May 15, 2013
My dog gets agressive when people play fight or wrestle. I have corrected her. I wonder if now someone actually is a threat, if she would intervene. What is the right thing to do when the dog can't distinguish play fighting from real?'
Full Question:
My dog gets agressive when people play fight or wrestle. She bears teeth and it seems like she is going to bite someone involved but has not. When my kids were playing and she did this, I corrected her and I think I fixed the problem because I haven't seen her do it again. But, I wonder if I did the right thing. I wonder if now someone actually is a threat, if she would intervene. What is the right thing to do when the dog can't distinguish play fighting from real?' 
Ed's Answer:
I am 65 years old and have trained dogs for over 50 years, Since 1974 I have studied, taught and produced videos and DVDs on training police service dogs and personal protection dogs.
You may have 1 in 1,000,000 chance of your dog protecting you if there is a serious threat to your family. It simply will never happen. The type of dog that will bite someone in a personal protection incident needs to come from very specific bloodlines and it has to be trained. When people ask me about training a family pet to be a protection dog I tell them they have about as much chance of doing that as they do of buying a local farm horse and expecting it to win the Kentucky Derby. Personal protection dogs need genetics.
With this said – your dog needs obedience training and you need to control the environment the dog is placed in. You have been making a mistake in how you live with this dog. It should not be allowed to be put in situations like you describe. Get a dog crate and use it. Obedience train this dog – I can tell from your email that it lacks pack structure training. I suggest that you run this dog through our pack structure program - Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Dog. Read the description of the video. It will help you.
I also wrote an article titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT DOGS. Read it because your dog fits it to a "T".
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Ed Frawley
You may have 1 in 1,000,000 chance of your dog protecting you if there is a serious threat to your family. It simply will never happen. The type of dog that will bite someone in a personal protection incident needs to come from very specific bloodlines and it has to be trained. When people ask me about training a family pet to be a protection dog I tell them they have about as much chance of doing that as they do of buying a local farm horse and expecting it to win the Kentucky Derby. Personal protection dogs need genetics.
With this said – your dog needs obedience training and you need to control the environment the dog is placed in. You have been making a mistake in how you live with this dog. It should not be allowed to be put in situations like you describe. Get a dog crate and use it. Obedience train this dog – I can tell from your email that it lacks pack structure training. I suggest that you run this dog through our pack structure program - Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Dog. Read the description of the video. It will help you.
I also wrote an article titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT DOGS. Read it because your dog fits it to a "T".
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Ed Frawley
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