Aggression Q&As

Hello! I'm new to your Facebook but love it! We have always had dogs and rescued many as well (of course they end up staying with us for the rest of their lives). We've rescued aggressive dogs scheduled for euthanasia however I am now faced with a tricky one that I'm not sure how to correct. Jack is a 1.5 year old rottweiler that was abandoned as a puppy. He is our 5th rottie, therefore we do have some experience with the breed (my favorite). He is the most loving boy however he challen...

We have a Shorthaired German Pointer, he is 2 years old and we are having a problem when the dog takes something that doesn't belong to him. He generally comes near us or close to us with the object he would have taken and we won't be able to move from there because he tends to get aggressive. We think it could be because he thinks we are going to take the object back from him. Even with other things that he takes, he refuses to give them back. Is there anything you can suggest to help us dea...

Hi Ed and Cindy, My question(s) revolve around my 13 month old intact 70 pound GSD (West German) female. Her lineage on both sides for generations is Sch3, including a few World Sieger relatives. She is beautiful dog, very attached to me, and has an EXTREMELY high prey drive. Thank God I work from home and can exercise her vigorously 2-3 times/day utilizing her favorite activity -- fetching a ball. My problem is her distractibility and jumping up with greeting people... lately she is becom...

Hi, my name is Natalie. I have a Lab/corgi mix,Ginger, who is 6 years old. This year my husband and I had a baby and she is now 8 months old and crawling. Ginger has recently started to stand over our daughter's head when she is on the floor which is something she use to do with our black lab mix, Shelby, before she died. I have been told that this is a dominance thing. My husband yells at Ginger every time she does it but I don't think it is helping. I don't want her doing this to our baby b...

Hi, My dog is about 8 years old. She is a lab beagle mix. We have a 9 month old baby, who loves the dog. We take them on walks together, but the dog pulls and almost knocks the stroller over sometimes. We have taken her to an obedience class once, but we did not keep the training up enough. We were trying to let them be together, but when the baby started crawling, she got a warning bark from the dog twice. Then another time he was crawling towards the dog and the dog snapped at the baby. ...

Hi Cindy, It's been a while since we spoke last, but I have a question about our new dog: but first some background. We have just recently adopted a rescue female miniature poodle that is 2 years old. We have had her for almost two weeks now and have been putting her through the ground work training as taught by Leerburg. She has accepted myself and my wife as the pack leaders (more so me than my wife but still minds my wife very well) and she is a very loving and quite obedient dog. We ha...

My ten year old Keeshonden bit me and tore my lip. This happened on the same day that I had been playing with another dog up close away from home. I was behind her head and she turned and bit my lip off. I believe it was because I had the smell of the other dog all over me and my dog wasn't looking. The only other time this had happened was a couple of months prior when my dog bit my daughter on the lip (not as hard) after she had been playing with a dog earlier that day at a friend's home. M...

We have a dominant/agressive 16 month female doberman. We have purchased and implimented all of your training videos and hired several local trainers. The latest trainer, has instructed us to do an alpha roll with a muzzle 2 times a day as an excercise not as a correction. Our doberman growls and freaks out when we do this but eventually calms down. We are rolling her on her side only not on her back. Should we stop doing this? I know your other articles are adamant about not using alpha roll...

Hello Cindy, We have a 1 1/2 year old Australian Shepherd who is aggressive when on leash with other dogs in a classroom situation and walking around our neighborhood. She does not show any aggression while on leash walking around at dog shows which deal with conformation and obedience. We have her in an agility class where all the dogs are crated and one dog works at a time on the course. When it is her turn she has recently taken off and runs over to where the other dogs are crated and b...

Hello, I found your article on how to break up dog fights very very useful. I recently started working in a dog boarding and daycare facility. Some days there are as many as 125 dogs in the yards.?There are multiple yards and we do our best to divide based on temperament but yesterday was my first dog fight. I have lots of experience with big animals (steers, sheep, etc) but none with such sharp teeth. I ended up with a relatively minor bite, two teeth puncture wounds but no tearing. I use...

I found your site very informative. If a dog is friendly with other dogs, cats and people but attacks one specific dog more than once, would this dog be considered aggressive? Recently, she attacked this much smaller dog beyond repair and sadly the dog didn't survive. Is this dog to be trusted around small children? I know with any dog, there should always be close supervision. But knowing she has this ability in her, is it too risky to keep her in the home with children?

I am referring to Ed's article, What Would I do if Attacked by a Dog? After you pepper-spray a threatening, loose dog from charging at you and your dog, what if its owner denies his dog was unleashed and accuses you of animal cruelty?

We have a rescued SCWT who, after a year of walking with the same group, is still agressive toward the others. I'm wondering if I try her with a muzzle, will that help her interact and realize that they will not harm her? Any thoughts or advice would be welcomed.

We have a 16-month-old male neutered Boxer and have had him since 8 weeks of age. I have trained him on your methods and have had great results except, when he was very young about 3 or 4 months, he would turn and snap at me when I gave him a correction if he was nosing around or chewing on something. I would correct by LEAVE IT command and move him away from whatever it was. I thought that had been rectified until recently. He wears a drag leash all the time and the other morning, while ...

Hi Ed, I am contacting you from England. Boy, I wish I had seen your website before we bought latest dog. We have a 10-year-old female black lab and a 4-year-old male lurcher/labrador/collie cross, when we first introduced him to her I was told by many people never to put a male and female dog together, however we were very lucky and apart from a few spats at the beginning they have lived together quite happily for 2 years. Both are very placid dogs and although the lab shows aggression...

I have a 3 year old castrated Anatolian Shepherd, weighs 160 pounds; I weigh 110. I live part time (8 months) in Costa Rica, and I got him as a guard dog. He is great as a perimeter defense dog, because his size and bark are terrifying. Nobody breaks into my house. However, he has unpredictable episodes of aggression to other dogs. Worst with males, but has attacked females. He is trained in formal obedience, and has no trouble on airplanes, crowds, etc. He is great with people, cats, chicken...

I have read your article about introducing dogs and babies and I found it helpful but I still have a question. We have a dog who is about ten years old, Lady. Lady has never shown signs of aggression towards anyone until recently. My son is now 11 months and Lady has suddenly started growling at him almost every time she is around him. When she isn't growling it is like she completely ignores his presence, she even jumped on top of him when getting into the car one day. We don't want to resor...

I have a 3 and 1/2 year old Cocker Spaniel. He's been crate trained and up to couple weeks ago was fine about going into it at night. Now all of a sudden when told to go to "bed" at night he just lays there and growls at whomever tells him to go to bed. Sometimes he will go in, but then turns around and growls at them again. What's going on? How can I stop this behavior? I don't want him to start biting? I'm not sure how to handle him. In the past there have been times he's in the crate and w...

I have a 5 year old intact male Shepherd (30 inches at the shoulder and 110 pounds)who is aggressive toward other dogs, both while we are walking and when he is in the yard. Part of our yard is well above street level and Liam uses it as a vantage point to watch for dogs and to a lesser degree, other passers-by. He will become totally focused on the approaching dog and will charge in their direction, so I keep him on a long line to be sure he stays in the yard for that reason. When we are wal...

I have a 1 1/2 year old Malinois. He thinks that everywhere we go we are going to do bite work. How do I train him to relax? He has good obedience but sometimes he wants to bite everyone. He won't do it if I give him his negative maker "No." But I don't trust him or my own reflexes so I muzzle him everywhere. I would like him to be safe around strangers. He doesn't need to be their friend, just ignore them. I am guessing you are going to tell me to work on engagement so he will focus on me in...