Do you own and cope with an anti-social Shepherd? - Page 2

I believe that a mature dog of any breed does not need 100 ''friends'' of either the canine or human type. Dogs are social within their own group or pack. I teach all of my dogs that they must be neutral to outsiders which is a display of obedience to me, the pack leader. Certain dogs can go anywhere and be with anybody [ human or canine] but these  dogs by attitude are preadolescent. Find a dog trainer in your area who understands your needs and requirerments .

There is a difference between being 'neutral', and the dog
that objects loudly and violently to the close presence of
an unknown dog or human, perhaps to the point of having
to be prevented from biting. The latter is fine if you are
hearing it as a warning at your front door; not so when you
are walking down a crowded street or through the park.

 double post

From little what you said ( dog is aggressive towards males and females which are strangers but not to the dog in your home) I would estimate this. The dog is probably overly protective because even you or probably the former owner or both did not establish leadership position. Dog is not mature enough to deal with stress of the other dog invading it's territory and you are not giving it guidance - not just in this situation but probably other situations as well. That is not critique of you but just description of what I know is often happening in situations like this. Then on top of it, based on past experience with her aggression, when you see another dog you get nervous and dog pick up on it and thinks that you are afraid of the strange dog. Thus she turns on her aggression. This then escalate to greater and greater distances between your dog and strange dog because handler gets also more nervous when he sees dogs even in greater and greater distance. Train the dog using+ / - training approach. Go through all obedience with her from scratch using this method. Stay away from one sided + only training since such method - regardless what some trainers will say - is not sufficient for handler to establish leadership position. Learn all 4 pillars of training. Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement , positive punishment, negative punishment. Learn what these terms actually mean and find good trainer who will teach you how to implement them. All of them. If you skip one then you are making mistake and your problem will not be possible to fix.  Also learn how to correct the dog with the leash correctly and use such correction after your dog sees another dog but BEFORE the she turns aggressive. After your  dog starts agression    you missed the boat. Remember you are correcting the thoughts of the aggression in your dogs mind. If the dog has no such thought then she will not be aggressive. Once she is aggressive at the dog in front of her,  it is too late. Always use word NO and snap on leash then turn away from the source of your dog aggression and walk calmly away. That too will give your dog confidence in your leadership position and it will diminish her over protectiveness. Do not pull , but  snap instead. This is of most importance. The correction must be strong so that the dog starts looking at you and not at the strange dog.Strong corection iswhatmost handlers have probelm with mentally. Your correction must be effective.  If one correction does not work then use 4 in quick succession. Use choker or pinch. Dog must look at you. You will need good trainer to teach you this. Some may refuse since they think that this is cruel which it is not. It is totally natural since it simulates dominant dog/wolf growling (NO) and biting on the back of the neck ( corection on with the leash) . What is cruel is to dump a dog or put it down which these do-gooders will probably advice you to do instead. I am aware that this approach is totally un PC but do not let people PC you to death and death of your dog. 

Next when you can control the dog teach her to defuse her mind from aggression to positive thinking. Defusing is higher level then just controlling the dog. Dog under controll still has " murder" on her mind. Defused dogs does not. Defuse the dog on command. It is an obedience command of the dog's brain. I use wording :"It's OK. " But anything ese will do. If I say it's OK then I will give a dog treat or tug to play together with a petting on  her head. leader cdoes not just correct but also rewards and motivates.  After several tens to hundreds of repetition the dog will look at you when hearing "It's OK! " After the dog understands what "It's OK! " is but does not respond to it,  you must correct her same way as described by me above. After the dog looks at you - you succeeded to convince her to defuse you need to reward her. This is a life long process. You will never be able to trust your dog 100% .... but that is true about ANY dog.

 Female on female agression is terrible problem when  it starts and it will NEVER  go away. Keep that in mind. But since your dog does not distinquishes between sexes then that does not seem to be your problem. 

This is very cursory explanantion of what needs to be done and not a manual. You need trainer with knowedge. If you have more questions please feel free to contact me .

Hans

How do you correct a dog's thoughts before they display signs of aggressive behaviour, are you a mind reader?

 

What about when it's asleep, do you know it's thoughts then?
 

Let's  keep this discussion nice  being snide does not help others learn. So far this has been a pretty good session.

Even I can understand what Hans is saying.

Are you sure it is that she is anti-social and not just bad greeting behavior? My dog used to do that, she would shriek and lunge like she wanted to kill the other dog. In reality she was frustrated that she wasn't already sniffing the other dog's butt. As soon as she was able to reach the other dog she was fine.

FIND A TRAINER. Most everyone who has posted here are giving you good advice. But, I train my dogs to be neutral [ behaving] towards all outside dogs. The above post is a good observation but maybe bad advice. What if the other dog involved does not want its butt sniffed? What if the other dog owner is clueless about controling their dog? I can not control the enviroment but I will control my dog. Do not foster or promote this behavior of ''anti-social''. It sounds like fear aggression to me, but without hands on involvement who knows?

@vk4gsd.

No, I am not mind reader, but  I can tell what is on the dog mind by his body language.  And I can tell before he  gets aggressive. It is a matter of  being able to read a dog.  

To keep the dog is neutral is good and proffered for a working dog. Too happy or too aggressive when some other dog is in sight is not desirable from a working dog.