"Agressive dog fixed in 5 minutes" - Page 1

Not sure what happened, but I couldn't edit my original post :(

How does this work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H67MxrPbvI

And is this dog showing signs of extreme fear or aggression or both?

This is not fear. With the expression and tail up and hair not all blowed up I'm leaning toward outright agression. The issue is you don't know if its animal or people or both. The facts are she should not be doing that and the only reason she brings her guard down is because she is certain a threat is not there. This is a fine line between defense drive and social drive. This dog does not know the difference. Example.. this dutch shepherd is not a menace to society --- however it is very aggressive and it just lost how to draw the line between defense and social when it had a muzzle or was presented to a agitator or gear. It knew it had to work -- just did not know when. With proper control and leadership it is able to perform the job. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZTkz8eD2I The video you linked -- that dog will be doing the same thing the next evening unless the handler learns how to instruct the dog that there is not a threat. Total bull$hit IMHO. Brandon

bccrawford and I must be watching different videos.  The one I watched it doesnt appear to be an aggressive dog. Yes she is barking and lunging ( bad manners) but her hackles are up, there is no ducking of the head ( typical in aggression) and her tail is held low. The bark is not aggressive either.

I was under the impression that the behaviour shown in the video is fear-aggression. So still reacting out of fear.

My understanding is that it's usually either fear-aggressive (standing ground, hackles up on neck, possibly lunging/moving forward) or fear-avoidance (scared, shying away from situation, hackles up all the way down the spine) behaviour.

Then again, I'm still learning about gsd's and behaviour so I could be completely wrong.

For my ten cents worth,  I don't see aggression either; but nor do I see fear.  What I see is a bitch
who is exited but wary in the presence of other dogs, because she does not know how to deal with them;  
this in my experience is usually caused by lack of adequate contact with anything but the dogs own family
(usually just dam & siblings) at the formative puppy stage, which has subsequently never been addressed
properly by her later owners.  Hence she gets passed on, & the current owner has only had her two months,
but if he doesn't address it properly, no doubt he'll either give the problem to the next mug, or keep her,
but he and she will live a limited existence forever.  She does not speak "Dog".

This is where I agree with the last sentance of Brandon's post - she will just keep doing it, the video has
clearly been heavily cropped and is BS.  (Oh, and I know its Canada, but could they really have not found
somewhere to do the initial introductions that didn't mean they were all trying to keep their feet on the
ice ?)

Any dog with this retardation of social skills will carry on like that, when its handler is just hanging on for
grim death, and not interacting with the dog eg not distracting it. 

My opinion is that this dog is just reactive.  Does not know an alternate behavior to offer.  Does not appear to be true aggression....but could develop into that if not worked on.  This dog could lack dog skills or repeated poor handling has creating a leash reactive dog.  Not sure how it was raised.  The short tight line only adds to the problem.  The handler gave the dog no information of when it was responding correctly....only tight line, tight line, pull, tight line...which adds frustration and adds to the problem however severe it may or may not be.  Appears that the dog reacts at dog less that about 10ft or so.  I was shocked to see it was a whole herd of dogs.  So considering the dog did not respond too badly.  The dog has an issue but I think a potentially successful one for rehab.  I noticed it is an older clip so I wonder how the dog is now?   

The "fix" at the end of the clip.  The behavior was not fixed just suppressed.  Look at all of the lip licks.  In the room looks like the dog had moments of relaxing but mostly stressed.  Look at the position of the tail in the sit.  Not very natural.  If that is what they want, they supressed it for awhile.  Hopefully the dog can figure it out on their own in the future.   

Any other thoughts out there?

I am certainly no expert in dog behavior or training, but that looks very much like what my GSD did (and still does occasionally, work in progress) when we began taking her on daily walks.  She was 2yo when we got her and we suspected that she hadn't been socialized very well, although she was totally fine with our other dog and in certain other situations.  Because we couldn't connect with a trainer at that time and weren't certain what it was or how to handle it, we tended to do our walks at times when we knew our chances of running into other dogs was lower.

Fast forward to more recently, and we were finally able to work with a trainer who showed us what to do and didn't feel that she was aggressive - she's just got bad manners and poor social skills.  He introduced her to his other dogs and we saw that she's not aggressive - she allowed the other dogs to approach her and they did the meet/greet thing - she was a little unsure at first, but then seemed to calm as they got closer and she could investigate.  She still tries (we do correct, but as I said it's a work in progress) to do this, particularly with dogs that are barking/jumping behind fences.  However, if a dog is loose and approaches us before I realize it, as long as it's not 'circling' us or barking/darting away/barking/darting away, she's actually fine.  At a distance, though, she still reverts to that 'frustrated' behavior, (trainer's description).

We've been able to take her with us to visit family and their dogs and she's gotten along really well, which is something I wasn't sure we'd be able to do.  Again, I have no expertise in dog behavior or training and couldn't say what it is or isn't, but it does look an awful lot like the way my dog behaved.  

before the dog had a flat collar or choak collar on the dead ring, after she had a pinch collar.
the extended sit say showed she does have obedience training.
i'm guessing the dog was given a quick sharp correction when she barked and praise when she focused on her handler she was praised.
it doesn't take much time to teach a dog like this to stop if timing is good. she understood that barking at other dogs was not allowed.
i agree, in the classroom, she was avoiding the other dogs (looking only at camera, handler), she was tense and her tail was tucked.

i have a dog much like this, she would rage, not just bark at other dogs. she's a dominant and jellous bitch. once well timed corrections were applied and she was rewarded for correct behaviour she stopped and now acts exactly like the one in the video.

the first lesson took about 5 minutes, reinforcing and proofing is ongoing, as she gets a slight reminder whenever she focuses on another dog.