My 3 year old neutered Rott has attacked 2 children and my puppy. He is the love of my life-- what can I do?

Question

Hi Ed,

    Thanks so much for sharing your experience and advice on and through this web site. I am hoping you can help me and perhaps lead me in the right direction. I am interested in several of your videos and was wondering which you would recommend for my circumstances.

    I have an 8 year old neutered Basset Hound, a 3 year old neutered Rottweiler mix whom we rescued, and a 14 week old Newfoundland girl. My problems are with the rottie mix and I would really appreciate any advice. His name is Solomon and we rescued him at about 2 weeks old from a shelter that was going to put him down. He immediately became the love of my life and I treated him as such. Little did I know I was doing more harm than good.

    Once I realized that our rottie had aggression issues I took him to obedience classes. The instructor worked with us and in the end suggested that he be put to sleep. I wasn't very happy with this and decided to try to find another trainer. She worked with us using a Tri-Tronics sport 50 e-collar...we had amazing results...or so I thought.

    Within two months of working with the e-collar and making changes at home (no sleeping on the bed) our rottie took and passed the AKC Canine Good Citizen test. We had such a great time training that we continued and he earned his CD Title with the UKC under a limited privilege status (because he is a mixed breed). We even took first place on our first leg. I really thought we had turned a corner.

    We continued our training and started working toward the UCD title. Then one day my 9 year old had a friend over and our rottie ran up to him and started biting him. Although this boy didn't do anything on this particular occasion to initiate the bite this little boy was teasing the dog through a fence a few days earlier. We immediately told this boy that he couldn't treat our dog like that. But we thought that the attack was brought on by this incident. We continued our training as usual. Then a month later I had friend over who has a 12 year old boy and once again our rottie attacked him. This boy had never been to our house before and the dog had no previous interactions with him. Five weeks ago we adopted a little Newfie girl whom we have been waiting for (on a list for 2 years). The rottie attacked her right away...she had staples in her back and on her ears.

    Is there any hope for my rottie boy? I am not afraid of training and working hard and I love him with all of my heart. I also want to mention that I have Lymphoma and am pretty sick sometimes and he is my greatest comfort and friend. He is a very sweet to me.

    Any thoughts or advice? I am interested in buying a few of your DVDs...which would you recommend for this situation? Please help.

    Lori

Accepted Answer

I have owned dangerous dogs my entire life and never had this kind of problem. The reason is because I anticipate the worst and then plan for it. This translates down to your problem is with you and not the dog. The dog is what it is – a dominant territorial animal. It’s your job to control the environment he has access to. This means you need to use a dog crate or dog kennel and the dog should NEVER come in contact with strangers or strange dogs. Not ever and not for any reason.

You don’t train this kind of dominance out of a dog you can only control it – which you have not done. Control means obedience training and respect. Your dog does not respect you if it's doing these kinds of things in your presence. Dogs can love you and still not respect you.

I recommend that you visit my web site and read a training article I recently wrote titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.

The reason I wrote this article was to help people understand how to motivate their dogs in training. Most people either use the wrong kind of correction or over correct dogs in training.

Your emphasis should be on learning pack structure and control. I have written extensively on this.