April 12, 2011
Our rescue dog aggressively nips at our visitors and strange kids. What should we do?
Full Question:
Hello,I just read your article regarding dominant dogs. I have a question, and I hope you might be able to provide some advice. I adopted a female German Shepherd from a rescue group. The rescue group was at capacity and this particular woman was going through a bitter divorce at the time and wanted to place her dog. I adopted the dog (female GSD about 2 1/2 years old) directly from the owner. I was only told that she has a ?mischievous streak.? When I got the dog, things started out okay.
However, that mischievous streak turned out to be aggressive behavior towards any guest I try to bring into my house; towards other dogs while walking her; aggression towards other dogs at the local dog run; and towards children at the dog run. At the dog run, she sometimes charges toward other dogs and nips at them before sniffing them, and then walking off. She also has a habit (that I am very concerned about) of nipping at smaller kids as she was herding sheep. There have been no injuries yet as she has only nipped thicker jackets of kids, but winter has now passed. As far as guests go, she will generally bark and assume an aggressive position towards guests even if I am escorting them by hand into my apartment. She then moves around, and will approach the guest, often from the side or back, and then aggressively nip them. I have not seen her attempt an aggressive, bone-clenching, bite on anyone, but I don't want to see that. In addition, she does bark at dogs walking in front of the place, or if she sees people outdoors through a window.
What is confusing, is that if I take her to a groomer or to the kennel (if I am out of town), she is very behaved. The groomers wish all dogs behaved as she does when they are being bathed. She is generally behaved at the vet, although she will squirm (which probably is understandable when your ears are being poked and cleaned). The kennel has seen her for up to two weeks at a time (usually only 2-3 days at a time, about once a month), and they have not had any problems with her.
I have tried to contact the original owner, but have been unable to. I can tell you that by the time she was 2 years old, she already had at least 2 litters of pups, according to my vet. There are some signs of abuse. This leads me to believe that she was abused and/or neglected. I did track down the breeder, and he seems to be a higher class puppy mill at best.
I have been told to either give her up or put her to sleep. However, I just love this petite little shepherd too much to put her to sleep, and I am uncomfortable with just placing her in another home. Could you provide with some advice, or is putting her to sleep the best option? If she doesn't necessarily get huggie-kissie with family members or guests, that's fine. I just don't want to worry about her attacking or scaring family members or guests. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
J.
Ed's Answer:
The description you have given me is a classic FEAR BITER. The reason for this behavior is that the dog has weak nerves. Normal things seem to cause it to be concerned. It has learned that showing aggression will cause the people that make it nervous to leave it alone.
Many times people will adopt dogs like this and think, “This poor dog was abused by the previous owner.” Most of the time this is not true at all. The reason the dog ended up in the pound was because it displayed the kind of temperament you are describing. The dog was born with the problem. Bad genetics produce bad nerves.
The fact is that a dog like this should be put down. In my opinion this is a dangerous dog. It's usually only a matter of time before it bites a child or a friend. This is not an easy thing to do, but the fact is there is little that you can do to change the behavior.
If you do not want to do this, your only option is to obedience train the dog. By this I do not mean normal obedience where it really isn't important if the dog only minds some of the time. This dog needs a lot of training so that it minds in every circumstance and under every distraction. You can learn how to do this from my tape titled Basic Dog Obedience.
The 2 commands to stress with the dog are the “recall” and the “down.” You want to be able to recall your dog under every circumstance. You will also want to be able to drop the dog into a down no matter what is going on. This is going to require some compulsion on your part in later training. When it finds itself in a situation that it fears it's going to want to revert back to its old ways. You are going to have to teach it that it has more to fear from you than from the demons in it’s mind.
I guess the way I look at it is that this dog still needs to go through a learning phase, a correction phase and a distraction phase of training, just like every dog we work with. But you need to add another level - I will call it “a do it or die phase.” My point here is that you don't go out and beat up the dog from day one of training. This would be wrong. You need to bring the dog along the way we show in the tape. Once the dog has gone through normal distraction training it must then be exposed to the things it shows aggression to. At this point the corrections are severe for not minding.
My personal feeling is that most of these dogs have such weak nerves that they cannot handle this training. Their nerves are so weak they will fold under the pressure and turn the aggression towards the handler. It worked for them before so they will try it again here.
Many times people will adopt dogs like this and think, “This poor dog was abused by the previous owner.” Most of the time this is not true at all. The reason the dog ended up in the pound was because it displayed the kind of temperament you are describing. The dog was born with the problem. Bad genetics produce bad nerves.
The fact is that a dog like this should be put down. In my opinion this is a dangerous dog. It's usually only a matter of time before it bites a child or a friend. This is not an easy thing to do, but the fact is there is little that you can do to change the behavior.
If you do not want to do this, your only option is to obedience train the dog. By this I do not mean normal obedience where it really isn't important if the dog only minds some of the time. This dog needs a lot of training so that it minds in every circumstance and under every distraction. You can learn how to do this from my tape titled Basic Dog Obedience.
The 2 commands to stress with the dog are the “recall” and the “down.” You want to be able to recall your dog under every circumstance. You will also want to be able to drop the dog into a down no matter what is going on. This is going to require some compulsion on your part in later training. When it finds itself in a situation that it fears it's going to want to revert back to its old ways. You are going to have to teach it that it has more to fear from you than from the demons in it’s mind.
I guess the way I look at it is that this dog still needs to go through a learning phase, a correction phase and a distraction phase of training, just like every dog we work with. But you need to add another level - I will call it “a do it or die phase.” My point here is that you don't go out and beat up the dog from day one of training. This would be wrong. You need to bring the dog along the way we show in the tape. Once the dog has gone through normal distraction training it must then be exposed to the things it shows aggression to. At this point the corrections are severe for not minding.
My personal feeling is that most of these dogs have such weak nerves that they cannot handle this training. Their nerves are so weak they will fold under the pressure and turn the aggression towards the handler. It worked for them before so they will try it again here.
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