Let's talk dominance...... - Page 1

I would like to especially hear from the following on this topic, Don Corleon, Olskool, RealCold, Schdecoy, Animules, Sueincc. All others are welcome but if you have not been SERIOUSLY challenged by a dog, and had to choke one out, or seen it have to be done, you don't really have the experience to answer.

Here is the situation. I have a client of the past year who wanted to do protection work. He showed me a litter and allowed me to pick the pup for him. ( I thought hell, this is a good start) I had seen him work with the dogs he has now( compultion based, heavy handed) and knew I had to pick a strong pup or he would squash it.

Quick history on the dog.....

From 12 weeks the pup has been man oriented. Bit full mouth and hard as hell from the very beginning. He will go after the sleeve if thrown, but comes directly back on the man. From day one he has looked at my 6' 2" 225 body like I am a big bunny rabit. Obsessive about toys in his mouth, confident, independant (not much for bringing the toy back to Dad) and demanding.

5 months old was demanding food during OB jumping on me and began humping me. I let him know right then that was not going to be in his best interest and have not had a problem since. Went through a quirky stage from 5 1/2 to 7 months. Resilliant to correction w/high pain tolerance. Got a little happy with him in bitework and had to back off for a couple of months.

10 months---Did not lift his leg, but scent marked over another dog. Completely dominated my clients 7 year old male.

11 months--- Walking around the neighborhood. Huge Rottie aggressivly barking and upper body over a 5 foot fence. Pup goes to the end of the leash toward this mature Rottie. Showed no aggression other than a whine and walked right to the end of the leash toward the Rottie. Attempted to hump his handler.

12 months--- Took him to a friend to work and give me his opinion. Pup had only seen two other decoys and fields @ about 6-7 months old. My friend worked him and slipped the sleeve. When I sat him and calmed the grip. The dog looked directly at my friend. My buddy looked him dead in the eye and stared him down. The pup did not bat an eye. He did not thrash, he did not attempt to carry the sleeve away, he did not show aggression. He held the sleeve dead calm and looked my buddy directly in the face.

Con't.........

Gard: Can I send you Bear?

*waits with bated breath for the other shoe to drop....*  C'mon, GARD, don't keep us in suspense here! 

Now for the handler.....

Not a big guy 5'7" 165lbs. Has difficulty holding the dog during aggitation. I've almost been bitten twice by him allowing the dog to move forward. Listens fairly well to instructions when it comes to the bitework. BUT......

as we have progressed he wants to do things more "his way". He did not follow directions on things in the beginning such as not taking things out of the dog's mouth when he was little, as the pup got older, he did not trade the dog for things, but choked the dog off of everything he put in his mouth. Now there is a conflict between dog and handler. The dog does not return things to his handler and having the handler calm the grip stresses the dog.

He insists on doing the OB himself. He has had some success with heeling and the down. But he works the dog in a very slow and boring manner. When I tell him to pick up the pace and become more animated, the dog begins jumping up and demanding the toy, and the handler has difficulty. I have offered to put a strong basic obedience on the dog for free. He declined convinced he can do it and wants to do it his way. I have caught the handler cranking on the dog for pulling him down the street and hitting him on the head for jumping up on him. The handler has wanted to put him on a pinch since 8 months old. I explained to him if he did that with this dog, we would need a cattle prod by the time he is 18 months.

He is pretty good at keeping the dog on a leash most of the time, but still does some unsafe handling. He lets the dog out the gate and in the front yard at home without a leash. Last week we were on a break from OB and the dog was just chilling out, so he let go of the leash. A kid on a bike rode by. The dog got up and took a few steps toward the kid but came back when the handler called him.

Now my delema....

I have tried to explain to this handler that he has ALOT of dog. This dog is going to be every bit of 80+ pounds. I have been getting on him about safe handling for months now. I have been telling him that he has a dominant dog that is going to challenge him at some point. He does not seem to take me seriously. One reason is the dog does not show any outright aggression. Just calm confident and dominant behavior that the handler does not recognize as a potential problem. I am considering suspending all bite work on the dog.

So what do you all fore see in the future for this dog and handler team? What suggestions do you have for me as a trainer. I don't want to quit on this because this dog has the potential to be out of sight.

Please tell me your thoughts and suggestions.

Well, I'm not as knowledgeable as some, but having had a couple of fairly dominant dogs, I can say you've got a powderkeg on your hands. I think you are perfectly correct to suspend bitework until the owner gets his act together, and starts to do as you ask. I would even refuse to train the dog  at all if he still wants to do things 'his' way.

Wouldn't suprise me to find he's facing a lawsuit down the road, if he doesn't listen up! I remember a story from the Leerburg site, where a lady was kicked out of a Schutzhund club becuase her dogs were deemed unsuitable for the sport. They broke out of her backyard, and attacked a kid at the school bus stop. 

(And too bad you can't steal the dog!!  )

If handler continues on the road hes on, Gard will own this dog....hes asking for trouble    David Moore started my zu and Konig and at a practice many years ago , a man who was further along, came and we were hosting a seminar.....another helper with Evin Stanley, was catching the dogs...This man was, as I later learned, being I was very new in the sport,,,famous for not doing what he was told when he was told and having  a dominant male dog,, that had one line of vision,  get the helper,,,he hit high and missed the sleeve and got the helpers top shoulder and ripped it open,,,,,,Im not sure , if you call that dog fault or helper error, but the conversation that followed , was the man handling his dog did not release when told and did not follow thru.....and that s been many years ago...but I can still see the incident in my mind,,

Because I could not control Konig, I put him on consignment with the trainer, (suppose to be) as we later learned wasnt) who was with a dept .; and I knew I had to, because if you are not capable of handling one, you'd better give it over to someone who can.........my regret   he sold the dog unbeknowing to me,until too late and we never found Konig to this day.......... 

get a real dog

if this were my client it would be my way or the high way. look this guy sounds like a jackass and a lawsuit waiting to happen and guess who gets the credit for the wonderful grip the dog makes on the guy that will be pressing the charges, it will be the guy doing the bite work training, you.  the dog sounds like a good dog but trained with a lot of conflict, and one day if the dog is a good dog with good drives he will eat up the handler more than likely. then the dog will win and will have learned to eat up handlers to relieve pressure then nobody will be able to handle him. it's the same old song and dance every year in america we import dogs just like this (same background) from germany they are labled as "tough real dogs". somebody will usually pay a lot of money for this "real dog" then find out they can't handle the dog and sell it again then another person will buy the dog just to breed the shit out of it. my opinion is these dogs are just good dogs with really bad training and turn into really big liabilities.

just my two cents

GARD,  no disrespect to you,  just thought I would throw it out there....  Our club is pretty strict,  there was a guy that wanted to join,  But all he wanted to do was bitework with this crazy Mal he had,  the dog was insaine and totally civil,  He would bite just for the hell of it,  He would miss the sleeve and nail you in the chest if you let him,  Nailed 2 of our very expeirienced decoys, and one new handler., New decoys were not for this dog,  Eventually he was told if he would not be participating in OB routines he would no longer be training and would not be allowed to join the club,  He's not around anymore...  Well who knows now what's up with him,  I thought at the time,  the same way everyone else did,  This guy needs to GO.  However thinking on it now I wonder if he should have ever been allowed to do BiteWork without any OB,  but I know why it's done,  you want to build the dogs drive first and then start in OB,   But the scarry thing is....  If this damn dog ever bites someone,  they litterally could try to blame it on the club,  I would hope that would never happen but it's always in the back of my mind,  when wondering where this individual ended up.  The kid was so green it was scarry and the dog was way more than he had the capacity for.  Just don't let this be an issue where you are left "holding the bag"   Do what you feel is right in your gut,  Your the only one with the first hand experience to deal with the situation before you. 

It may be best to try to gut it out and stick with him,  If you shut him down will he go elsewhere ?  and will the elsewhere recognize the complexity and reality of this team as you have ?  If not what would be the fate of this team in your OP ?   I think it would be devistating  so maybe the best thing is to try to gut it out,  But I would not want to be in your shoes right now.... 

My hats off to ya for making such an effort to make this guy aware of the situation and for continuing to beat your head against the wall so to speak.    Good Luck and be safe.   I hope you'll find the answers your looking for.   :-)

Sounds like a nice confident dog that could be great in the right hands. Too bad the handler doesn't know what to do with him!  You mention he was heavy handed with dogs in the past, but doesn't recognize dominance in his own dog.  Do you think he's a little cowed by this dog & doesn't want to admit it or is he truly oblivious?  He's going to crank once too many times & the dog 's going to  come back up the leash on his ass.

One small thing that might help in the fusing is get the guy to use food reward instead of toy,  dog might be a little lower in drive, so the handler can move out a little faster/crisper without the dog becoming too stimulated.  Handler needs to learn to dance with that puppy!

Also maybe if the handler understands he needs ob in protection & therefore no bite work until he can demonstrate better handling skills he will be motivated to do better in the ob work.  It sounds like the handler doesn't want help but at the same time has no clue what to do.  How frustrating. 

Best thing is for you to buy the dog & turn him into a  podium dog - voila!!!!!

GARD

I am just past you in the world of Oblivious.  I finally got a dog from the same type of person.  He is almost 10 months and if you stare at this boy, he will eat you!  I told the people at 7 weeks that this was not the pup for them.  They had the first pick of the males(mistake).  I told them to consider a female or male out of a later breeding.  They insisted that they could handle, and wanted this type of dog.  For the last 3 1/2 months I have been begging them to return the dog.  They had him in obedience, but the dog is too much for the lady to handle.  I told them over and over that being naive will get them in court.  A week ago a fertilizer guy walked into their back yard, uninvited, to see if they needed services.  Luckily the guy was wearing some rubber, wader-like, pants.  The dog chased him down and bit him in the crotch.  Like I said, luckily the rubber pants were protecting the jewels.                             Right after this incident, the lady tried to put him in a down and the dog gave a bit of a growl and stuck out his middle finger.   

I hate to see these people get this type of dog.  They have no experience in how to read a dog.  They see the dog at home, froliching around like a Golden.  They don't know how to read their body language in order to address a situation.    These people are naive!  How could my cuddly dog hurt someone?  He just loves our kids!  I don't know why he bit that guy in the wheelchair. 

I would give the guy an offer he could not refuse.

What would be nice is if this guy could realize the risk before it happens.  I would suspend all bite work until the guy has complete control over his dog.  Do you really want to equip an out of control dog with the tools to be a man fighter?  I would sit the guy down and explain this to him.  If he agrees and stays to do obedience, there may be a chance that he gets more knowledge and wiser.  If he doesn't like it, he can leave.  Go find someone else!  If you sit a guy down, tell him you are doing this for his best interests, and the guy doesn't understand, then he will never get it.  You don't want to deal with a strong dog and a thick headed handler. 

One thing that should scare you a bit, is your own safety.  If this Napoleonic midget can't stand there as a post, tell him to bring his wife to handle the dog. That usually gets a great response out of guys under 5'9".

It would be nice if you had the money to get him to sell the dog.  Explain to him that instead of being sued for a minimum of $10,000, you can go home with $xxxxxx!