We have two Portuguese Water Dog males. We have had aggression problems with the young male. What can we do to cement his submission to my wife and be more certain of his behavior?

Question

First let me thank you for opening our eyes to a whole new way of looking at our dogs, training and leadership. After a lot of work we still have a problem I would like your advice on.

We have two Portuguese Water Dog males (10 and 3yo) We have had aggression problems with the young male (Pete)since he was about 1 1/2yo. These include fights with the older dog, aborted attacks while on leash on walks and biting us (mainly my wife). Things are MUCH better after buying and applying your great training knowledge CDs in Basic Obedience, Dominant Dog, E Collar and Pack Structure. Pete has an E collar on most of the day, every day. Dog/dog aggression on walks has gone down from 2-3 times every walk to maybe 1 time every 3-4 months! We stop it before it happens. I almost never nick him on walks.

However, the problem that worries me is Pete started showing aggression to my wife about 8 months ago. He bit her on 4 occasions, once in the face making a small cut. None serious but very scary and disturbing. I bought a muzzle from you after the face bite. We decided that my wife was not showing good pack leadership and Pete was changing his rank to #2 after me. Several of the bites occurred in the kitchen when the dog was in "his spot." These happened when she was being affectionate with him. Both my wife and I rededicated ourselves to your training methods and it seems to have paid off. Its been hard to get my wife to change her behavior and be less soft but to her credit she has been working on it and things seem much better and we have not had an incident for a couple months.

The problem is we don't really trust him. Yet. I believe he is far less likely to try any aggression with me because he respects me and I will correct him immediately if he tried. Yet I am nervous about him around my wife even though he seems to be respecting her leadership more. I guess my question is what can we do to cement his submission to my wife and be more certain of his behavior? Can we test him? When can we be certain of him?

I am afraid we can never really be affectionate with this dog as we are with our other dog. But we would like to be. Will we ever be able to fully trust Pete?

Thanks for all your information and support.

Best regards,
Matt & Cheryl

Accepted Answer

With dogs like Pete, this is a tricky question. If you appear nervous or tense around dogs like this, then they sense it and the likliehood of an incident increases. If you try to be too friendly and affectionate, these dogs see it as weakness and will challenge.

I think it's a healthy idea to not completely trust a dog like this, because with dominant dogs it's always a balancing act of leadership and being the boss in a clear and calm way. Usually the whole affection thing is more for our benefit, and with a dog like Pete is not what he needs. Every dog is different and some dogs can be cuddled and hugged and played with and there will not be any reason to think the dog will challenge you. Since you know that Pete is a dominant type personality, it will just mean that you'll spend your time doing what is BEST for Pete and that is by giving him clear, fair rule and structure. What you want and what is best for this particular dog may be 2 very different things. Realize that dogs don't see affection as the same thing that we do.

I don't recommend the typical pet owner test a dog like this, because you run the risk of getting in a situation you would rather not be in. If you were a professional dog trainer and you had a lot of experience with aggression it may be a different story. Why push it and risk losing any ground you have recovered? The other side to this is that the dog needs to feel comfortable and accepting of your leadership, and if you feel the need to 'test' him it will undermine that.

I have horses and while I love them very much I never forget to have a healthy respect for their power and ability to hurt me. I deal with them very much as I do our dogs, I establish leadership in a way that doesn't damage the relationship that I hope to have with them but I don't get sucked into wanted to be too cuddly with them or do something that will put them in a position to feel they need to defend themselves or to try to assert their dominance over me. Like our dogs, all of our 5 horses have very different temperaments so I handle each one according to what is best for the individual, even if I would really like to behave otherwise.

We owe it to our animals to give them what they need, and I think you have been doing great so far. Keep up the good work.

Cindy