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Duke is fear aggressive towards strangers. He is in his 4th week of obedience class and he is getting better but he still growls/barks at the trainers and other students if they get too close. The strange thing is if he is introduced right he is not fearful at all of strangers, let me explain.
My parents came to visit us for about a week and they had not yet met Duke. When they arrived they knocked on the door and we let them in, like any visitor. Duke growled at them almost every time they moved the first day. My brother arrived the next day and we went to pick him up from the airport. When we got back to my house I walked in the door first followed by my brother and Duke acted like he had known him for years! He actually jumped up on my brother to lick his face! I introduced my sister to Duke the same way and same got the reaction, he was completely fine with her.
It doesn't make sense to me. I'm assuming that he trusted them right away because I was with them when they met, I don't know. Anyway does anyone else have a fear aggressive dog? How long before your dog made progress? From what I have read fear aggression is difficult to correct, but I am up for the challenge
Riley is a little fear aggressive towards men. She will do a little "wuff"/growl and will not approach. When the men offer a treat or sit down on a chair, she will approach cautiously. Once she's comfortable, she will gladly accept a nice petting with a waggy tail and big grin. Women, she will be all wags right away. Her fear has always been a little odd to me, as we've had her since a puppy and her two fav. people in the whole world are my dh & my dad. Like Duke, she dose not growl at anyone who comes in the house with us, even if they are a total stranger.
I'd say let Duke approach people on his terms... let people give him treats or his fav. toy (as long as he know "take it nice"). Go slow and don't force interaction. Always end the social sessions on a positive note. Choose a calm, neutral setting for him to meet new people (a quiet area in the park?). I'm sure others can give more detailed advice, this is just my two cents & how I work with Riley. She's actually gotten much better... she jumped up & greeted a man at the dog park the other day without an intro (not that I encourage jumping...)
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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Artie is fear-aggressive but what's interesting is that there have been some strangers who he loved instantly. (That's RARE in Artie's case. He's a barker/lunger/potention biter.)
It turns out that all of these strangers had one thing in common: They had dogs, loved dogs, and were not at all afraid of dogs.
The strange thing is if he is introduced right he is not fearful at all of strangers, let me explain.
It's not strange at all - it makes perfect sense.
Duke currently has his own set of rules and regulations about how to meet new people. When you follow these rules, life's good. When you don't, he gets anxious and falls back to what he knows works.
There is very obviously (to the dog anyway) a proscribed way in which strangers should be introduced. The exact steps aren't totally clear from your post, so you need to figure out what they are. Once you figure them out, you can work to change them.
The difficulty with any type of class situation is just sheer numbers - you can't control what's going on, and the way it is happening, around you (nor can the dog), so again, the dog falls back to his working hypothesis which is that "Growling works."
"Aggression" is a bit strong here because Duke's shown you that, done correctly, he's delighted to meet new people. He's merely anxious when it's not on his terms - so that's what you need to work on changing.
As potentially peculiar as it sounds, this sounds very much as if it's rooted in nothing more that low self-confidence. There should be no reason whatsoever for you to think it will be difficult to correct.
has he bitten anyone? do you have kids or plan on having kids? gotta be real care with a dog like this...
No he has never bitten anyone, he is completely fine with family or other people he knows. He is even good with the cat. We do not have kids yet but when we do I won't leave them unsupervised with my dogs...
Duke currently has his own set of rules and regulations about how to meet new people. When you follow these rules, life's good. When you don't, he gets anxious and falls back to what he knows works.
There is very obviously (to the dog anyway) a proscribed way in which strangers should be introduced. The exact steps aren't totally clear from your post, so you need to figure out what they are. Once you figure them out, you can work to change them.
The difficulty with any type of class situation is just sheer numbers - you can't control what's going on, and the way it is happening, around you (nor can the dog), so again, the dog falls back to his working hypothesis which is that "Growling works."
"Aggression" is a bit strong here because Duke's shown you that, done correctly, he's delighted to meet new people. He's merely anxious when it's not on his terms - so that's what you need to work on changing.
As potentially peculiar as it sounds, this sounds very much as if it's rooted in nothing more that low self-confidence. There should be no reason whatsoever for you to think it will be difficult to correct.
What you said makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Any ideas on raising self confidence other than training and exposing him to new situations?
Any ideas on raising self confidence other than training and exposing him to new situations?
The trick to increasing any dog's confidence is to initially allow them to "control" the situation. When a dog feels that an unwanted stimulus is under its control, the dog is that much less likely to be fearful. Then the dog isn't fearful, which leads to the dog feeling more confident, which leads to the dog being less fearful, and round and round it goes and everyone lives happily ever after.
What I mean by "controlling a situation" would be something along the lines of a dog that is comfortable being 15 feet from a stranger but shows signs of anxiety at 12 feet, so you move the dog back to 15 feet. The dog then is "controlling" how close the stranger can be. In that case you'd wait until the dog was telling you it was relaxed and then you'd try 14 or 13 feet because 12 was just that bit too much.
First and foremost - the big question is how well can you read your dog's body language? It's really crucial that you learn to read the very subtle signals dogs use to communicate so that if you're in a situation where Duke is starting to get a wee bit antsy, you can take the appropriate steps. It's also important so that you can correctly interpret the signals at the other end of the spectrum - i.e. your working on something and the dog is "saying" to you that he's a-o.k. with this, which lets you know you can move on to the next step.
To brush up or learn something new, none better than
What I think is really important for you to do is to identify exactly why it goes right in some cases when he meets strangers. It doesn't matter why it goes wrong, but it matters a lot why it goes right - what's different from the right ones to the wrong ones? Observe and break it down to individual steps. You might find the answer is startling simple - something along the lines of you went in the door before the stranger did, which the dog interprets as the "all clear". (That's just an example.) Once you identify what works for the dog, life becomes just a little bit more simple because it will give you something concrete to work with.
Regardless of what you do in terms of the how or where or who, the crucial element is to respect the dog's comfort boundries. Work from one step to the next slowly, letting the dog tell you when he's comfortable or not. If he's not, never ever be afraid or think that is not "progress" to take a step (and that might be a literal step) back. Never force, praise effusively and always end on a positive note.
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(not that I encourage jumping...
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