Puppy Aggression - Page 1

Well, I messed that up.

Anyway, I have a 6 month old West German puppy that hates other dogs.  We have done puppy classes, training, and all he wants to do is bark.  I put him in a Doggy Day Care, just so he could spend time with other dogs.  He does well there, but when out with me, he shows signs of aggression.  It has become very embarrasing. 

Any suggestions on how to have him behave with other animals?

Thank you for your expertise.

Maybe he doesn't respect you enough. I am just a novice but thats just my opinion. Most books that I have read say to practise the down stay with them. Or act more like a leader. For example when going through passage ways you should lead, or keep him at you side on walks, not in front. Try to control his interactions with dogs more. My female is a nut and she will go after any one or anything, so I make her do a down, even roll her on her back and have the dog come and check her out while she is calm. After that she really relaxes.  

with all respect I would disagree with having a dog assume an ultimately submissive position such as rolling her on her back to have another dog come up and check them out.   This is likely to caus a serious breech of trust between you and your pup.  I would agree with practicing a down in many different situations as often as you can and praise all behavior that is non aggressive, even if it seems silly.  In some cases simply avoiding extreme situations is best for now and introduce very controlled situations.  i.e.  going to the park where other dogs are, but NOT going too close to the other dogs.  Work for a few minutes far away from the other dogs, praise praise praise all attention to YOU, stay for 10 minutes, go home.  Do this a LOT.  But one thing most people, including myself do, is to progress too quickly.  This is not an overnight training bing bang done situation.  It will take a lot of time, a lot of patience.  Good luck.  I am not sure  how people on this board feel about clicker training, but there is an excellent book that deals with aggression problems called "Click to Calm."  It has some excellent information on not only training, but stimuli that tend to promote aggressive problems and how to avoid and manipulate situations to your and your dog's advantage.

Lisa

OK my bad i guess ill have to try that with my girl too. Maybe I should have asked you guys first.

Don't do the old Alpha roll deal and don't watch The Dog Whisperer.

In my experience what you are describing stems from insecurity (can't say for sure without seeing the dog but I would bet this is the case) The Alpha role is definately counter productive for this type of dog and could very well make the problem worse and/or get you bit by your own dog.

Do a Google search on counter conditioning techniques. It would be pretty lengthy to try and describe here.

This brings up a TV dog training show I would recommend. It is on Animal Planet. It is called "It's Me or the Dog." This lady is pretty good and knows her stuff. Check that show out. She uses modern training techniques and quite better than the other famous TV dog personality.

Many many years ago I worked at a training facility that dealt with a lot of animal agression.  People would come in with your same scenerio.  The people would tell us that the dog was ferocious.  We would, after an evaluation of course, tell the handler to let the dog off the leash.  The dogs 99.9% of them were like yours.  they would play and sniff the other dogs. 

Dogs read body language!  If a dog is on a leash and another dog is coming near, the handlers would tense up on the leash and take in the slack.  Most of these handlers were anticipating the attack to come.  They were scared of a fight.  The dog reading the body language doesn't know what you are scared of, only that you are scared.  The only threat that they can detect is this strange dog approaching and they are going to protect.

I am in the same situation.  I have a male GSD who is about 6 1/2 months old and is dog aggressive.  I have been working with a trainer, who is a retired philly (Phila Pa) K-9 officer/trainer.  He is great!  My friend brings his 11 month old GSD( who is dog aggressive as well) over my house toward the end of the session and we work with both dogs.  We use choke collars.  Not  the prong ones.  I learned the collar needs to sit up high on the dogs neck...behind the dogs ears.  We do the same drills the trainer teaches the K-9 officers at the acdemedy.  We have one sitting and the other walks around them and if one of the dogs gets aggressive we correct them.   Its all in the correction with the collar.   I would look into a trainer.  Good luck.

Don. may be the closest of anyone on this. As usual, I'm not sure there is enough info. How do you know the dog behaves in doggie day care? Is there any way for you to observe? I'm not sure why you leave the dog in that situation, but since you do, I'm curious as to it's behavior.

Spook

you are right.  As I said in my post, an evaluation is always in order.