aggression issues - where to from here

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Don't know if the OP is still around, but hopefully they are still reading.

 

I might also suggest stepping out of formal classes for a short time and take your pup as often as possible to populated places (on leash) where you can quickly distract him away from other dogs/people with treats or a ball or whatever. After a month or two of that, join a very small class where there is A LOT of space to learn in. I think the atmosphere of dog training classes is unlike anything we normally encounter in the real world, and as one poster mentioned it will produce the behaviours you are trying to avoid. Consider working privately with a trainer familiar with BCs, you might go further in less time.

 

I 100% agree that dropping from formal classes for a while is a good idea. Taking the dog to populated areas is a bad idea unitl you understand the dogs thresholds and triggers. You also need to teach the dog things that will help him be distracted. For example, with my reactive dog, I spent weeks and weeks teaching her and getting her jacked up on doing tricks. To the point where doing tricks and learning new ones is her FAVORITE thing in the world. I also taught her a "watch me" command, an excellent recall and then later a "look at that" command. Then I worked with her in our living room with the blinds open so she could see other dogs walking past, then in our front yard and in the neighbourhood park. When she would see another dog, I would ask her for eye contact, then get her to do some tricks, then we'd walk the other way. Rewarding her heavily for not reacting and doing what I asked the entire time. Sometimes it takes a lot of work with a dog before you can throw it into heavily populated areas without reaction. The more the dog gets to react, the more it learns this behaviour "makes that scary thing go away".

[VegasMike]

I used to train dogs professionally for years. I also used to be a regular poster on Leerburg. When I saw you linked his dominant dog collar. I kinda cringed. Not your fault. But that is not a training tool for your problem IMO. And should only be used be advanced trainers for very serious handler aggression. Im not sure exactly how serious your problem is over the internets. No way to know. Just an FYI when you are working with ANY type of aggression ANY type or kind of dog. They have a potential to redirect that aggression. Most likely to the handler.

 

In my years training dogs I have used both positive and negative forms of training. For aggression I personally do not play. I do not give cookies, I do not desensitize and Im not cruel either. Sometimes in our anthropomorphic way of thinking, we get the human ways of relating confused with a canines way of relating. Just show me how a dog uses positive reinforcement to deal with aggression, and remains at the top of the pecking order. Which is where every dog owner should be. If you watch dogs for any period of time they will show you how to interact with them. Animals are not always pleasant.

 

I am by no means saying that positive reinforcement or that desensitization doesn't work. I know it does, I use it. Big fan of clicker training here. As a matter of fact I love all positive trainers. I made a lot of money off a local positive trainer's (in another city from my current one) "un-trainable" dogs lol! But what was it?... One poster said something like 6 months to train out some dog aggression? Could be wrong on that time frame. But whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I could of settled that in about 5 minutes. End of the day though. It worked for her. And bravo to her for sticking to it!

 

That being said. You need to get with a trainer. And you need to go with a plan you are going to stick too. Be it positive or otherwise. Its important that you find a good trainer. Sorry in advance.... not a petsmart trainer or equivalent. And stick to the plan!

 

Finally. Your dogs ability to work cows, sheep or chubachabras or whatever. Has no bearing on this. Run from any trainer that tells you this! Toughest dog in our house on cattle is the softest thing at hand. And I could crush her with a hard look. But she would take the nose off me if i was a cow.

 

I could search for colleague in your area. Just don't know where you are.

 

Oh PS: You are correct Ceaser does sometimes actually choke dogs. They cut to commercial. And come back and *PRESTO* much more obedient dog that you can actually work with. Sometimes it only takes a second or less. But do not do this without working with someone who knows what they are doing. Most dogs do not need this!!!

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I am by no means saying that positive reinforcement or that desensitization doesn't work. I know it does, I use it. Big fan of clicker training here. As a matter of fact I love all positive trainers. I made a lot of money off a local positive trainer's (in another city from my current one) "un-trainable" dogs lol! But what was it?... One poster said something like 6 months to train out some dog aggression? Could be wrong on that time frame. But whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I could of settled that in about 5 minutes. End of the day though. It worked for her. And bravo to her for sticking to it!

 

Don't know if this was one of my posts or not you are referring to and I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd just like to add that before I started using positive training methods I did actually use a trainer that was correction based, I had private sessions in my home even. Fear is the basis of my dogs reactivity, and she would actually completely shut down when anyone was working with her. I'm talking curl up and withdraw from the situation 100%. Our relationship suffered and she did not get better. Once I started to understand fear a little better, I realized that leash corrections weren't going to make our issues go away. Clearly my dedication and training ability weren't the problem because I did manage to stick with a very difficult task and succeed. There is never a 5 minute solution to a behaviour issue.

[VegasMike]

Don't know if this was one of my posts or not you are referring to and I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd just like to add that before I started using positive training methods I did actually use a trainer that was correction based, I had private sessions in my home even. Fear is the basis of my dogs reactivity, and she would actually completely shut down when anyone was working with her. I'm talking curl up and withdraw from the situation 100%. Our relationship suffered and she did not get better. Once I started to understand fear a little better, I realized that leash corrections weren't going to make our issues go away. Clearly my dedication and training ability weren't the problem because I did manage to stick with a very difficult task and succeed. There is never a 5 minute solution to a behaviour issue.

 

Im very glad it worked out for you. I don't know you or your dog. I have no idea what I would have done with your dog. But I have seen that before. Sounds very manipulative too me. I think you misread the part about your dedication to working with your animal. But being that I have probably trained hundreds of dogs with similar problems. I can say that I have indeed fixed that problem in 5 minutes. You are just plain wrong on that one. No other way too put it. Just because something doesn't work for you or your problem, does not mean it doesn't work for others.

 

But maybe fixed really is not the right way to put it. No matter what you do, in dog with that kind of fear. It can always come back. And you are always managing it. And BTW "fear" is the "basis" for about 99 percent of aggression issues that professional trainers will see in dogs.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

This is an argument that's happened 100 times here and everywhere else for that matter. So, lets leave it at that. I guess I'm glad my dog doesn't have opposable thumbs or I'd really be in trouble.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Ms. Duke writes (in part): "I'd just like to add that before I started using positive training methods I did actually use a trainer that was correction based, I had private sessions in my home even."

 

It is safe to say there are ineffectual trainers who employ corrections. It is also safe to say some trainers using "positive training methods" are ineffectual. I have seen ineffectual sheepdog trainers. I have seen trainers who charged good money for null results. I have seen brilliant trainers fail with a dog that wanted maturity and life experience, not training. I have seen brutal trainers; some were effective, others were brutes. I have seen dogs whose life was destroyed because their gentle, positive trainers couldn't read dogs and imagined their dogs were human simulcrums. I have seen sheepdogs ruined by correction based and shock collar trainers.

 

It ain't the method, kids. It's the trainer.

 

Donald McCaig

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

You're right. I've seen terrible positive trainers too.

[jasper7777]

Thanks everyone for advice, (I just wrote a follow up- its 8 months later, the thread might be dead by now but I wrote a follow up anyway.

 

Sam is 8 months older now than when I first posted, so almost 2 years old. I no longer worry that much about him being aggressive (he is much better), but I remember at the time of posting this he really scared me. I think his aggression calmed down a lot after he was neutered, but it was still there. I tried lots of different things. I did get the Leerburg choker collar. I pulled up on the choker collar, just as Leerburg said, and Sam would stand on his hind legs and didn't seem choked at all, didn't seem like the collar really affected him any differently than pulling up on a flat collar.

 

I did get the Control Unleashed book and read about half, left it on the sofa to get my tea, Sam chewed it to bits. I did do some of the exercises in the book and got the jest of it. Did a lot of positive training techniques like:

I started walking him parallel to a walk way where others walk their dogs, but 30 feet away on leash and when other dogs walked by I would get him to look at me, go through his tricks and give him treats to distract. So, did the positive things the positive trainers tell you to do. It wasn't that easy because sometimes other people on the path had dogs off leash that would run up to him— and I would think Oh No Sam is going to attack the dog when it gets here, and the other dog is going to react and there will be a huge fight. Which almost happened a couple of times— but after a bit of lunging and growling the other dogs ran back to owners and noone got bitten.

I also, started going to a fly ball agility group, but not to do the flyball, just to let Sam be around other dogs. Whenever this group met they would let their dogs all run together around the park to run off steam before training. I talked to a woman in the group and she told me to just let him off the leash - they will sort it out, and so I reluctantly let him off. Sam ran and played with all the other dogs and was really very normal. Until, someone let another male 8 month old cattle dog puppy go and Sam immediately ran after it snarled and pinned it. I freaked out, but one of the women said, its OK they are sorting out rank, and also, that cattle dog puppy was being rude, and is known for setting off other dogs. They (agility dog fly ball people with 10 yrs + experience) blamed it on the other dog not Sam, which i didn't quite believe— But I kept going back to the group (and listening to the fly ball people) and letting Sam run with the other dogs each week off leash, I always fretted about it but let him off anyway. What I learned was, Sam sucks-up to big dogs that are older, and he is nice to dogs that are small if they are older, but if it is a dog younger than him he must make sure he challenges it, if it won't submit he gets nasty. If the dog is around the same age as him he's only nice to it if its a lot bigger than him, if its the same age as him but smaller he can be nasty, snappy but doesn't ever draw blood.

 

The other thing I did (separately and never with dogs around) was, I taught Sam to come to me 95% of the time when I called him, and I used tools including, treats, long leash, and an electric collar, and that whole process of getting Sam to come, no matter what took months. ( and I'm sure I'm going to get told off about saying I used an electric collar but that's another story— about getting Sam to obey the Come command, no matter how far away he was, no matter what. )

 

So, after training Sam to come 95% of the time I started letting him walk off leash... at the park. I'm convinced that being able to be off leash helped cure Sam off his dog aggression.

 

In more recent months.... He has gotten better over time.

I walk him all the time now at the park where I live, off leash. He runs up and down the bank and into the river, he's happy, not frustrated, because he can run off leash. He sees dogs every time I walk him and nothing bad has happened. Little terrier dogs have run up and growled and snapped at him, he just ignores them. He is always is nice to labs, pitt bulls, german shepherds, (all the big dogs) and plays with them. Still, he is not that good with young dogs. If i see another dog i think might be a problem, I distract him by throwing his toy, or saying get the stick! to break his attention, or call him to come. I get a little worried when someones got a young dog, running off leash, he still gets snarly with them, but never really bites them, I am able to call him back. So, I no longer worry that Sam might really try to kill another dog... like I used to.

 

But he still has a problem at agility or obedience.

He is very aware and reactive to other dogs. He is not like my other border collie's that mostly just ignore other dogs and pay attention to what I am doing, (or to where the tennis ball is). I tried to do agility with him and at first he was very good, paying attention to me all the time- everyone impressed by how he comes when called perfectly. Then he starts noticing, the dog 20 feet away, gets more an more interested and then I can tell- he is going to run after it. He's not going to kill it, but he is going to chase it. If I call he does come back to me, but only after he has chased the dog. And then after that stage I have to put him on the leash, then he starts getting irritated by other dogs that get to close to him, and growling, focusing his frustration at being on the leash at the other dogs. So, then I go home.

 

But if I'm not trying to do agility or obedience with him, and he is at the river, he is great with other dogs!

I'm hoping as he gets older, he will get less reactive to other dogs and I will eventually be able to do dog sport with him. But I'm taking it slowly. He is almost 2.

[Freeman 101]

Neutering may not help. There are enough aggressive, altered dogs in existence to prove this.

What you are doing is not working, and may very well make the dog worse. So my rule of thumb is to change training gears when something that I'm doing isn't working.

 

Grabbing, yanking, or pulling on the dog can often escalate the dog even more.

 

Also, why do you think this is dominance aggression? Could this instead be fear related?

I would look for a trainer who is qualified to evaluate your dog, and who has a successful history of working with aggressive dogs.

[Freeman 101]

Umm, Sorry. I made the mistake AGAIN of responding to a post and not first looking at the date and the fact that things are going better for you. Congrats!

[jasper7777]

That's ok, I do that all the time its a long thread- you where right by the way, about changing gear, pulling on Sam's collar, trying to force him not to look at the dog physically, makes him worse- no matter what collar. I do think the neutering helped, it seemed to tone his aggression down a notch, but it was still there.

[hmbmarohl]

my border collie, also a Sam, did the same thing in class. the instructor has a can filled with pennies and duck-taped shut and she set him up to catch him at it and threw the can at him (not hitting him, just to scare him) and got on top of him, grabbing his leash/collar and said "no, not nice" in a very in-charge tone. and brought his nose up to the fence where the other dog was (a giant beefy great dane no less lol). she scared the crap out of sam (hell out of me and everyone around us)...havnt had a problem since. to make the can just empty a pull-toped can (soup, veggies, fruit..whatever) put 20-30 pennies in it and duck tape it closed and cover the rest of the can with the tape too. and when he acts up throw the can close enough to scare but not hit (pick it up as soon as you can too so they cant see its harmless) and get into with him. let him know that you are boss.