I have a 2 1/2 year old intact male labrador retriever. I see some odd things about his behavior and some aggressiveness, but I'm not sure what I'm dealing with. I'll summarize what things I've seen that concern me and hopefully someone with EXPERIENCE can comment and give me an idea. I don't know if I have a dominant dog, or one who's unsure of himself and his pack leader.

As a puppy he was around lots of people and dogs as I belong to a retriever club. I used to let him run and play with other dogs at club training events (I know - not smart), and he was always the pup that played the roughest and hardest. During group training events he was always extremely excited, he'd do a lot of whining and carrying on while other dogs were retrieving birds. But he was always friendly with other dogs and people.

At about 1 year of age he was attacked by an older male in the airing area of a hunt test. Dogs are supposed to be on lead, but there were some teenagers there working with their dog off lead and when it saw us it just came and attacked. I broke it up, but didn't see it coming until the dog was upon us, my bad. Since then he seems to get along well with other females and neutered males, but he will get his hackles up and growley if an unknown intact male is around. At about age two he attacked an intact male when we were out pheasant hunting with a group. The only other attack he has managed was at a training session I observed when I was picking him up from 3 months in Texas last winter with a field trial pro. Ace was sitting in a blind waiting his turn to run and another guy heeled his intact male past the blind. The pro said that Ace just got up from a sit and went right in and attacked the other dog. He told me that in the 3 months he'd had him around 10 other intact males he never saw an indication of this aggressiveness but did see jockeying of dominance among the males which he would put a stop to.

Since I've had him back from the pro he seems pretty decent on walks. If another owner walks by us with a leashed dog that is well behaved, he is well behaved as well. If the other dog is hectic and jumping and pulling, or growling and barking he'll get up tall with tail up and ears up and issue a deep growl. Sometimes he'll pull on the lead, which earns him a hard leash correction. I can get him back to heel, but it takes a bit to calm him down and keep his attention off the other dog. I have him enrolled in an OB class just to work him around strange people and dogs, and he is a star pupil in the class. But then again there is only one other intact male in the class, and that dog is very calm, almost sleepy acting.

One interesting thing he does on walks. I always air him on lead. I only let him go when and where I want him to. But sometimes when we get to spots I know other dogs do their business at, he has begun to try and pee or crap while walking. I assume he's trying to leave his calling card, or overmark.

That pretty much covers his behavior around dogs. Now for his behavior around people.

He seems to love people although he doesn't meet new people as well as he used to. He seems to approach a little carefully, sometimes he'll reach way out with his nose and give them a good careful sniff and onece he does this he's mr happy. I have noticed that if people reach to pet him on top of his head he doesn't like it and sometimes will back away, then come back in for another sniff.

If we are on a walk and someone appears right there as if out of nowhere from behind bushes or vehicles he has once in awhile let out a quiet low pitched bark. He doesn't start barking and snarling, but a single low pitched woof. One thing I noticed last fall however while out hunting kind of unsettled me. I was hunting pheasant with my dad, and Ace and I went off after a runner. After we got it we were walking back to where my dad was standing. At one point we were 200-300 yards away, my dad started walking and Ace stood up tall, got his hackles up and let out that low bark a few times. Once he realized who it was he relaxed.

Then one other time last winter during training, my pro brought in a new bird thrower that Ace hadn't been introduced to. This thrower threw a bird from a station out about 350 yards. Ace went out and acted startled by the thrower. The guy said he got his hackles up and was growling at him. The pro yelled for Ace to fetch up the bird and he stopped growling and went to pick up the bird and retrieved it. The pro said he'd not seen him do anything like that before or since the incident.

Yesterday while unloading him from the truck at work I noticed that he was looking over at our office with his ears up, and tail up. Then he lets out that low pitched woof. I looked and my wife's grandmother was walking in the back door. He knows her well, so this really surprised me.

The last incident that happened was this morning. I was getting ready for work and the dog was in his crate by the back sliding glass door. I heard a low growl come from the crate. When I looked, Ace was staring out the side of his crate at some utility workers walking through the yard. I told him no, bad dog and he stopped. The thing that's strange is, our subdivision has walking paths through the back yards, and he's used to seeing people walk through there all the time.

He has only growled at a family member once. About a month ago after I just got him back from the trainer. He had just finished eating and he was sitting outside the basement bathroom while I filled his water dish. My wife came walking down the hall, and Ace turned up at her and growled. I reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of his cheeks, looked him in the eye, and shook him up a bit while calmly saying NO. Then I told him to down then told him to lay on his side and put his head down (I taught this as a command during OB). I had him hold that while we stood over him, then I crated him. Haven't seen a wrong move around the family since. To me it seemed like being around 14 other dogs for 3 months really had his pack drive ramped up and I hope this settled it.

One last thing. When I take him on walks in the country he's really relaxed and calm although he seems to want to lift his leg to mark everthing that sticks up out of the ground. I don't let him, but when we are hunting it's hard to stop... When I walk him in town, he seems to notice every sound and every movement. His head is constantly on a swivel. He needs to check out everything. It might be because of all the idiots that live around me that let their dogs out to air off lead. We have been rushed quite a few times by other dogs and he seems like he's always on the lookout.

Sorry this is so long, but I didn't want to leave anything out. I guess I'm just really having a hard time telling if I have a dominant dog, or a dog that's insecure.

I have several of Ed's tapes and have watched them several times. I have his basic OB, raising a working puppy, dealing with dominant dogs, and his Flinks Drive and Focus DVD. They have all taught me alot, and from the working puppy DVD, I now know that I made every mistake when raising him. Except for the fact that he never is on furniture, never walks through doors ahead of people, always has to perform some task to get petted or fed, sleeps and eats in a crate, etc. The thing is, this is my first dog and I really don't know what I'm dealing with or how bad these behavior issues are. Am I seeing early warning signs that need to be worked out? There aren't many behaviorists here in SD, and I'm not sure who I'd trust anyhow.

Thanks...

I'm only going to address what I have had experience with in the past, and that is intact males and how their attitudes can change going on 2-3 years old. I've owned many males that were intact. Around that 2-3 year old mark (depending on the breed of course, Remi is my first GSD and he was neutered at 6 months) the male dogs seem to come into their own. They get a little defensive around other intact males, they get a bit more protective, and can assert their rank or place in the pack at that time as well. So I would say that this is pretty normal behavior. The way I normally address it is to enforce what has already been taught and even take a step back in training and the amount of freedom the dog has. Once the dog is clear in his place in the pack again - it seems to go away and the dog once again becomes comfortable. That's my experience with intact male dogs. Now, I have had some dogs that did not want to go with the plan and continued to be aggressive and even become worse and I have no problem putting a dog down when I think that they are dangerous to society. The majority of intact dogs that I've owned were APBT's, so I take no chances. There are others with more experience that I have...so take it with a grain of salt.

As for the other stuff, I'm happy when Remi does the single low bark at strangers or people entering the yard. I don't want him to bark his head off, but I do want him to alert me that someone is there...even someone he knows. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Now, I don't let him do that when we are on walks, at the store, etc ... but when he's on his property alerting is fine by me.

Yes, I have limited his freedom. Since he was with a pro doing field training last winter, when I brought him home I backed way up and started him on Ed's groundwork program. Also I entered him in the OB class to work him around strange dogs and people. If he's out of the crate, he's on a lead. During the day, he's in a crate under my desk. For some reason I have a sense that he doesn't have the confidence he once did. I don't know if it's living on a truck with 14 dogs for 3-4 months then coming home or what.

Thanks

IMO...... only <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> I have had plenty of labs and they are great dogs. However they are big and just as strong as any other. To me it sounds like he got shook up as a pup by showing hakles up each time (fear) an intact male came near. The bigger he has gotten the more sure of himself so is more alret and giving warrening and even attacking first.
Any thought on not leaving this dog intact?
Might help. IMOP <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I'm thinking seriously about neutering. Not only because of the male-male aggression, but because I'm getting a very well bred female puppy later in July and I don't want any unintended breedings down the road. This isn't a dog that has a talent level that justifies breeding even if he wasn't aggressive toward other males.

The reason he's intact is because he's used for hunting, and I got all kinds of advice from people about letting him develop completely before neutering. Lately I've heard lots of stuff about neutering not being effective in adult dogs, but now I've come across articles saying that it depends upon the reason for the aggression. They believe that neutering a dominant dog is sometimes effective, but that it isn't effective in the case when a dog is aggressive because of fear. They say that you should have the dog evaluated by a behaviorist to determine the type of aggression before getting it done. But since I want to prevent breeding, I don't see why not do it.

Here are a couple articles I found on the topic. I'd appreciate opinion on them from folks with expereince.

http://www.apbc.org.uk/article4.htm

http://www.kerryblues.info/index.html?http%3A//www.kerryblues.info/HEALTH/SPAY.HTML

My belief is that he's dominant. When another dog is around he stands tall, head up, ears forward, tail up, and he stares intently. He is very submissive to me unless he's highly stimulated by another dog. Then he gets so focused, I need to nearly rip his head off with the prong collar to get his attention.

He's also very excitable, and I understand this is one thing that neutering reliably has a positive effect on.

I'd really appreciate any input...

Thanks!

The dog that is wanting to fight or run off other introders that come into his territory can be calmed down by nuerting, taking the testostone out of a the dog that is over reacting in this area does help some dogs. Not all.
You are right it does not help if the problem is all fear.
IMO only it sounded like your pup may have started with fear but it does not sound like he is reascting like a dog that is fearful now more like one that is wanting to be in control and stand his ground and not back down. IMO if a dog like this breeds by mistake and is not under controled the own has a big problem on their hands. JMO