Colby
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