I have a Great Dane/ Dalmatian mix that is 9 months old. He is aggressive to men and I don't know how to socialize him. What do you suggest?

Question

Sir

    I just recently acquired a great dane dalmatian mix. He is 9 months old and he weighs about 67 pounds. He is a very sweet dog, he likes kids and he adores me. I could do anything to my dog and he wouldn't even bat an eye lash. However, I picked him up from the pound and I believe that he either was abused by a male or he has never been around them. He wags his tail at every kid and female but he starts barking and acts like he wants to bite every guy that walks into the house or comes within 10 feet of me. My boyfriend also lives with me and it took Lou (my dog) a few days to get used to him. The first time he saw him he growled and almost go away from me when he was outside on his leash. The dog settled down once he realized that he wasn't going to hurt him and the dog knew my boyfriend wasn't going to hurt me. A few days late though, me and my dog were outside on the leash and my boyfriend walked up to him and he went started barking and growling at him. Lou hates men (that is obvious). When I had some friends over the other day I put him in his cage until my friend Chris had walked into the door. Chris went up to his cage and my dog leaped and the cage and almost knocked it over. After a few minutes when the dog was calm I let him come out of his cage and he walked up to Chris and was licking his fingers. I am slowly trying to get him socialized with men, but I am still scared that he may bite. The old owner dropped him off at the pound because she wasn't allowed to have great dane mixes at her apartment. However she did tell the shelter he was "protective." Do you have any suggestions on how I can get my big puppy better socialized with men?

    Thanks,
Rachel

Accepted Answer

You are making a mistake in how you approach this problem – a big mistake.

This is not an issue of socializing this dog around men. It’s an issue that you must teach restraint around men. You must teach it that unwarranted aggression towards men will result in the dog being corrected at a level it respects. With that said, you must also control the environment that it is allowed around men. By that I mean “only when you are present."

If you think its possible for this dog to come to accept the ghosts in its head you are wrong. That is not going to happen. You can have men give this dog treats for the rest of its life and the ghosts will still be there.

So I suggest that you learn to train this dog in a manner that results in respect for the pack leader. Don’t kid yourself that this dog respect you right now – it does not. A dog can love you and not respect you. If it respected your position as pack leader, and you had made your position on aggression to males apparent, the dog would never do this.

I recommend that you get a prong collar and my Basic Obedience.

I also recommend that you do some additional reading from my web site.

I recommend that you go to my web site and read the article I wrote about my philosophy of dog training. I think you will get some good ideas there. You will see a bit of yourself in this article.

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. I am not a fan of “force training” (although I most defiantly believe that every dog needs to go through a correction phase). By exploring corrections in training you will become a better dog trainer.