Update on Gracie and her tattoo - Page 2

Well, I don't know if this is what you mean, but if by strung up you mean there was continuous pressure upwards and she was also engaged in a fight...I could see my dog ignoring that too. Hard to tell what people mean on the Internet though :-) Use what works for her!

I remember feeling totally powerless in terms of managing Bosco's dog aggression (ie. just seeing a dog 100 feet away would make him go completely ballistic); I live downtown in a busy neighbourhood so it was miserable to even stand with him in our driveway. I remember saying a lot of the same things - hanging didn't stop him, prong corrections didn't phase him, etc. Many people (here and in-person) told me that I wasn't correcting hard enough - that the correction had to be sufficient to interrupt the undesired behavior. Bosco is 95 pounds and strong! His breeder taught me to give a proper correction (sufficient for Bosco is a "three and free" correction) AND to equally reward him for making appropriate choices. While the training program that he went through was more involved than this one sentence, I am still floored at how few corrections he needed to completely change his behavior (ie. three in a 14 week). We are very consistent and black/white in terms of dog aggression (none of it is ever allowed - no staring, barking, growling, lunging, etc. even if another dog is nutso near him) and we still reward for making appropriate choices (just a loud "YES SIR" is all he wants). Now, we don't have any issues bringing him places where there are a lot of dogs around. This is just an overly long way of saying hang in there!

Sunsilver, one quick question--you're familiar with how to correctly fit a prong collar, right? That it should site at the top of the dog's neck, just behind the ears, and not down on the nape of the neck just ahead of the shoulders?  It should be tight enough that it doesn't slide down as soon as you put it on the dog, but not so tight as to be creating slack in the martingale chain part of the collar...

Just thought it was worth confirming, since you said Gracie doesn't seem to care about the effect of the prong collar...for a dog that's been tied out, I doubt they would even feel a collar made of barbed-wire if it's placed at the nape of the neck, but put a correctly-fit 'choke' collar on that same dog and you'd be surprised when your first leash correction results in the dog standing on tiptoe and ready to salute you.  With the prong, you should get the same response from Gracie, even in her more frenzied state [agree with everyone else here who has pointed out that you can't assess how a dog is responding to a collar correction when it's given while the dog is fighting with another dog or is in the kill phase of a true prey event--those are 'lizard brain' moments where virtually nothing registers until much later].

And here's a bit of encouragement for you.  A friend of mine back East is really into AKC obedience trialing with her GSDs, like UDX-level serious, and she generally has at least two dogs at any given point in time in her life, so she can't have dog-aggression issues that require 24/7/365 complete separation between the resident dogs AND she can't have dogs that will bolt from the OB ring to go after dogs in motion in another ring or couldn't do the group exercises.  Several years ago, she got a working-line puppy from another friend of ours who breeds on a very limited basis, and whose lines are serious-as-a-heart-attack GSDs.  Not mentally unsound dogs, mind you, just dogs that can do the protection work for real, in addition to everything else one can think of to do with a dog [dock diving, pest detection in vineyards, herding, agility, assistance work for the disabled, etc., etc.].  My OB-ace friend was specifically selected to be offered this pup because he was a VERY pushy, very self-confident youngster who had already shown that he regarded himself as king of the world, and was going to prove a real challenge in training. The pup had already earned the nickname of  "Monster".  One of the facets of the pup's character that became evident shortly after he arrived back East was a very serious unwillingness to tolerate other dogs, especially other males, but females were fair game as well.  Today, this dog has his SchH2, plus his AKC UDX, TD, OM1, RE and VER titles, and he has not eaten any dogs in his lifetime. True, his owner has always been unfailingly diligent in not permitting the dog to find himself in situations that will get him in trouble, but she also made sure he learned that she would accept NO dog aggressive behaviors EVER. EVER.   She put a lot of work into the training, even dusting off her old Koehler training books and joining a Koehler-training web discussion group, but I know what this dog could have become, versus what he is, and it is the training that made the difference.  

It sounds like Gracie is in need of an equal degree of black and white rules of engagement in her life, and you're the person who is going to imprint those rules on her mind. If "Monster" could learn to ignore other dogs to the point where he could be trusted to hold his position during the out-of-site group exercises in the upper levels of AKC obedience trialing, Gracie can learn to comport herself like a lady as well.


 

Some dogs, especially an older, harder dog, may need to be conditioned to a prong. I know someone who keeps their dogs tied out and prongs work just fine for training. It sounds like she doesn't understand what the "correction" is supposed to mean, coupled with the fact that she obviously not being corrected swiftly enough. Steady pressure on a prong for a hard dog isn't going to stop them from what they're doing, but a sudden HEY!!! kind of correction is going to get their attention every time. I have yet to see a dog who really didn't respond when they were conditioned to it, it was fitted properly, and corrections were executed correctly. 

Gracie has gained weight since being rescued. Needless to say, being fed only once every 3 or 4 days results in a very thin dog. The prong, which I have been fitting high up on her neck, seemed too tight, so I added a link. When I was at club 2 days later, and she started pulling towards the lovely scents coming from the trailer, I realized there was now too much slack in it. THAT could be what the problem was. And, yes, I grew up with Kohler, so I do know how to do a hard, swift leash snap correction. It would stop her for a second, then she'd go right back to pulling.

We'll see today if removing the extra link made a difference. Her heeling at home, where there are no distractions is really coming along well. AND yesterday, she was sniffing noses with an intact male golden retriever through the fence, and wagging her tail!. She also ran up and down the fence with her ball in her mouth, inviting him to play! There was no hint of prey drive in her body language, either.

What I strongly suspect is the dog aggression developed because her former owner would leave a big pile of food for her, which she then would have to defend from any roaming stray dogs or other critters. She's naturally high in prey/ball drive, so having to protect her food made it much, much worse.

If it stops her for a second, do 3 in a row like that, fast, Koehler-style, then release and see if that makes an impression. With my young Czech demon, he's so hard that it takes 3-5 as hard as I can to make any impression whatsoever. 

yeah, looks like a belgian tattoo to me too.  my 2004 bitch is BHIWCN  and my 2007 bitch is BHLVBC.
pjp

Hmm...wonder if what looks like a 'G' could actually be a 'B'?

Hexe, I thought that too, but when I saw the tat in bright sunlight this week, it was definitely a G. Yvonne checked the Belgian tattoos for me, and could not find a match (she assumed the first letter was a B.)  But wouldn't it be something if someone imported this dog all the way from Belgium, only to have her wind up in a shelter? 

Gracie's left ear is really bothering her after he bath yesterday, so I'm going to give her some Surolan. I'll check the tatt again when I do that, just to be 100% sure.

She did really well at training today, and even went over the window jump and the A-frame a number of times!

Tightening up the prong made a LOT of difference!

She also did two scent pads (first step in tracking) and followed my scent for about 20 feet out from the second one.

The only thing that was a total fail was when I threw her kong on a rope, and she decided exploring the field was much more fun than going after the kong. Once I put her on a long line, she tugged very vigorously on the kong, and did not want to out. She showed good fight drive when the helper lifted her front feet right off the ground.

Our TD does not think she's dog aggressive. He tied her out, and had someone walk their dog back and forth in front of her. She was very interested, but showed no aggression.

He recommends I walk her together with my own dogs (need two people for this!) to get them used to each other.

Things just keep getting better and better! 

Sunsilver, remember that a dog that has already had successfull attacks is going to be a different case than a dog with dog-aggression that hasn't ever been successful in a physical sense.  The example given above by Hexe is interesting, but I feel doesn't fit your situation with your dog who has had very different circumstances.  Behavior modification is the answer, with a qualified trainer.  A dog that has had to fend for herself is going to have a far greater degree of aggression and learned fighting behavior, once a confrontation goes physical, even once, the dog has a set of learning that a dog kept from fighting obviously will never have.  She's hard core learned that her aggression gets her what she wants, that kind of reinforcement is very difficult to over come.  Sorry to say a well fitting prong collar is not going to "fix" her.  Only changing her emotional response to other dogs will.