My dog is very aggressive to other animals. I have tried a HALTY and it is not working. What can I do?

Question

I have a lovely female Dobie, heavy german Schutzhund breeding, who became very defensive at age 6 months. Before this she was socialized heavily and worked in puppy agility. It seemed that at 6 months her protective nature kicked in and she barked at everything and nothing so I started re-socializing her. The trips to children's homes, malls, and obedience and agility classes where she was touched, hugged, kissed and fed at every possible moment truly paid off because she is an extremely affectionate 10 month old who can be trusted with any human situation.

    My problem with her is that she is still nervous about being introduced to a new group of dogs and reverts back to barking and attempts to lunge for the first 5 or 10 minutes in a new place. I purposely bring her to new training centers so she can see all the dogs in the world and get used to the world of agility and obedience trials. I have to take her into a new place with a halti on which controls her but she is usually trembling for a few minutes. She's being very good about not lunging and biting butts as long as I start her out with the halti and we get the rules of order straight right off the bat. I think this transfer the alpha status to me and relieves her of the responsibility to clear the area for our safety.

    Do you think my strategy of just continuing the drill of new places with dogs and reassurance will help her to get over the fear? Of course I don't ever expect her to allow the golden retrievers to jump on her and kiss her (which they always try to do) but would like to know I am giving her the confidence she will need to be a good obedient competitor in the ring.

    Thanks for your input,
 Arlene

Accepted Answer

This problem can be dealt with but it takes a commitment from the handler.

A Halty for this problem is USLESS - but then you are figuring this out. A Halty is only effective on a very soft dog and it is not going to prove effective on a dog that requires a hard correction to fix behavioral problems - like dog aggression. If you watch Animal Planet or listen to the nice lady on NPR they will tell you to divert a dogs attention when it sees another dog and wants to get aggressive. THIS DOES NOT WORK on most dogs and it is bad advice.

So get rid of the Halty and get a PRONG COLLAR on this dog. Then when the dog acts like it wants to go after a dog - give it a correction that it will remember. This dog needs a level 10 correction on a scale of 1 to 10. Some handlers cannot do this and to that I say - Good Luck with your dog because you are going to need it.

This is not rocket science. If the dog respects you as a leader and it knows that you are fair and consistent with your corrections, that you do not allow dog fighting or showing signs of aggression - and it knows that the correction it will receive for acting aggressive is not worth the effort to be aggressive - then you have solved your problem. A VERY SIMPLE CONCEPT THAT WORKS.

If you cannot correct a dog to accomplish this, then you need to find a home for your dog or keep it confined in an area where it never comes in contact with other animals.

You should praise a dog when there is another dog around and you can see that your dog wants to have a go at it but restrains itself.

Regards,
Ed Frawley