My dog is very dominant and aggressive but has made a lot of progress these past 6 months. Recently, he seems to be going backwards again. Suggestions?

Question

Ed,

I have a 2 1/2 yr. old male rott. that has been neutered, and I adopted him from a humane society. He had toy aggression, food aggression, and just overall dominance. He had bitten me several times (a couple over toys, and a couple because I touched a sore spot on him that hurt him). I then bought your dom. dog collar, which worked like a charm, and some of your training vids. I believe that that is why he is still alive today. Anyway, he has done very well in the past 6 months (I've had him a year), and I can now take things from his mouth. He's not possessive over his toys (I keep one toy out and the rest up)anymore or his food. I feed him in his crate and give him a treat after I grab the food bowl (I couldn't grab the food bowl in the past right after feeding), and he does not growl when I stand in front of his crate while he is eating anymore. Recently I've run into a problem though. When I put him in his crate after I usually take something out of his mouth that he's not supposed to have (I only do this if he is constantly getting into things) he will take an aggressive stance inside his crate and stare at me with his head high. He will stomp his front paws as if he is trying to intimidate me (almost like a fake lunge). When I close the crate door he sometimes will let out this ferocious bark and show his teeth. I feel like I've taken a back slide! I've made so much improvement with this dog, and now it seems to be getting worse! I got him a huge bone yesterday for x-mas, and he is very possessive over it, unlike the other toys! He growled at me while he was in his cage and I was standing in front of the cage. He was bearing all of his teeth as well. I was able to take the bone from him, and then of course he barked and took his aggressive stance again. I have your dvd on dom. dogs, I've watched it, but I just don't know what to do at this point! If this dog is beyond my control he will be put down since I don't want anyone else getting bitten, and I believe that this dog could fall back into his dominant behavior if he did not go to the correct person. He is a dominant dog, in my opinion. Thanks for your time and any help you may provide.

Loyal customer,
Stephen

Accepted Answer

Stephen,

I know exactly what you are facing as I have owner dogs who are far worse. There are some things you can fix here and some that are not worth fighting over.

I would run this dog through my pack structure program. This program was developed because I owned dogs like yours. It’s detailed in my new DVD ESTABLISHING PACK STRUCTURE WITH THE FAMILY PET. There is a very small of overlap in the DVD you have but not much and you need the information.

I have not looked but you should know the information in my Basic Dog Obedience DVD and then train this dog with a remote collar. (Remote Collar Training for the Pet Owner - shows how to do this.) I use a Dogtra 1700 on my personal dog. This dog needs to be worked with a remote.

If I owned the dog there would be no more toys. NONE !!! Why set yourself up to fail? Once you know how to train with a remote you can train with tugs, but not until then.

Don’t ever give this dog a bone again. He doesn’t need them.

Move the crate into a room where he is isolated. I don’t fight over how a dog reacts in the crate. In fact I would start marker training with the dog. Just today I finished a new article on marker training - It is excellent. You can use markers to get the dog to go into the crate. In fact I am working on a DVD titled LEERBURG RELATIONSHIP GAMES and the crate game will be part of it. Basically teach the dog that going into the crate (and getting his food reward from the back of the crate is a good thing. There are a million steps to this but that’s the concept.

Also stop standing in front of the dog while the dog is in it. You're not in a position to do anything about him growling and when you turn and leave him alone he looks at it like he just won. If you choose to train with a remote you can give a correction for it – I would use markers to put the remote collar on the dog. It is all non-confrontational.

Bottom line if you need to control every second of this dog's life and he needs to work for even the slightest liberty. If there is ever a doubt of him attacking you he needs to have a muzzle on during training. At least the wire muzzle we sell allow the dog to take food rewards during the work.

Good luck. This can be fixed with time, handler education and work.