Female Border Collie Temperament

[CptJack]

There are methods centered around the concept that if your dog reacts aggressively to another dog, nothing happens - the dog stays there - but if they offer ANYTHING ELSE, the other dog is removed.

This is great for real aggression issues.

This also requires you have control of both dogs.

 

Neither one of these two is the case here.

 

Teaching the dog to get behind you or stand between you legs on their own is great, but only is as much as it means you don't have to fight your own dog while telling the person to get their dog away. The help there is that your own dogs learns to trust you to handle the situation and that they don't have to do it themselves. Which, when dealing with situations with lots of leashed dogs in relatively confined space, is useful to the handler. At that stage it's not about the dog communicating to the incoming dog, it's giving you space to step up and communicate to the oncoming handler BEFORE your dog has to communicate anything.

And if the other dog decides 'this dog is a chicken I can pick on' it's kind of irrelevant since your follow up is still GET YOUR DOG OUT OF MINE'S FACE.

[teresaserrano]

Tess can be quite intense when telling another dog to piss of. She has never made another dog bleed but if she was allowed to fully express her anoyance every time she wants to, there would often be cause for chairs and popcorn. So I usually stand between her and the other dog and tell it to piss of myself. And when the other owner shouts as he runs towards us, "Don't worry, he doesn't bite!", I shout back, "Well, mine does, you really want your dog bitten?"

 

I'm actually painting a bleaker than reallity picture of Tess, but I prefer that than letting her forever rehearse her "I'll flatten you to the ground and make you wish you where never born, you stupid a-hole!" attitude.

 

I must say she reserves that attitude to really stupid a-holes. But she does tend to get a bit carried away. There's lots of sound and movement.

[Shandula]

Just a quick little update:

 

Since I have been more vigilant about not letting dogs rush her, and standing between them and her or walking away I've noticed a huge difference in her behaviour. She's way less snappy, and is more likely to walk away or go hang out under a picnic table.

I've also noticed she's happy to greet dogs that are calmer/more polite. She met my boss's Sheltie the other day, and because he is shy of people, he was very mellow and Heidi was all tail-wags and wiggly body.

[Sue R]

That's great news! When a dog knows that you "have her back", it makes it much easier for her to feel confident and unafraid because she knows she can rely on you to be there for her and help her out.

 

Very best wishes!