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April 19, 2011

My 9 month old female Weimaraner is beginning to bark and act aggressive towards children in our neighborhood. What should I do?

Full Question:

I came across your site on the Internet and found it very informative. I was wondering if you might offer me a suggestion for my scenario. I have a 9-month-old female Weimaraner that I just recently had spayed. I have taken Sierra just about everywhere that I can. Since she was 8 weeks old (she recently completed her CGC training...which turns out to be ironic). Sierra is very protective of my home and barks when she sees anything close to our yard. Recently I have trained her to bark once and then quit upon my command of "quiet" by using treats. However, my new problem is that whenever she is in my car as we are backing out of the driveway or in my fenced yard- she barks aggressively at any of the children that walk by and some of the dogs. Just yesterday as I was getting her into the car she saw one of the neighborhood girls walking past after school, and she ran into the street barking aggressively and nipped the girl on the leg and then upon my calling...came back and got into the car (this incident is extremely upsetting.) After reading numerous articles on the Internet I believe that she is exhibiting protection aggression. I am very upset about this behavior and am wondering what I can do to get it stopped. I did have an individual session with a dog trainer in which she suggested I work with a few of the neighborhood kids to become friends with Sierra. What do you think?

Desperate in NC- J.

Ed's Answer:

I think that you talked to a trainer who is not a very good trainer. This dog needs serious obedience lessons and they need to be done at home with a prong collar. Use the principles in my Basic Obedience video. If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for this tape. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.

I would curtail the barking with a no bark collar. It will eliminate it the first day that you use it. You can find information on the Tri Tronics No Bark collar on my web site. I use 15 of them in my kennel almost every day. We put them on at night and take them off in the morning. I could not run my kennel without them. The dog should never be off leash - use a Flexi lead. If the dog shows any aggression to a child it needs to be corrected so hard it thinks it's life is over. It needs to fear that kind of a correction way more than it feels like being aggressive. At this age this dog IS NOT trying to protect you. Do not fool yourself into believing this. At this age you are seeing poor nerves and a dog who is turning into a fear biter.

I can guarantee you that unless you take these steps that I have outlined, it is only a matter of time before your dog bites a child and you will then have to destroy the dog or pay a hefty settlement.

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