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by GSDFLORIDA on 17 January 2010 - 20:01
I train this guy almost every day for short periods. He has all his basic obedience down pat and we are working on silent commands now. There is no doubt that I am the alpha.
When I got him at 9 weeks, I socialized him as much as I could around kids, but not many kids are around, so I would let the few of them pet him and play with him. For some reason that I cant explain, I never felt comfortable with him around kids or dogs. I did not ever feel this way with my previous males. He flat out hates other dogs also.
Whenever we are on our walks, no matter what type of human or animal might be within 150 feet he starts to bristle, groan and snort. he is a longcoat and he stands his hair up and doubles his size. I make him sit and order him to focus on me, which he complies with but he is still preoccupied with his distraction. When he is in the yard it is the same and he has become a schoolyard bully. I have been restricting his yard time and when he is acting out I crate him and put a sheet over the crate, but that does nothing.
I want a tough protective dog, but I need to have control over his switch. I cant get through to this knuclehead. I worry about the future with this guy. At this time being on a field with other dogs is probably out of the question
Any thoughts?
www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/574994.html
by davidbills on 17 January 2010 - 20:01
i would find me a boarding kennel and see if you could walk him though several times a week i a controlled environment.take him to stores like walmart and set near the entrance door like you would a puppy and take treats to distract him and see if that works let me know his progress.the hair standing up is fear you will need to socialize him alot more and try and find him another dog to play with that could be a problem to not aggression just fear
by Lief on 17 January 2010 - 21:01
by Nans gsd on 17 January 2010 - 23:01
I have similar problems with my now 7 l/2 year old male; he is neutered. He does not like kids and is not real fond of other dogs, particularly, males.
OK, what I have learned through the years with him is; find yourself the best Schuthund (SP) trainer possible in your area and take him to that trainer; a person that is known for his FANTASTIC ability to work with these tough dogs and teach them the ON/OFF switch that you need. And do it now. I waited until recently to try to get that switch; and my boy will not do the ON/OFF switch, he refuses and wants to take things in his own hands now. So I screwed up along the way by not doing this at your boys age. This age in some males (my boy being totally German bred) his mother was a very tough bitch and his father also fairly tough (Sch 3) and my boy during the teenage years extremely out of control with similar matters that you have mentioned.
So now the problems that have risen are: he does his own protection when HE feels it is nessary which is most of the time. This to me is unacceptable and disrespectful to me; but, I have not been able to get this changed or corrected. They are naturally protective so that hardness and toughness is already instilled in their personalities whether you want it or not.
I feel you need to teach him to respect your requests or commands all of the time and under any circumstances. Period. You need to be consistent in his training and need to be able to have a backup plan if the first plan of training this problem does not work. A really good trainer will help you through this and it might only take a couple of lessons to fix it. But don't make the mistake I did and wait too long as my job is extremely difficult now.
Food for thought... Nanci
PS: These german bred boys are usually extremely difficult during their teenage years; don't get me wrong, my boy is a sweetheart and would lay his life down for me but this is a difficult and trying problem. It will take some perserverence on your part to get through the "teenage" stage so you can move on in his training. Personally, I am not fond of the problem, but I know it can be solved with the right person. And I feel you need to stay with solving this problem, before you can move on, if nothing else keep socializing, socializing, socializing, but be safe about it and if you can't trust him, use a muzzle.
by GSDFLORIDA on 17 January 2010 - 23:01
This is it exactly. An earlier poster mentioned fear aggression, and this boy does not know fear. He is the bravest dog I have ever seen. I think I did not explain it correctly, he is the opposite of fear. I have seen fear aggression and this aint it. I have been thinking about a trainer anyway and its probably time
Thank you all posters
by Nans gsd on 18 January 2010 - 17:01
by Slamdunc on 18 January 2010 - 23:01
If your dog is the bravest dog that you have ever seen why do his hackles go up when people get with in 150 feet of him as you describe? I can understand a dog doing this with other dogs or animals. But, a strong confident dog will not show that behavior around people. The hackles and growling at people from that distance is not the sign of a brave dog IMO. There is some type of underlying insecurity in the dog that causes that behavior.
How do you know that your dog doesn't know fear? Don't mistake his aggressive behavior as being brave or your dog lacking fear. Some insecure dogs go forward with their aggression and do exactly what you are describing. They act super tough to cover up their weaknesses. This does not make them brave or void of fear, they just react differently and don't run away initially but become aggressive.
You need to begin some very serious obedience training or you will wind up owning a very large liability. You need to take control of this dog now and knock that behavior out of him. You can not change the nature of the dog but you can change his behavior. You can not allow this dog to decide to become aggressive, at the first sign of inappropriate agression he needs to be corrected strongly. Many people mistake this behavior as being a tough dog or a hard dog, but in my experience really hard, tough dogs don't react this way.
The fact that your dog may have some underlying insecurity is not necessarily a bad thing if you can redirect and control his behavior. Dogs like this can be good watch dogs because they are so suspicious of people.
JMO FWIW,
Jim
by Jenni78 on 19 January 2010 - 01:01
Hackles toward other animals don't bother me a bit; this is normal animal behavior to make one look bigger in the face of an opponent. Toward people, I feel a bit differently. Not saying it's a horrible, nervebag fearbiter at all, but I think if you don't entertain that the motivation behind this behavior is fear-based (I even hate using that term b/c dogs don't really feel fear the same way we do- they simply react according to their instincts), then you could be really missing the boat w/the type of training/stabilization/conditioning you need to do. What I'm saying is that to properly counteract his behavior, you need to understand where it's coming from.
by Slamdunc on 19 January 2010 - 02:01
I notice we agree a lot lately, I'm still not getting any smarter though.
Jim
by yoshy on 19 January 2010 - 02:01
second time some called jenni a dummy haha.
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