I Need HELP with Gunther(he thinks he owns me) - Page 4

Great post. All has been said. I have a female who came to me, people and dog aggressive, to non family. Not anymore. Don't get me wrong, she will still "try" to take a shot.Then its go time.
Not acceptable! If it doesn't work on your own, please find a good trainer.
Your dog won't hate you for being the boss. Actually will love and respect you more. Best of luck to you guys.
Take care

This is a great thread. I love it when qualified dog trainers offer their help to others who aren't as experienced (like me). You guys are OK

Laura,
You are another one that deserves a lot of credit and has my utmost respect.  You also hung in there with a strong, assertive and aggressive dog and did a fantastic job!  You are similar to Deanna, where you both love your dogs and would not give up or quit.  It takes a strong and very special dog owner to "take the bull by the horns" and stick with it.  It is a challenge and not always an easy one, but your dogs absolutely benefited from you taking control.  What you both have learned from these dogs will always be with you and your future dogs will also benefit from your experience. 

TexasDeb,
You are not alone is this situation, nor are you the first or the last with person to have this issue.  As I have told both Laura and Deanna, I have been in the exact same situation years ago with a strong, dog aggressive, people aggressive, handler aggressive knucklehead of a male GSD.  My friends named him "law suit."  This dog had some serious rage issues and nailed me more times than I like to remember.  Including drawing blood on live National TV on the WWF Monday Night Raw.  I made some mistakes and adjusted and modified my training, I learned lessons from that dog that will never be forgotten.  Every dog that I have owned since then has benefited from those lessons learned.  Giving the dog away or putting the dog down was never an option for me as I raised the dog from a pup to a HOT V rated SchH3 KKL1a.  That dog stayed with us as a loving, trusted member of the family his whole life.  He turned out to be a fantastic dog and I wish, knowing what I know now I could have him back again.   

After going back and re reading the thread Ruger1 posted, I feel bad because I think I initially came off a little stern.  
 

"Law suit." Love it SD. You do know your stuff. Always like reading your posts. You are a great benefit to this forum. Along with a lot of others.
Take care

I had actually backed way, way off giving online advice long before Deanna even got Prince. I was sick of arguing with people who had next to no experience, and was learning the dangers of offering specific advice sight unseen. I lurked on Deanna's posts for a while until I couldn't take it any longer. People were scaring her and making the situation worse, and when people starting pulling political BS regarding her breeder into it, telling her to put him down (Put him down! A dog they had never laid eyes on!), and I became so disgusted I had to step in.

Be prepared to step up in a big way. You're going to have to be tougher than him and calmer than him. It won't be easy for you, and I guarantee you will have to go out of your comfort zone. Prince and I had a few come-to-Jesus meetings and they weren't all pretty.

Get off the internet and start looking for a real trainer. Go and visit a few until you get a feel for one you like, then stick with it.

Isachev,
Thanks!

Vonisengard (Kelly) wrote:

Be prepared to step up in a big way. You're going to have to be tougher than him and calmer than him. It won't be easy for you, and I guarantee you will have to go out of your comfort zone

That is exactly correct and spot on!  Violence creates more violence with a tough dog. Calm and in control is the way to go.  I also never hit my dogs, my hands are for praising and petting only.  I don't like alpha rolling dogs and I prefer not to have hands on physical corrections or confrontations.  I prefer to remain calm, in control and I always have an effective means of rewarding and correcting my dogs when training.  I never do the "let's try it and see what happens?"  Like Kelly, I have gotten away from giving to much advice here and for exactly the same reasons. 
 

Glad to know you and I are on the same page, Jim:

 

You need to realize the correction you are giving the dog is designed to immediately stop this behavior and to also stop the dog from doing it again in the future. The correction should be a lesson to the dog to never do this again. This is much fairer and more humane than a thousand nagging little corrections or pops on the prong collar. Once you master this you will be on your way to training your dog.

 

There are some things the pet trainer crowd just don't understand, and there are certain offences that should never, ever be let go. I try to use as little force as possible when training my dogs, and keep things positive, but when a dog steps over the line, I let them know in no uncertain terms.

As Kohler frequently reminds his readers, the alternative to fixing this sort of aggressive behaviour is a one-way trip to the vet or the pound.

Most dogs are a lot tougher than we think (okay, it depends on the dog, but even little dogs can have very high pain thresholds, especially terriers.) To give an example: one day, my dog and my friend's dog were running full tilt across a field, holding onto opposite ends of a stick. Brandy did an abrupt turn, causing my GSD to flip head over heels. It was so violent, I was sure she was really hurt, maybe even had a broken neck. I ran towards her.

Before I could get to her, she jumped to her feet, gave herself a little shake and went back to the chase!

I think the last page on Deanna's thread has some reasonable advice about selecting a trainer:

"The who is far less important than the how, and the key things to look for are a) one-on-one training sessions - screw the group stuff, he's nowhere near ready for that; b) the trainer should have lengthy experience with GSDs; and c) the trainer should have lengthy experience with aggressive dogs and behavior modification. Don't be afraid to ask for references, either - and request them SPECIFICALLY from owners who have male GSDs who were aggressive towards people - someone whose primary experience is in getting Fluffy the Miniature Poodle to stop pissing on the floor ain't gonna cut it."

The first trainer we took Bosco to for his aggression claimed to specialize in training aggressive dogs but we learned in sixty seconds that the person had never dealt with a dog like Bosco before. Bosco very nearly bit the guy (it was awful) and he told us that the only thing to do was have Bosco PTS because he could NEVER be around people and other dogs. I went home, cried my eyes out, and then thought "F*** You - we are going to figure this out."

Finally, here's a quotation from the same post that the trainer advice was taken from since it perfectly summed up Bosco's attitude. Note that I'm laughing now ...not this time last year. :)

"Prince [or Bosco] has decided that he is not only a bad-ass mother, but a bad-ass mother who reports to no one. This is not all that uncommon.  However, only you, with the help of a professional, can make him understand that he is sorely mistaken."

Dogs who think they are bad ass mothers were once puppies who did not think they were bad ass mothers.  Bad ass motherhood thinking happens over a long period of time and trying out bad ass motherhood behaviors with success.  The dog begins to think they are bad ass mothers because somewhere and sometime between puppyhood and bad ass motherhood the owners, trainers and other dogs did not correct their behavior.  A large part of this occurs as a result of separating puppies from other dogs of their peer group and sending them off to live as little humans at 8 weeks.  I raise my puppies to 8-12 months or even later and they are exposed to other dogs of their age as well as older dogs and their mothers.  I have no problems with bad ass motherhood as the other puppies and older dogs (mostly females) as well as their mother will gladly show them the error of their thinking.  The idea that separating a puppy from it's mother at 6-8 weeks is a good thing was never anything but a way to justify selling puppies before they are ready.  It takes a lot of work to mix puppies in with other dogs of their age and older females and males because you must constantly remix and watch what is going on or a puppy can get hurt.  I haven't found a better way to prepare a puppy for the world than teaching the puppy how to be a dog before being a human.

Hey, now, Sunsilver, I am a "pet trainer". Schutzhund is my personal hobby and I am not nearly so qualified in that area. :D