Dealing with dog aggression in SchH - Page 3

Melanie,

If you reread my original post, nowhere do I say that your friend should quit the sport entirely.  What I DID say is that he needs to get his dog under control before putting him up for trial.  If I were competing in a trial and I knew the dog on the long down was dog aggressive I would be a nervous wreck, above and beyond the butterflies in my stomach that I'd already have just being there in the first place.  I'm glad your friend is considerate of the impact of his actions on others. 

My first real SchH dog was dog aggressive at first.  He was the only puppy in the litter and that surely did not get him off on the right foot as far as learning how to "play nice with others".  However, we tackled that problem first, before the BH, before tracking and protection work.  It wasn't pretty, but he learned to mind his own business around other dogs.  At 16 month old, he passed his BH with the only serious fault being that he didn't stay put on the long down.  He wiggled and crawled on his stomach till he was about 10 ft away from me, the little turd.  But he never disturbed the other dog on the field, and had no problems with the traffic portion of the BH.

My point is, if your friend is serious about trailing this dog, then focus on the BH, not SchH3 FH2, and hopefully he will achieve success.

I have a different view of the world then some folks in the sport.  To me, inappropriate aggression towards dogs or humans is completely unacceptable in a working dog.  Even a patrol dog must exercise discretion to be reliable.  Certainly in a sport dog, there's no excuse to tolerate this crap.  It's not cool.  It's not macho.  It's not "drive".  Suppose that there are several visitors to the trial, people who are new to the sport, and they see a dog attack another dog on the field.  What sort of impression would that create? 

However this is all just my opinions, and you may take it all with a grain of salt if you like.

Yvette

For those in the know, please don't miss my post  and questions on dog aggression. I hope my post doesn't get buried. Thanks

olskool,

For advice on using the e-collar, I would need to know how it is you use it? If  you use the method of teaching the dog how to "turn the collar off" then I would say yes you can use it to re inforce the OB command. For instance, say you are working OB with a distaction dog at a distance, and you want to get your dog to have the eye contact focus. If your dog understands that giving the eye focus turns the collar off, then yes you can use the collar to re-enforce that behavior. If you use the collar as a correction like you would use a leash, I would say don't use the collar for the aggression.

My opinion is if you are going to use leash correction for aggression, make it like a lightning bolt came down from heaven, nothing personal then go immediately into a heeling pattern away from the dog.

I say there are three ways to train for aggression and it depends on why the dog is showing the aggression.

1) Counter conditioning--When the aggression stems from fear or insecurity

2) The technique I just described from the "hand of God" coupled with immediate OB--For the confidant, cocky dogs that are really just being shit heads.

3) The in your face personal, I'm going to kick your ass, Alpha Role, etc--- For the truely dominante ones ( I believe you know what a real dominant dog is and that they are few and far between) This type of dog will just as soon fight you when you do this so better have the muzzle on

My 2 cents.

There are some great dogs out there that have done very well in this sport (one was on the WUSV world team, one won a Regional Championship) who are VERY dog aggressive.  They are very well controlled dogs though.  They know how to mind their manners even though given the chance would start a brawl as soon as you took your eyes off of them, I have one of these dogs in my club.

Olskoolgsd : your dog seems young enough that you can work with him with motivation and OB.  He's still pretty young, I don't know all of the answers or even a shallow percent of them, but I will say that I have trained quite a bit with Ivan and also Michael, and when my girl was young and wanted to go after every dog, I used praise and distraction to keep her motivated to me instead of the other dog.  She is a bully, she's not out looking for a fight, but she sure wants everyone to know she thinks she is incharge.

When I brought my puppy home at 6 months he had never been socialized and he thought he was going to kick everyone's butt, he was really bad, and my female put him in his place many times for about 3 weeks.  I took him to my club and socialized him with some of our older males who are really confident and friendly to other dogs, when my boy barked like an idiot I told him no, and gave a little jerk on the collar, when he stopped I gave him some food.  It was embarassing to take him to the pet store he acted like he was going to kill the 3lb maltipoo.  He is now very good, he never barks, he does like to take a look, but I still try to have food to praise him when he walks by and is nice and calm!  Socialization is such a huge problem solver!  Do you have any bitches in your club who are not dog aggressive that you can work with your dog?  Your dog doesn't have to have buddies on the training field, he just needs to mind his manners and listen to you when you tell him to leave the other dogs alone!

Best of luck to the both of you, in the older dog, it sounds like he has just been allowed to get away with being a butt head for too many years, and now he needs to be shown who the boss really is.  Screaming in a dog's face for several minutes can really make a huge impression!

I strongly agree with those who have suggested ob & then some more ob.  This dog must learn the handler is ALWAYS the one in charge, not the dog.  I also agree that rather than correct the dog for aggression, correct him for incorrect ob.  Handler must demand 100% of this  dogs attention, and correct the dog VERY strongly the SECOND his attention strays.  I see this more of an issue of "the tail is wagging the dog" as it were.  He does not have enough respect for his handler.

My bad, I missed the part where the dog is 6 years old. For me personally, I do not think I would want to roll a 6 year old. I have always taken the chickens way out, I have rolled every one of my rotts as a pup, or young dog at the first time they wanted things their way and were willing to try me. I have made it so much of a big deal in their face, never was an issue again, with most of them>always 1 in the bunch. A few of them thought about it, but quickly changed their minds. I have never had to do this with the GSD'S, maybe because they are smarter and have watched the rottie's get rolled and they want no part of it.

Olskoolgsd

What I meant was that you need to treat everything with obedience.  It is hard to change a 6 yr old dog. Rather than gear the dog up even more by correcting him for the agression because he may associate the pain with the other dog, you correct the dog for incorrect obedience.  The dog has to know that he has to be totally focused on the handler.  When you take him out for any exercise, focus and attention, to you, begins at the vehicle, not 20 yds away from the judge or field.  Most dogs don't want to be corrected and they do want that reward.  Ask for complete focus when you get him out and reward him for it.  You don't have to start your obedience and rewards when you get onto the field. 

SchHbabe,

I respect the message you are trying to convey.  The tone just seems discouraging.  I am trying to help this person fix his dog and don't want to see him quit, that is all.  

Olskool:  I agree with Don & Gard.  Use the pinch collar & make sure to correct for lack of focus.  Start with the dog sitting at heel, focused on you.  Someone should try to distract the dog.  As soon as he looks away give him a good pop correction with the leash giving him your heel command so brings his attention back to your face.  Once he is good that way & not distracted by human at sit, do the same thing while fusing.  Then bring in another dog and go back to sitting focused on you.  As soon as his focus leaves you, pop him, praise him when he no longer gets distracted.  Focusing on you is a concept a dog can easily understand and accomplish.

GARD, Don C, KariM, and sueincc,
Thanks very much for the info. It all makes perfect sense, I was Locked In to this thing and was not seeing the trees through the forrest. I have been correcting for aggressive signs toward the other dog and not for not being focused on me. This enables me to correct the dog,( I use prong collars for him )  and improve focus/obedience and deal with the issue at the same time as I read it.  He fits into GARD's profile of the # 2 dog. The only thing I will do differently is that I will reward with praise. He is a pleaser for me and I prefer to use praise instead of  food IF praise works. For some it does not but for him it does. He is DDR/ Czech and can get real serious real quick but is handler sensitive. This is a new combination for me. Thanks again