Reactivity and Color

[dogsofmenace]

I was wondering if anyone had any input on our situation. We don't own any BCs, but have a foster, Zephyr, that we were hoping to adopt. Our golden retriever, however, is selectively reactive to certain dogs, and we don't know what sets him off. Our first BC foster was a black tri puppy, Laila. We were being pretty careful because we knew Toby (the golden) wasn't tolerant of dogs in his face, and puppies are pretty notorious for this. Well, we weren't careful enough, and 3 or four weeks after we got her, when Toby seemed to be getting used to her, he attacked her. Toby does the latch and hold attack--he grabs dogs' heads and doesn't let go. He's only done this to two dogs, both female and both in our home, but completely different situations. We think it probably has a lot to do with territory now, as well as his stress level, which is always very high in the house for some reason, but increases a ton when we have a foster.

 

After he attacked Laila, we kept them separated until she was adopted a few weeks later. This was in late August. In December, after taking a long break from fostering, we pulled Zephyr from a shelter. We wanted to make sure something like what happened with Laila didn't happen again, so we took it very very slow. We didn't bring Zeph into our home for about a week, just going to parks and taking walks together with Toby and Zeph walking parallel. Toby had a pretty strong reaction when he first saw him, but soon calmed down. Then we brought him in, but kept them separate, and still do now.

 

We've been doing Click to Calm and Control Unleashed with Toby and Zephyr around the house and behind gates and stuff. Sometimes it seems to be helping, but overall it doesn't seem to be doing much. Toby's stress level isn't going down at all, and he'll get into these "zones" where he'll stare at Zephyr; tail straight up wagging slowly, very stiff body, hard eyes, etc and nothing can distract him. Zephyr is VERY good at giving off calming signals (sniffing, head turning, licking) when he and Toby are close, but Toby isn't reading them at all, which is a major concern. We've had Zephyr for about three weeks.

 

Along with this situation, we came across another problem with Toby at around the time Laila was adopted. He started to become reactive to border collies. Not all of them, generally skinny, lanky black and white or black tri, which is what Laila looked like. Some of them he would be fine with. There are a ton at our training facility, but he's only had experience with black and white ones.

 

We think that he's got it in his mind all border collies that look like Laila are a threat. We don't think there is hope for him to live with Zephyr, and it seems like he's not the right dog for us anyway, so we're working hard to get him adopted now. But we want a border collie, and have for years. I don't want Toby's reactiveness to get in the way of that, but right now it is, in a very major way.

 

Since he's associated b&w BCs with a ton of stress up to this point, we think that next time we should try a different color. I've heard of people's dogs that are reactive to dogs of a certain color and fine with others because of a past experience. Although we know that we'll still have to do a lot of work to get him used to living with a BC, we think that maybe the color would help.

 

Does anyone have any advice or experience with this sort of thing? Do you think there is any hope for us to have a BC? Sorry for such a long post, and I'm sure I left out a lot of info.

[SnickerKitten]

It would be my first move to have Toby seen by a dog behaviorist. The way you describe his reaction does not sound like he's fearful, it sounds more like he's just plain dog aggressive. If my dog acted like that I don't think I'd have any other animals in my house with him at all. I'd also start looking for reasons why his stress level is high in the house even when you don't have a foster and start addressing that. Goldens don't really end up living all that long compared to some other breeds so it might be best to put your plans for getting a border collie off till after Toby has passed away. Good luck with him.

 

Lori

[Shetlander]

It would be my first move to have Toby seen by a dog behaviorist. The way you describe his reaction does not sound like he's fearful, it sounds more like he's just plain dog aggressive. If my dog acted like that I don't think I'd have any other animals in my house with him at all.

 

I agree about getting someone in to help with this situation. And as much as you want a BC, I don't think this would be a safe environment to bring another dog into. You would need to be constantly vigilant and ensure that the dogs live entirely separate lives. Talk about a lot of stress for humans and dogs alike.

 

Has Toby had a complete workup by the vet? His aggression combined with what you describe as his stress levels would make me wonder if he has something medical going on. If the vet give a clean bill of health, then you could see what a behavioralist thinks can be done to help Toby.

[dogsofmenace]

I understand everyone's concern, however, its not as if he is aggressive towards all other dogs. We have another dog--probably the meanest dog you'll ever meet. She growls and snaps at him, takes things from him, everything you could think of doing and he's fine with it. He loves her. They play and have fun together. Up until a year ago we had a third dog. We've also had a LOT of foster dogs, and we dog sit for friends and family a ton. Never been a problem before Laila, which was probably because of her age.

 

He's been evaluated by several behaviorists, although the results weren't really helpful. They basically told us there wasn't anything wrong with him because when they were evaluating him he acted pretty normal. We've even been tempted to take him to a psychic or something! We should probably go to another behaviorist, but we can't just keep going to a ton of them. We can't afford it! He's had several complete medical check ups and is on anxiety medication. We're pretty sure its a fear thing, however. His nature in general is very fearful. We think he tries to dominate other dogs because he's just afraid of what they'll do to him. He was born and raised on a cock fighting farm in a pen full of aggressive German Shepherds. (He was never in a house before we got him, which is what causes all his stress in the house. But its not like he's stressed all the time. Just when there are sudden noises or when we rearrange the furniture or something. Probably should have clarified that)

 

I'm afraid that we may have to wait until Toby has passed away, but he's only 3! And we know he can live with other dogs. Theres just something about certain border collies that set him off. Thanks for the input so far.

 

 

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Has a behaviorist come into your home to see the situation? You would ideally want them to see what happens when this type of dog is around. We had someone come into our house to see how Daisy deals with strangers and dogs passing the front window and stuff like that. It's helped. My next question would be; do you know of ANY bad experience your golden has had with this type of dog? There is a good possibility that it may have happened before you got him, but I do believe that dogs will have a reaction to other dogs that are similar to the ones that harmed them. Our dog is petrified of small dogs, including puppies because on two different occasions she was chased and bitten by smaller toy breed dogs. So, this is a possibility if he's had a bad run-in.

 

I learned a lot about why my dog is fearful of stuff by reading Patricia O'Connell books. Feisty Fido, How to be leader of the Pack and The Cautious Canine are booklets and The other end of the Leash and For the love of a dog are her books. Very helpful, a lot of people here seem to agree. I have also heard that the Tellington TTouch method helps dogs too. That I have yet to try, but in the next couple of months I am putting my dog in a "Reactive Rover" class that touches on that method along with some theories by Patricia O'Connell. The class is put on at our Humane Society, I just dropped by one day and talked to one of the trainers and they suggested this class to me...maybe you could give something like that a try. Being that your dog never lived inside the house for most of his life and the situation didn't sound like it would have been that much fun... he could be really stressed about anything!

I believe that with some love and lots of patience you can work through this with him. You just have to find the right person/method to help you.

 

I don't know if my thoughts have helped or not, but I wish you the best of luck!

 

julie

[dogsofmenace]

Thanks. No, we've never had a behaviorist come to our house, but that probably would be the best way. Now that you mention it, when we used to go to the dog park there was a BC there who would herd all the other dogs, Toby included. That probably had a lot to do with it. He isn't, however, very bad with GSDs (the dogs he was raised around) which strikes me as odd. He used to be slightly reactive to some shepherds, but now he's fine with most. Also, the only other dog he's ever attacked badly was an American Eskimo Dog mix.

Our patience with him is never ending. He's been improving, slightly, through clicker training. Control Unleashed is helping a lot, particularly the mat work. It would be great if there was a class or someone near us like the one you described, or someone who could help us, but there just isn't.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I am not a behaviorist, nor can I assess your dog properly over the internet. However, you've given a pretty vivid picture of what is going on and my sense is that this dog is making choices, running this aspect of the show. Reactivity is when a dog simply acts without thinking. Quite the opposite in this case - your dog seems to be doing a lot of thinking and discerning.

 

The difficulty arises for you, because although you might think you can avoid the problem, by avoiding what you perceive as "triggers" - he may continue to up the ante on you. If you bring a red dog in your home, or a tan dog, he could very well shift his parameters.

 

What I would suggest, is to work with a behaviorist on offering greater leadership to him. He must not think that it's his job to decide what dogs are acceptable, and which are not. That starts with any decision he makes - something like a NILIF program can help, but it's got to be pretty consistent, and symbolism alone won't help here. You've also got to be aware of the other times he is structuring your life to his pleasure, rather than the other way around. The moments can be very subtle, so the behaviorist can help there.

 

Good luck!

[Alaska]

Control Unleashed is helping a lot, particularly the mat work. It would be great if there was a class or someone near us like the one you described, or someone who could help us, but there just isn't.

Are you sure? Have you checked with the CU_Dogs list? There are CU classes starting up in a lot of places, plus individuals getting together to work on the exercises -- I think the CU_Dogs site has a list of folks interested in finding others to work with.

[mbc1963]

I can't give you much help in your problem, but I can say that YES! my dog has very clear ideas about what types of dogs look acceptable, and what types do not.

 

Not OK: Boxers, pit bull, bulldogs, mastiffs. Pekingese, Shih tzu, lhasa apso. Russian Wolfhounds, Irish Deerhounds, etc..

 

OK: Aussies, BCs, huskies, springer spaniels, brittany spaniels, chihuahuas,Jack Russells.

 

My dog will decide from 20 yards how he feels about another dog. I can tell when he falls in love, and I can tell when he's really anxious. I have no idea why he does what he does. The best I can do when he meets a "hated" breed is have the owner do parallel walks for a few days: after a while, Buddy gets desensitized to specific dogs. He just never leaps to the generalization that since he likes one boxer, boxers aren't bad after all. ::Sigh::

 

Mary

[mbc1963]

I can't give you much help in your problem, but I can say that YES! my dog has very clear ideas about what types of dogs look acceptable, and what types do not.

 

Not OK: Boxers, pit bull, bulldogs, mastiffs. Pekingese, Shih tzu, lhasa apso. Russian Wolfhounds, Irish Deerhounds, etc..

 

OK: Aussies, BCs, huskies, springer spaniels, brittany spaniels, chihuahuas,Jack Russells.

 

My dog will decide from 20 yards how he feels about another dog. I can tell when he falls in love, and I can tell when he's really anxious. I have no idea why he does what he does. The best I can do when he meets a "hated" breed is have the owner do parallel walks for a few days: after a while, Buddy gets desensitized to specific dogs. He just never leaps to the generalization that since he likes one boxer, boxers aren't bad after all. ::Sigh::

 

Mary

[lrayburn]

My dogs are also very specific about what types of dogs they like. They don't like boxers or bulldogs - whether its because of body language or behavior or a combination of the two. My old dog Rocket very distinctly didn't like German Shepherds and that was a generalized response after being attacked (more than once) by one.

 

That doesn't help your situation but it is important to realize what is triggering your dog. Perhaps introducing several other dogs into the CONTROLLED home environment (with the help of your trainer) and watching his response could help you determine what the triggers are.

Lisa

[dogsofmenace]

Are you sure? Have you checked with the CU_Dogs list? There are CU classes starting up in a lot of places, plus individuals getting together to work on the exercises -- I think the CU_Dogs site has a list of folks interested in finding others to work with.

We're on the CU list. I'm really pretty sure theres no one near us, though I very well may be wrong. We live in Louisville, KY

 

 

My dog will decide from 20 yards how he feels about another dog. I can tell when he falls in love, and I can tell when he's really anxious. I have no idea why he does what he does.

 

This is exactly how Toby is. But yeah, if he's not going to like a dog, we can tell right away.

 

That doesn't help your situation but it is important to realize what is triggering your dog. Perhaps introducing several other dogs into the CONTROLLED home environment (with the help of your trainer) and watching his response could help you determine what the triggers are.

Thats a good suggestion. We just don't have all too many dogs to work with that are dog savvy, but we should try to find a few. We have a vaugue sense of the type of dogs he doesn't like, though its more based on intuation that anything else. If we could find a clear pattern it would be wonderful. We do know that he isn't too fond of boxers and in general dogs with docked tails or ears. They probably confuse him more because he can't read their signals that they would give with their tail or ears.