Two different dogs both with dog aggression issues yet both have the same root cause and both required a different approach to resolve these issues.
The two dogs I have worked with today are a two year old female German shepherd and a nine month old male Doberman and I will start with the German shepherd.
She has been coming to my classes for eight weeks to address her dog aggression issues and has made some progress as her owners have learned how to interact with her properly but there is still the issue with other dogs that bothered me so, with a few well times questions I discovered part of the reason. They have another dog who they do not bring to classes so, upon my request they brought their other dog so I could observe the interaction between them and uncover the reason she felt she had to be aggressive to other dogs.
The other dog is a male mix breed of about 10 years old and since the female German shepherd arrived, she has picked on him and been allowed to. If she wants to off load frustration, she takes it out on him without interruption from the owners because they thought it was OK for one dog to be in charge. The problem with this is a simple one. If a dog is in charge and behaves how she thinks she should without reference to the owners, then the owners are not even involved in the decision making process and therefore largely redundant.
Because she was allowed to use the male as she wished, she took that belief out into the world and applied it to every dog she saw. Hardly a surprise when you consider this was all she knew about interacting with other dogs. How often does it cross your mind that your other dog or dogs have a major role to play in the behaviour you are experiencing?
Many dog trainers do not even consider the role other dogs play in establishing behavioural patterns when they are trying to train the dog in front of them.
No surprise then when the first course of action is to stop her fighting with the male at home and to then reward both dogs when they are calm so this will teach them both to deliver calm and relaxed behaviour as this gets rewarded. When out on the walk, the German shepherd will not be off the lead as this gives her too much initial freedom. As she looks at other dogs and begins to focus intently, the owner will now interrupt the focus and then reward the break in focus as this action will prevent the build up of tension which leads to the explosive action they are used to.
With consistent interruption preventing the build up of the tension and stress, with the consistent rewarding of breaking focus and relaxing, she will actually begin to associate the sight of other dogs with her own calm and relaxed behaviour.
The young Doberman was behaving very differently and basing his behaviour on a bad experience with another dog when he was a puppy and his behaviour was extreme barking, lunging, snapping, eyes bulging and massive tension. For a behaviour to be this extreme in a young dog is unusual and requires careful interaction as a dog in this state will bite and will bite anything that adds to the fear and stress.
At my request, his owner has put a greyhound collar on him. This is a very wide leather collar that covers most of his next so when he lunges, he is not going to hurt his neck whilst we sort out this behaviour. He gives warning that he is going to lunge and even at this stage he is rigid with tension, then he growls and then he lunges and gives a full on performance.
Even when applying interruption prior to the look and growl, he is too tense and focused to break his intensity so there are a couple of options open to us. The first is proximity, the further you are away from the other dog, the calmer he will be and the easier he is to change. As you progress with this and you are rewarding him for being calm, then the proximity can be increased and you can teach him to cope in that way.
However, he will still explode, even at a distance. This fear of attack is a very well entrenched behaviour and when a dog is so convinced he knows what will happen, it is difficult to persuade him to change. It is, however, still possible to do it and the answer lies in movement and noise. Even intense focus can be interrupted if you employ movement and noise but this approach is not without danger as you are moving a frightened barking dog and if not done properly, you will get bitten.
The interruption involves moving the dogs collar with the lead up the dogs neck to the base of the head as this gives you real control of the position of the dogs head so you can break his focus. However if you bring the focus onto you and you don't have the lead in the correct position, the dog will lunge at you and this is what he did to me. Fortunately, I had the lead under control so as he came away, I brought a loud hiss into the equation so the dog had a physical and aural interruption and this has a massive effect on his state of mind. Repetition rapidly reduces the fear and stress as it gives the dog a direct consequence to the barking and lunging which renders that behaviour now futile.
It is, as always, the consistent repetition which completely changes the behaviour and both of these dogs' owners now have the understanding and handling to resolve their dogs aggression issues. We will work on these owners until they have these issues resolved and their dogs are happy and relaxed around other dogs.
