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This past Friday I adopted a 2 year old Blue Heeler/Border Collie mix from the Humane Society. She is a sweetheart with toddlers, cats and people. She is also a playful pup around dogs she is off-leash with and does the normal roughhousing/dominance thing that dogs do. She follows me everywhere, learns quickly and likes to cuddle with whoever she meets.
But....
When on-leash and sitting at dog-friendly patios or passing dogs on the street that she starts to sniff and check out, she sometimes goes crazy. It happens with about one out of three dogs. Everything starts out fine, but something sets her off and she feels the need to act aggressively and start mouthing off at close range. She has not attempted to injure the dogs, but her behavior is very intimidating and offensive to the dog owners and embarrassing to me. I would like to be able to have her on-leash and enjoy time out at parks and restaurants, socializing with other dog owners, but I don't know how to snap her out of this. Does anyone have advice?
Many dogs feel insecure when on-leash around other dogs b/c they are constrained from being natural. A good trainer can help you work on this. But she may never be really calm when on leash.
I would so some work first on finding someone who can help with desensitization techniques - some good books - a behaviorist who only uses positive motivational methods. These are some good books.
fiesty fido
click to calm
the other end of the leash
Then there are corrective measures that can control a fiesty dog but you have to get at the root of the agression - you are probably contributing a lot to it because you are anticipating it and your emotions travel to the dog.
You have not had the dog for a long time and taking it lots of places right now and doing a lot with it. You may want to spend some low key time bonding with it at home before doing a lot of excursions etc. The dog is probably a bit confused and stressed about everything right now.
Do YOU have a toddler? Those breeds both are notorious for high energy and herding and nipping at [in an excited not agressive fashion] children. Undoubtedly this is one dog that will need tons of excercise.
I don't let my dogs sniff and check out other strange dogs just for the sake of doing it. There are different schools of thoughts on that - I don't run up and hug every person I see either.
I'm working with a trainer on this with my pug right now. It's definitely related to the leash and to ME (he NEVER does this with his mid-day dog walker and he never does this off leash in the park).
Find someone who uses ONLY positive techniques. Interview them thoroughly. Avoid anyone who wants to use techniques like 'flooding' or the 'alpha roll' or jerks and pops on the leash.
That anyone would EVER use flooding is anathema to me. Flooding is a technique which, for example, if a dog is scared of skateboarders, you get someone to skateboard back and forth incessantly in front of the dog. What happens eventually is that the dog just shuts down. It is NOT healthy. To make that more relatable to the human experience, imagine that you're terrified of cockroaches and are left in a room covered (floor, ceiling, furniture and walls) with them. I think you'd have a psychotic break. Imagine how much worse it is for a dog! So DO avoid flooding.
You want someone who understands that it's STRESSFUL for your dog and will work with you to find methods to reduce the stress (on both of you!). Don't give up! This CAN be fixed!
One of the things that I do with Simon when we are walking in the park is that when I see a dog coming, I start talking to him in a very soft voice and tell him what a good boy he is. I do that constantly until we pass the dog. It really helps to keep Simon focused on the walk and keeps the stress level down for both of us.
One of the things that I do with Simon when we are walking in the park is that when I see a dog coming, I start talking to him in a very soft voice and tell him what a good boy he is. I do that constantly until we pass the dog. It really helps to keep Simon focused on the walk and keeps the stress level down for both of us.
That's fine, but when a dog is completely transfixed by the oncoming dog and keeping him focused on YOU is impossible, it's time to get some help. We live in NYC and there are gazillions of big dogs being walked (WHY someone wants a golden retriever in the city is beyond me), plus there are grocery delivery carts being pushed down the sidewalk, people on bicycles delivering take-out food, etc. It's too much and too frequent to expect a noise-sensitive dog to ignore. My pug goes outside and you can SEE his stress level rise. All the talking and attention in the world does NOTHING to distract him.
Good advice from everyone, I watched "It's Me or the Dog" over the wkend and there was a dog-aggressive dog - one of the exercises Victoria Stilwell did was distract the dog and feed him treats whenever another dog passed by - it seemed to work but of course wasnt NYC and the person w/ the other dog was the trainer's helper so they were both pretty dog savvy - would be curious as to the long-term results - I imagine it would take a ton of practice (and then some) - I think Animal Planet had an episode too about an Amn bulldog rescued from a fighting situation - here too, the trainer got close (10-15 ft) from another dog and the Amn bulldog was OK, the treats worked and the dog focused on the trainer and not the other dog, he even sat for the treats which was an excellent sign (both dogs were standing still which prob. helped) - they didnt have them get too close as both were big strong dogs but it definitely seemed like the Amn bulldog w/b able to tolerate other dogs (he was a male and the helper dog was a female, I think which prob. was a good idea than 2 same-sex dogs). I would imagine he'd do best as an only dog and going to dog parks w/b out but eventually hopefully he could walk on a leash near another dog w/o lunging and going bonkers.
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I have the same on-leash vs. off-leash issue, pretty much. Well, Artie has a bunch of issues, but he's a great boy in our house with people (off-leash) and is a monster on the street (on-leash). It doesn't help that he was abused as a puppy and that he's become, what the trainer said, a classic bully.
Anyway.
The trainer explained this to me. Aside from feeling the need to protect me, the on-leash issue is one of "fight or flight." Dogs feel that they have those two mechanisms: fight or flight. When on-leash, we've removed the option of flight. They can't get away if they sense danger. They're left with the only other option they know: fight.
I've tried to steer Artie's attention from other dogs and people while outside on-leash using treats. It seems to work well, as long as I'm consistent. Sometimes I forget to bring treats (my fault) and sometimes if he spots the dog or person before I do, I can't redirect his attention well. But most of the time it works very well.
Good luck!
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and that he's become, what the trainer said, a classic bully.
