Hi Karen and Giselle, thanks to both of you for your replies.

In reply to your questions, in no particular order:

Yes he has been neutered.

Misbehaviour is treated by isolating him for a while, or sending him to a specific place and telling him to stay. we leave him there until he calms down.

When he pulls on the lead, we either stop and encourage him to come to our side, or turn and go in the opposite direction. The latter usually just causes him to pull in the new direction. Often his pulling is because he has picked up a scent and has tuned out everything else.

He is not crate trained, yet. We have jsut got the crate and intend to start by leaving it around with the door open so he can get used to it. We'll also put his bedding in it and feed him there too. Once he is used to it, we will try closing the door and going out for a few minutes at a time, gradually increasing the length of time.

Clicker training was shown by the puppy trainer and worked well for a while, but once we started to click and not reward every time he quickly started ignoring it.

Dog socialisation classes would be good, but there do not seem to be any in our area. He is usually a friendly dog, and gets very excited when meeting other dogs.

Removing him from my leg. Originally I got quite annoyed, grabbed his collar, and tried to isolate him, sometimes this proved impossible because of his snarling, snapping and general aggressivness. I realised this was not the best option, as I am meeting aggression with aggresion, so recently I've changed tactic. I take hold of his legs, unwrap them from mine and get him to stand on all fours, still holding his legs. Then tell him calmly but assertively to sit, until he calms down. Once he is calm, I give him a bit of a gentle fussing. This seems to be having an effect.

We have also identified that we (I) may have been giving him food with too much energy content. Originally we were told he may be hyper-active, and to give him a hypoallergenic diet. We use Natures Diet, Natures Menu, Autarky and Winalot mixer. The mixer ran out and I used Autarky as a substitute. He's back on te Winalot mixer now, and although it's only been a couple of days he seems a little less hyper. I think Autarky is designed for 'working dogs' and he may only have been trying to burn off some of that pent up energy. Unfortunately, as his recall is so poor we can't let him off th elead for a good run as we have been unable to find safe places nearby, and in any case if he picked up a scent or saw another dog he would be off!

Despite all the negatives, he can be a loving and fun dog, it's just that after 10 months of some very hard work we are getting weary, especially when we cannot go out a a couple without worrying about what we will come home to or if his barking will upset the neighbours.