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was going thru my old posts and thought I should give an update to the rescue dog I had in 2015.. for all her good training and manners she never did calm down and be trustworthy .. She liked my husband who was disabled and very quiet and she chose to sleep on his side of the bed,underneath it if she wasn't going in her kennel by her choice.. so we worked with her .. and then my husband had a massive pacemaker fail and died that june .. My grandson called me and my daughter to hurry and come home because Grandpa was down and te squad was there .. we raced home but it was to late for the dh.. he was gone .. I had to compose my self and deal with the police that were there waiting for the cornur when it hit me the dog was not in sight.. I asked the officer if they had taken my dog and he said what dog // REALLY? oh lordy he never saw her .. My grandson said she was in the living room the last time he saw her.. and now she wasn't .. That scared me because she was a big dog .. and heavens only knows what she might do if she was petted by strangers .. I went into the bedroom to get her leash and she crawled out of her kennel reared up on her back legs and laid her head on my shoulder for a minute and whimpered I gave her a pet then she moved over to DH side of the bed and started to howl .. freaky sad to watch to be honest but she did love him best so yanno nothing to do but let her grieve .. She knew he was gone .. Anyways I kept her about a nother month as she was company for me .. then one day we were sitting on the porch and she lunged and bit me .. on the foot .. no warning not playing not any thing to set her off she just did .. bam .. she bit without provocation..I called the vet soon as I got her kenneled and made the appointment for her to be euthed .. I took her in the next morning and the vet when he saw her said .. it was about time some one did the right thing for her .. she HAD bitten several kids and adults in her short life .. she was unstable and dangours he said ..he had ALL the papers on her for quartines and such .. it seems that she had been passed thru several owners befor she came to me she had bitten all of them and her papers were stamped dangours dog .. BUT no one told me that, and I didn't know her history .. I had shot records and all that so I just never knew the rest of the story till I took her in.. .. I thought you all needed to know what finally happened to her ... not all dogs are fixable or saveable .. Pepper was not so I spent the 100$ euth fee and dd the right thing for her .. she was only 5 yrs old ..
This demonstrates the limits of purely reward based training. The dog wasn't being rude (No dog is rude only people can be rude.) The dog was engaged in a dominance display. There were certainly warning, just ones you missed, but the major issue is the dog's understanding of hierarchy. Perhaps the dog could have been saved by a use of alpha rolling immediately after the bite, perhaps not, but we'll never know.
Sometimes 'doing the right thing' translates to 'doing the right thing for the humans' who had a dog that didn't receive proper training.
The only dog (imo) who is not trainable is one who is absolutely, 100% aggressive, which is extremely rare. We humans are so quick to label a dog as aggressive, simply because we don't have the understanding it takes to address fear issues in a canid, and thus write it all off as the dog being untrainable, and even more incorrectly, aggressive.
It's terribly, incredibly sad for the dog, and often for the owners, who don't understand how to 'fix' the problem.
Alpha rolling is not a safe, reliable method of 'breaking' a dog with issues. On the contrary, it does far more harm than good. Yet some will continue to argue that it is THE way to 'fix a broken dog'. When it fails, the dog is determined to be unfixable.
This is where we fail our canine friends.
Last edited by bassetluv; 07-23-2017 at 09:13 AM..
Dogs will, for perfectly logical reasons coming out of millions of yeas of pack strategy, constantly test for dominance changes.
It already knows it is faster than you, better at detecting food and threats than you. If it is a decent sized dog it already knows it is stronger than you in many ways.
so a psychologically healthy dog is in fact always looking for signs that your dominance is declining. Do you or does your dog go through doorways first?greet people or other dogs first? eat first? if your dog does nay of those things first than you are giving it mixed messages that it maybe time for you to be lower down in your pack hierarchy.
It is possible your dog has a psychological illness that developed, just like people do. But it is much more likely that the dog is getting mixed signals. The nipping is likely it just saying that maybe it should be in charge of your relationship, just as an alpha wolf will nip or growl at its own packmates
Can't really answer this as there is so much more that would be necessary. To me a snap from a dog is just a warning saying" I do not like this back off" Dogs can not talk so can not use words to tell you that so growling and or snapping is how they tell you.
An example was my late Jazz at the vets and that day we had a vet that she did not know and right away I knew Jazz was uncomfortable as was the vet. After my suggesting that I pick Jazz ( 50lbs) up and put her on the table this vets says I think she is more comfortable on the floor so she sits on the floor and now is face to face with Jazz . Jazz was showing signs of being uncomfortable but the vet proceeded and Jazz suddenly snapped right in the vets face. Terrified the vet but even she admitted that if Jazz had wanted to bite her she would have so it was a warning saying I do not like what you are doing so stop now ! Jazz lived 14.5 yrs and never bit anyone did grab a few and hold on to their arm but because she had a very inhibited bite she did not bite down and she frequently would snap at people that made her uncomfortable as then they would back down and leave her alone. Don't get me wrong as she was a very freindly loveable dog but HATED vets and a couple dog trainers we had met.
I feel dogs are entitled to give a warning and that if I do something to stop that warning it puts the chances of a bite much higher as they know they will get in trouble for warning some one so go right into bite mode what people call a flash biter, Nope I would rather have a dog that knows it is ok to warn people or even other animals to back off. Of the 6 dogs I have owned on my own not one ever has bitten a person.
Bite inhibition in dogs is important. I think dogs not being taught this properly is responsible for a lot of problems with them.
I have a 11month old pitbull female called Bella. She is the most happy and caring dog. Really energetic.
Today she was jumping up at my window ledge and Bella has a sore leg ATM through elbow dysplasia so I had told her OFF I was down at her level but not in her face and she snapped at my head she never bit me but her teeth touched my head and she pulled away I was so shocked I shouted no and she has went and layed down. She has never done nothing like this or never has shown any signs of aggression towards me or my partner.
so a psychologically healthy dog is in fact always looking for signs that your dominance is declining.
This made me laugh because it reminded me of my now passed Rotti, who I brought home as a protection trained 18mo.
Every morning he'd test me in a subtle way. For example he'd act like he was about to get on the furniture (My dogs all have their own comfy bed in the lounge room)
Coughing or clearing my throat would be enough, where he'd give me a sideways glance as if to say 'Just checking' (I'd always said that he was checking to make sure that I hadn't had a stroke during the night & still fit to lead, lol) & do a patrol through the house to make sure everything was in order.
He was the most intelligent, loyal, loving, sound, confidant, brave, protective boy, who had more common sense that many people I've met, astoundingly safe & tolerant around little kids & babies.
I still think of him with a smile every day. It took me over a decade before I even considered getting another companion.
(Sorry to go off topic but you're comment really triggered the memory)
I have a 11month old pitbull female called Bella. She is the most happy and caring dog. Really energetic.
Today she was jumping up at my window ledge and Bella has a sore leg ATM through elbow dysplasia so I had told her OFF I was down at her level but not in her face and she snapped at my head she never bit me but her teeth touched my head and she pulled away I was so shocked I shouted no and she has went and layed down. She has never done nothing like this or never has shown any signs of aggression towards me or my partner.
Your story reminds me of an incident that happened with my last dog, Kaya, She was 15 at the time, and she had arthritis beginning in her hind end. One day I was walking her through a dog park to get to another area, and since no other dogs were around, I let Kaya off her leash for a moment so she could explore. She was rather fearful of other dogs and would avoid them, and would snap at them and then remove herself if any unknown dog got close to her, so I didn't normally take her to any areas where dogs were let off leash to play. However, it was early morning and we were the only ones there, and since we were just passing through, I thought it would be safe to let her go.
Unfortunately, within a couple of minutes a young couple showed up with a bouncy, highly energetic dog. I called to Kaya to come to me so I could leash her and get out of there - and normally she would have done so, simply to avoid the dog. But this time she just stood there, staring, as the dog bounded up to her. So I ran over whilst letting the other owner know that my dog might give a warning snap at his dog. Neither of us got to the dogs in time though, and his dog got in Kaya's face, and she reacted. The other dog snapped back, and a fight ensued. The guy managed to catch his dog, but Kaya kept eluding me, and she kept trying to attack the other dog, weaving in and out, avoiding me, snapping and trying to bite him. I was mortified...in the 15 years I'd had her, she had never reacted this way to another dog. Fearful, yes; a warning snap, yes; but then she'd always turn and run away. This time she became an aggressor, and it took me several minutes to catch her and get the lead on her, all the time apologizing to the guy (who was more than understanding) because it was my fault.
All the way home I was mystified as to why Kaya had suddenly turned on this dog and tried to elicit another attack. She meant business too...not a warning snap...she wanted to fight him. It was so out of character for her. And it wasn't until late that evening when I finally put 2 and 2 together, so to speak.
After dinner Kaya was so stiff and in so much pain that she could barely move. Her stiffness and pain continued on to the next day, despite painkillers, and it finally dawned on me why she acted the way she did....well, it's the conclusion I came to, to explain her sudden aggressive behaviour. When the young dog had come running up to her, she was probably already feeling stiffness and pain...and when she reacted, and then the other dog reacted back, I highly suspect that this triggered a rather huge pain in her tired old body, and she equated the sudden pain to the dog in front of her. And that's when she began going after him, trying to tear into the poor fellow. After all of that sudden action caused her body a great deal of pain, which I only began to truly notice that night.
Anyway, just thought I'd add my story, because it made me think that if your Bella is having pain issues, this could certainly have caused her sudden change of behaviour toward you.
Dogs will, for perfectly logical reasons coming out of millions of yeas of pack strategy, . . .
There's one problem with that "theory" - dogs aren't pack animals. They are social, but they haven't had "pack strategy" for millions of years. Time to study up on the last 20 years of developments in the study of dog evolution.
was going thru my old posts and thought I should give an update to the rescue dog I had in 2015.. . . .
Faworki1947; thanks for the update. Always interesting to know final outcomes. Some dogs are just more one-person dogs than others. I haven't seen it much myself, but the two I've got now are like that. One of them might never bond to another person if something happened to me. The other - might - but it would be a while. I've never seen dogs like that before, I had only read about them in "Old Shep" tales - you know - the oral history type where the dog follows the master to the train station - then waits for the master to return.
It is also possible that Pepper had some ailment that was painful, and when the pain flared up, the dog got grouchy and aggressive. I've certainly seen that. I've also had dogs who obviously had some frightening experience in their youth, which they never got over.
I've actually seen that happen in a dog - a single painful experience in their puppy-learning-months - resulted in permanent avoidance of a behavior that the dog should have considered fun. In the instance I'm thinking of - it was a simple game of fetch. The dog, as a pup, enjoyed fetch. One day something painful happened, exactly what is unknown, but I suspect it was a wasp sting. Dog forevermore refused to play fetch.
With my current two, although I don't really know, I strongly suspect, based on their fear patterns, that they were subjected to "alpha" type training techniques as pups. About the worst possible way to train these two - they come from working herding blood - and they have good strong instincts in that way. As for how well their first family's attempts at "training" worked - well - they ended up back at the rescue center before I got them. Likely because the "alpha" nonsense didn't work at all. I've worked with them (lots of positivity, and outlets for that work energy) a couple of years now, and they still show signs of fear in certain situations. Some dogs would show aggression with the levels of fear that these two had. And the fear only shows up in certain circumstances. I have to wonder if Pepper didn't have some experience like that, resulting in occasional behavior aberration.
I've also had dogs who just weren't really right in the head. One I can think of was just dumb, for a dog. Another just seemed to have behavior "spells", where he just didn't act quite right. I have to think there was some physical cause.
Anyway, it sounds to me like you made the right decision, even though it was hard.
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