My dog has a tendency to nip and growl at other dogs in the dog park. Any suggestions as to how I can stop this behavior?

Question

Dear Mr. Frawley,

    I was wondering if you could offer any suggestions for me.

    My 3 year old dog Kraemer, an Australian Cattle dog and Rottweiler mix, has started to develop aggressive behavior toward other dogs at the leash-free dog park. When we enter the park through the double gates and if there are dogs to greet us, he'll charge out of the gates and bark and chase the dogs away from us (me and my other dog Annie). He loves  to smell the other dogs and literally gets urinated on sometimes because he's right in there (sorry to be so descriptive). However, when the dog turns around to smell him, especially in the face area, he'll snarl, show his teeth, and sometimes again try to nip the face and chase them off. If there are dogs running past him playing, he'll try to nip one as they pass by. He loves to fetch a deflated basketball and if another dog tries to run towards him while he's bringing it back to me, he'll growl out of the side of his mouth. My vet told me to put him in the car for 15mins every time he does this. She told me that they only learn from banishment. This is not such a great idea in the middle of summer even with the windows down. She also told me to put his leash on him in the park. But, I know that the other dogs would sense his vulnerability and react to that even more. I just want him to play and have fun. I always tell him that we're going to the park to see his friends but frankly he doesn't have any because he doesn't know how to interact with the others and just play. He is always by my side and constantly looking for my queue. He also doesn't allow strangers to pet him. Because of the herding breed in him, he also used to chase children in the park if they ran and nipped at their heels. This I thought was actually just normal until one day he nipped at a child's hand for no reason. The child was just there, not even moving and I was completely mortified.

    Anyway, I know this is a long email and only if you have a moment to reply, I would greatly appreciate it. I would like to get your Dog aggression DVD but I still think my dog is not that viscous and malicious and really want to avoid him increase the level of his aggression.

    Kindest Regards,
K

Accepted Answer

First off, I would stop taking this dog to dog parks. The behavior you are experiencing with Kraemer is only going to continue to escalate. There is NO good reason (in our experience) to take any dog to an off leash dog park.

Dog Parks, it's a place where lots of dogs get bullied and injured, and aggressive dogs become MORE aggressive because their owners don't understand pack behavior and allow the behaviors to continue.

Your vet may know medicine, but banishing a dog to teach them their behavior is not acceptable does not work. I would disregard any training advice from your vet from here on out.

You need to learn more about pack behavior and establish some leadership for your dog. Right now he is in charge. In this day and age of lawsuits, I would take this very seriously. If you don't make big changes in the way you handle this dog, I am afraid he is going to injure another dog or a person.

Please read this article about becoming an effective pack leader.

The first sentence in this article says it all: "You can feed water and love your dog and he will like you but he very well may not respect you." 99% of all behavioral problems are a result of dogs not respecting their owners. This happens as a result of poor handling and/or poor training.

This article was written for people like yourself, people who have great intentions but not enough knowledge of pack structure. There are links within the article that will take you to other articles on my web site.

I believe that this recently finished DVD could really help you. It’s titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT AND AGGRESSIVE DOGS and was a 5 year project. Your dog is an aggressive dog, and it will escalate. Being aggressive has nothing to do with being vicious, it's part of a dog's natural behavior. You can go to the web page and read the outline of what’s included on the video. My DVDs are not meant to be watched one time. The fact is anyone who needs this information needs to watch it many many times because every time they watch it they will pick up new ideas.

I hope this helps.