I have a 4 1/2 month old GSD from Czech lines. He is afraid of strange people and is dog aggressive to strange dogs. What should I do?

Question

Mr. Frawley,

    The breeder from whom we purchased our dog, suggested we check out your site or contact you about a problem we are encountering with our pup, Jake. I have been a reader of your site and have gotten a lot of wonderful info from it.

    Background. Jake's dad is from a Czech line. We obtained Jake when he was 11 weeks old. We were unable to make the trip until then and the breeder agreed to keep him for us. When we went to pick him up he seemed a little shy but not much. He warmed up almost immediately. He was living around other younger pups and several older dogs but no longer in the same crate. His litter mates had already gone. When we got him home he was fine with our grown Shepherd and seemed normal until a friend came. He completely freaked out. Was scared to death of her. He went to any lengths to get at least 20 feet away. We have tried to have him around people but have not allowed people to try to pet him. He has to at least be manageable for vet visits. He has gotten only a little better but now has added dog aggression to his problems. He is afraid of even small dogs or puppies. His tail is between his legs but he lunges, snarls and barks then jumps behind me. That I have seen, he has not actually made contact with his teeth. He is still very good with our other shepherd. They play without problems. Jake is now 4 1/2 months.

    He was easily crate trained, house broken. Have been teaching basic obedience which he learns quickly but going easily because I don't want to make him afraid of me. He is well behaved but we do crate him when we cannot watch him. I really have no issues with him other than his fear and subsequent aggression.

    My question is do you have any suggestions? We consulted a couple of behaviorists. One suggested we take delicious treats, stand near the pet store at a distance he could tolerate, start feeding him treats when we see a dog and as time goes on get closer to dogs, still feeding him treats.

    The other suggested we find people who had dogs with good dog social skills and let him associate with the dogs. That is really not feasible because most people do not want a snarling dog around their dogs.

    As an aside, our older shepherd is obedience trained, well behaved with no social problems.

    I hope this has all made sense and hope I have included all the info you need.

    I would appreciate any suggestions you could make.

    Thank you very much,
 Ruby

Accepted Answer

This is a genetic issue. You are not going to socialize it out of your dog – your goal should be to control it. This is not an uncommon thin with Czech bloodlines – many of them are very sharp dogs – which translates into puppies that act like yours and grow up to be aggressive.

The advice from both of these people is standard advice but probably will not work.

All I can recommend is to continue to train this dog with markers training – train him in drive.

I would not allow other dogs near my dog. Not ever. There is no need for this – dogs are pack animals and strange dogs are not part of your dog's pack – you manifest his fears because he EXPECTS YOU as his pack leader to keep him safe from other dogs and strange people. In not doing this you make him neurotic. In other words – in his dog language – you are failing as a pack leader. This is a common mistake. People expect dogs to learn our language when in fact most people make very little effort to learn dog language

This dog will make an excellent personal protection dog when it is an adult. It will not be a social dog – teach it the place command – I recently added a podcast on teaching the place command.