Any tips on my female's animal aggression? - Page 2

From Brenda Aloff's book, Aggression in Dogs:

Predatory behaviour is very 'deep' behaviour, rooted-in-the-brain-stem stuff. My point of view is that predatory behaviour is not aggression - but that may just be a battle over semantics, because the resulting damage is the same whether you call it aggression or not...

The dog is focused so intently on his prey that interrupting the behaviour is extremely difficult.

And, something that small dog owners (and GSD owners) need to be especially aware of:

Predatory drift can occur dog to dog. In this case, under normal circumstances, the dogs would coexist just fine, but certain stimuli trigger a limbic response where one dog begins to see the other dog as prey. This is prevalent in the terrier breeds and is also seen in herding breeds, particularly the herding/guarding types, such as Malinois or GSD's.

Nans,

Some opinions may vary on this but here is mine. And some may be able to articulate what im trying to say better than I as well.

From what I have seen with most dogs that are killers, is there is a genetic component for this. Its a component in prey drive. Some dogs have it . Others do not.
But this does not necessarily mean that a dog will be a killer without conditioning or opportunity. What I mean by this is, look at any predator in wild. The mother
of the young normally teaches them how to stalk,hunt,kill, Take feline cubs for ex. Mom brings a wounded small animal and all the cubs play with it until the exuberance
turns deadly for the small animal and this conditions the pups to the act of killing. So a lot of times this is the same way a dog will learn. starts as chasing and curiosity and
escalates to killing. Though some make that jump quickly and dont truly need to go through the escalation process as I have owned two dogs this way.

I personally had a mali that was a killer from day 1. She  started with bugs and frogs as a pup and continued to escalate the size of her prey to the point where she would take down anything she could. Squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, birds, yearling deer etc.... and would consume her game. She was a dedicated hunter to say the least.

Had another, a little bull terrier that was simply a killer for the sake of killing and wouldnt consume the game. Actually made this dog a groundhog dog so we could eradicate ground hogs on horse farms. Anyone thats worked around horses knows how dangerous ground hog dens(wholes) are to horses in the paddocks. This service got me a lot of my tracking land haha.

But like any drive or behavior if managed properly it can diminish with time. However if caught to late after the dog has started taking down game do to improper management you have to go back the full time management around animals and is extremely difficult to eradicate. In some cases the dog has to simply be managed the rest of its life in severe cases. This is not an easy fix depending upon how severe the behavior is ingrained in the dogs mind.



Edit:
1 more point. Just because a dog is a killer doesnt mean it cant be taught to avoid certain game in pursuit of other game. Such as the bull terrier i had. I taught it to discriminate its game as chickens and goats and other domestic farm animals were off limits but barn rats, ground hogs, and foxes were fair game. So this can be taught if a person understands what they are dealing with.






 

I want to say again, thank you everyone who shared stories, comments and tips with me. I really appreciate the time everyone took to reply to my post. I am not an experienced dog trainer, or have I competed in any type of dog sport / showing. All I have experience with is owning protection and working type dogs my adult life, as pets and taking little group classes in basic obedience with my dogs.. I did take Vega to a puppy class, when she was around 9 months old. I chose the group class, as I wanted her to learn how to focus on me when there were many distractions about, and to socialize her.We still get the leash out and practice recall, sit, stay, down.. She listens to me well.. I have an older male, who is an awesome farm dog. He runs loose with chickens, goats, cats, horses, ect.. He has only gone after wild animals and neighborhood dogs who have threatened the livestock. He allows certain dogs on the property that he knows have no interest in the livestock, they just want to come visit.. I am the only one, I am proud of my boy to say, that has not lost any chickens to the famously elusive fox. When Vega came along, I had her spend as much time with my male, as I've noticed pups will pick up on behaviors of an older dog. She was always fine with the animals, and very playful with other dogs. Then she hit about a year and half, and killed a goat, whom she used to play with and sleep with. I don't know if it was a chase / play thing that escalated, and I feel very guilty about that, since I should have been more careful with her loose around livestock. But as she never showed aggression to them before, I didn't even think about it. I bought the e collar for my last female who started chasing horses. I watched the dvd and read the book that came with collar, but since it was geared more towards bird dogs, wasn't much help. I consulted a trainer, who my sister knew from the sheriffs dept, who helped with the k9s. He was the one who suggested I hide, allow the dog to come very close to contact with the animal and then give correction. He explained that will have the dog believe the correction came from the actual animal. I used that method with my old female, worked awesome. After a couple times, she gave horses a wide berth. I think my girl now, was tipped off by the prongs touching her neck, as I use a prong collar on her for leash training, therefore wouldn't even look in goats direction.. I live in a very rural area with the nearest trainer, who deals with behavior modification is 3 hours away.. I found a lady an hour away, but she only uses flat collars, clickers and treats.. I don't believe my dog would respect that type of training.  I am going to continue keeping her supervised, keeping her excess energy burnt off, and will start working with her more on leash with obedience. I hate that she does this, as in every other way she is great.. Very loyal, listens well, great manners.. Just prefers a diet in raw chicken and goat :/  I had a Bouvier years ago that loved a diet in cat.. even nastier lol.. Thank you all again for your input!!  Sincerely, Erin

P.s, If any of you want to see what this little devious girl looks like and her breeding, I put her on here.. She isn't stacked or anything, just tried to get a pic of her standing still! She is under Vega vom Shellhorn Viehfarm

OP:  
we all love pictures. 

and if you put your location on here. city or state someone here may be able to recommend a trainer to help you that may have better tactics and experience with what your going through than your previous people. As people on here cover most of the US, canada, and europe or at least know people from just about everywhere.

  My girl Vega... My male, Oso..

 And I live outside Troy, AL.. I am originally from S. CA.. I don't know many people in the area. I talked to a guy who is involved in schutzhund training, but he is in Birmingham area.. 3 hours away :(