Inappropriate Agression , but is this a fear biter? - Page 13

Joanro, It was bad for many close to the end of the war and directly after the war.

People living in the countryside or that had relatives living on a farm often had it better than folks in the cities. And some cities centers were bombed by air more than others.

Thankfully my grandmother and mom, who lived in a big city by then, still had my grandmothers people living on the farm about an hours train ride away, so they got vegetables and very occasional meat, fat and butter.

But right after the new currency was introduced, in 1948, literally overnight, like magic, products were in the stores again in the cities. Every man, woman and child got 40 D. Marks to start life all over again.

Joanro -

The Large Spitz came in wolf coloring and white, and is no longer popular.

I think the medium spitz is still around a bit...and the small ones are still here..like Pomeranians and the American Eskimo Dog.

Here is a spitz  I found from 1939 that still looks more shepherd like:

Sorry for going slightly off-topic here.

Valk: Jessejones to answer your million dollar question - which dog can be rehabbed, experienced handler can figure out before dog would reach one year age. in regard of owner's dealing with aggressive dog, it absolutely depends on owner's abilities and will. from my own experience - would be most wise to leave dog to be what that dog already are and find best use for his specific traits. in past such overly aggressive dogs wasn't trained for complex tasks but used as sentry/watchdogs on chains or enclosed perimeters. few cases i know, even being insulated from public, dogs was shot due to excess of aggression even toward their handlers.

I got you Valk.

Just saying that the diagnosis for genetic unsoundness can be tricky, not for every one, but for some...and mistakes are made....going both ways! Too quick to diagnose or too slow to diagnose. 
It does absolutely depend on owners abilities. Rehoming might be necessary or best at times. And that is not possible everytime if no one wants the dog.
Sadly, it does end the way you describe in some cases. It is very very serious when a dog attacks anyone and the damage can never be underestimated. I totally understand what you and Cent are saying. I very much like both of your posts for your high level insights.

Val, that line of argument is all very well IF THE DOG IS PRESENTED to whoever undertakes to 'sort him out' "BEFORE ONE YEAR OF AGE" - but consider:
the dog I wrote of, going to the Prison Handler who then did not follow instructions, was turned 2 years when we got him back, and had been thrown onto our GSD Welfare service because he was now out of control and biting everybody indiscriminately.

He was traced back to his breeder through his tattoo number. The whole point was that the owner who purchased him as a pup had told all sorts of lies about how experienced they were and what work they were going to do with their dog ...and then proved themselves totally UNABLE to do right by the dog. Then 'got rid' when they could no longer cope. They did not even have the courage to do as the Contract had stated and bring him back to the breeder.

This wasn't a dog specifically 'bred for' any sort of determination / aggression / hard 'working' drives.
[I believe those genetics are still there; but they had not been channelled for with this dog.] It really wasn't an issue if he was 'genetically' predisposed, or not; what was at issue was: has this dog been let down by human inadequacy ? and Can this dog be rehabilitated / given a useful life (or should he be p.t.s) ?

So ....
If you all will , allow me to pose  rhetorical questions about the dog I wrote about [ first video posted in thread] . Some have the opinion that we cannot evaluate t a dog in one video ... Ok .. I will give way to that as a possibility , as I wrote about videos maybe yes and maybe not . that is for each to decide. Now the question :
If this is the dog's behavior with someone non threatening passive standing side ways next to him , if this is a non challenging man in this situation , if this could be any person just saying a friendly hello , what was this dog so compelled to bite this man , and in confusion try try try to figure a way to get to him ? If this dog felt stressed enough to bite this man in that scenario .. then the million dollar question is: ? what will this dog do when there is a situation that in truth really really is stressful . One thing to test a dog with little pressure , but zero , nothing ... rehabilitation ... interesting... how can one generalize , as dog's are poor generalizers , to cover enough aspects of life from the starting point of this dog that cannot function properly where there is nothing to worry about from the very start to the pressures and stresses that occur in everyday life ? . If he is this far off normal in a nothing situation , what is this dog going to feel when the chips are down , if he ever felt his life did depend on something , sort to speak ? If I could see some small inkling of a reason that dog might have acted that way , just some little inkling , I would have maybe thought differently. But Val is right.. best let this dog be what it is and find a niche for him ...

 

    Is this a  possibility that ONLY one person can own and handle this dog and keep it muzzzled at all times in public . Do I think many people that post here could ' manage** '  this dog ?  YES I do . People such as Duke ,Val,  Gustav , Susie , Jesse and a number more without further listing probably could own and manage this dog ..   However,  Managing , as opposed to  Rehabilitating , meaning changing back to  'normalcy' , in mind and function ,  are two entirely different phenomena ! When we Rehabilitate  people,  , that is bringing them back to a point of normalcy and functionin their lives that they once were at , we do not change these people to back to something/someone ,  that they never once were . 

  Jo  -- did I not once read in an earlier post that the bull you had , you were the only pperson that could handle him ?  [ myabe soemone else ??] .  I am not critisizing , as  a matter of fact I admire you for what you have done with your animals, sincerely :-) .  But that would demonstrtate my point that with some animals , no matter how gifted we as humans are , even the very best of us just cannot change some animals from what they truly are and  to nomal functioning. If I am incorrect then please  correct me ... 

Centurion, without going back and reviewing the vid, seems I remember the dog leaving the targeted man and returning to the handler to basic position....the very same behavior one teaches in protection training in the 'call out'. The handler then 'lead' the dog back to the target man and 'appeared' to encourage the dog to resume the attack.
The was little 'tell'for me that this dog was trained in some manner such as knpv, and his aggression was too 'civil' for sport...maybe, 'it's possible.


@Jesse, thank you ! Very much appreciate the pictures and explanation....was as I thought.

Centurion, I was focusing on the paint horse because he was already 3 yr old when I got him. Became functional for my purposes and he lived a superb life, when he died @28 yrs old, after tens of thousands of miles on the road, many hundreds of miles of trail riding all over the country during free time, he did not have a single blemish on his body, not so much as even a puffy ankle.
The bull is a different story...I bottle raised him from a six week old calf. He was not accepting of any one leading him but me. When he was three years old, he pinned me against the panel of his stall when I enterdped to move him. As happens with most handlers of potentially dangerous animals, I was carelessly complacent that one time and snapped the lead rope into his halter instead of his nose ring....he took advantage of my mistake and almost crushed me to death.

I still worked him till he was 8 years old till he became too big to haul ...he was one ton and hauling long distances was hard on him, even tho I had a custom built trailer with and 8x10 stall for him to be able to lay down get weight off his feet.

As for only me leading him...short story: in Attitash, NH in the beautiful White Mts, Willy Nelson came to the rodeo to watch my act which was saved for last before bull riding. I had my rig set up several hundred feet from the arena and away from the public....I had just ridden my bull back to the trailer, paint joggin along side, when a station wagon drove up across from me. Out stepped Willy Nelson from the back seat with his entourage of five or six body guards and friends. He introduced himself to me and told me heard about the horse and bull act and sat through the whole rodeo in the beer tent till my act...he asked if he could ride the bull....I said sure, but I had to lead him,,,OK, he says and since Sierra was seventeen hands at the back( not his hump) one ofWilly's guys had to lift him up onto the saddle like a little kid...Mr Nelson was very short stature. He smiled like a little kid, and kept saying, as the whole thing was being recorded by his people, I want to use this for promotion, I said 'fine by me. Sierra was good, and I kept his head up and straight ahead. A big hug from Willy, he said he doesn't shake hands, and off they went.

This thread has gotten my attention....I have not looked at any of the videos, so I have not commented on the videos. Being as I am a referral trainer for aggressive dogs from one of the largest animal hospitals in a major East Coast city, I see a lot of very aggressive dogs. Some genetic, most learned or tolerated behavior, some with nerve issues, some with dominance issues, some owned and raised by wrong people and some that regardless of environment or ownership will never be trustworthy....maybe I’ll take a look at these videos and see what is so differently interpreted.

Jo , Yes i thought , for no specific reason , only an intuition , the dog also may have done sport .. so I am with you there . But again I stated ' an intuition' .
However , even more so .. if this was the case .. a trained dog then I think this .. The dog had no cue to aggress the man. In these types of sport , Belgium French Rinds the dog is to never ever do anything unless a cue is given or there is an defense of handler because the decoy attacks the handler. None of this is evident in the video ! And also that dog would have been muzzled conditioned. Something I do with all my puppies. Muzzle condition and teach food refusal to . In the event there is ever a State of Emergency , I do sport , or so no poisons my dogs. The call offs are when the dog is sent on an attack and again that is on cue and a dog to leave a decoy or take his eye off a decoy is usually communicated to the dog that is an unacceptable choice behavior - for example the decoy will automatically flee and cause the dog to fail getting a bite. So yes .the dog may have been a sport wash out but I don't see those exercises relevant to what this dog did in the video.
Jo Im will add ... I have very good friends who did sport and owned like Malinois. The way they controlled these dogs was placing not 1 ,not 2 , but 3 e collars on the dogs ! But there was no talking to them .. they knew it all .. so all was out of my hands. They loved to call their dogs 'over the top drive ' dogs .. and the sad part is that they were policemen ... Yes Jo it is not out of the ordinary to see these dogs now and then in sports .... good thought Jo .

One more clue I have for why I believe this dog is trained for bite work, in addition to the 'decoy/trainer' allowing the dog to 'empty his tank' instead of punishing him for so called inappropriate biting is this: you cannot in fairness to the animal, punish it for something it has been trained to do !
Also, after reviewing the video a little while ago, I see the handler call the dog to him, then step forward, allowing the dog to reingage the decoy, while the handler discretely put the lead into the decoy's right hand behind his back, out of view of the dog. This is what I had noticed the first time I watched the video about a week ago. The decoy/trainer still does not punish the dog for biting....if the biting was 'inappropriate' and not result of some training, it would have been a good time ( if it was me holding the lead) to sling the dog to the ground and pin him with both knees and not let him up till he quit struggling....till he gave up. But that is not the right thing to do when the dog is acting from training....whether it was good training or bad, we don't get to know.

Jo .. I did not see a clear call back from the handler. I heard later a woman in the background perhaps saying 'cease'. But let us stay on point .. it not the trining or lack of training.. what bis the hallmark is the temperament . aggression and emotional state of mind of this dog. Strip all that away and you see the real dog .

I wrote that I didn't write everything I observed. To be fair to ALL the readers , then I will share more of my thoughts if anyone cares . Little things that add up : look at the dog turn away it's head and face in the engagement.. a sign of deference. Look at the stiffness and the ears way way back , a sign of being uncomfortable and insecure in what it is doing and the situation. Look how the dog comes off the arm and tried to go to the hand too . I wrote before this dog is not in a good emotional state, it is problem solving and that is based on what the dog is thinking and feeling .

I wrote that I was moved by the first 10 seconds ..... Now go to the end of the video . Although there seems in the recording a slight interruption ., I am assuming that this is the last part of that video and is really a continuation to that session. What do we see : the fellow sitting on the grass downing the dog. The last 10 secs or so ... what you see is the same sort of emotional state in the dog : ears way back , he looks calm , a little change in the dog granted, but basically the same feeling . If you look closely at the dog , you see that this dog even having left the other man , laying on the ground from a time after the encounter ,  has ' not recovered ' . This dog in a manner of speaking , has not ' re -set '. He still is not in a comfortable , in relaxed state of mind , for whatever reason . As I often write , his ears are so far back that they could touch his a**. The dog still has not reached a state of normalcy , calm cool and collected , a time AFTER and AWAY from the incident.