I have a 20 month old female Boxer mix. I found her as a stray three months ago. Her name is Ollie.

Background:

The only time Ollie has shown aggression towards dogs is when she first met my friends 16 month old GSD and he acted very aggressively to her first--she acted aggressively in return. We allowed them to meet after a slow introduction, and they are fine with each other now. Other times she acted aggressive towards other dogs were when the GSD would see another dog on a walk and began barking and growling, so she did the same. As long as the GSD was not around, she is usually calm when visually in the presence of other dogs. She lives in my home with a cat, two Chihuahuas, and three other large breed dogs. She does very well with all of them. However, I first noticed very mild redirected aggression whenever she'd see a strange cat or a squirrel especially. She'd bark and whine, and then rear on her legs and start boxing me with her paws. That's about as far as it went.
On Monday, March 5th 2007, Ollie was playing with my best friend's pit bull Nala, when Nala began becoming too aggressive and started trying to fight Ollie. I broke the little scuffle up and Nala came away with a tiny, tiny cut on her ear. Ollie's behavior with my dogs or my best friend's Yorkshire Terrier(who was in the house) did not change moments after the fight.
Ollie has separation anxiety, but it is a bit less now than when I first got her. She still will normally cry and pace endlessly when I leave the room, but not nearly as bad as it used to be. As long as she is occupied she is pretty much okay now.

Problem:

On Friday, March 9th 2007, is when I started to notice her behavior changing. My sister owns a 9 month old Labrador Retriever named Lego. Ollie normally plays with Lego a few times a week, and they get along splendidly because Lego is very laid back and passive. On Friday Ollie was being VERY bossy with him, and becoming aggressive to the point I thought she might outright attack him. She was snarling and chasing him down. Now bear with me on this--I take Ollie to the dog park but because of recent events I am going to stop. On Saturday, the next day, I took her to the dog park. She was acting bossy again, but not outright aggressive. She was being more annoying than anything and was picking on other dogs a bit. Sunday I took her to the dog park again with Lego. All was going fine until she was playing with Lego and a male dog came and started mounting her. She went absolutely insane--attacking him and chasing him off. Then she went after Lego. She wasn't really hurting them at all, but she looked pretty scary from an outsider's perspective. I grabbed her and attached her leash, and made her sit and stay with me on a bench so she'd calm down. While sitting there, any dog that approached her she attempted at attacking. Even Lego. I corrected her for it and since we were about to leave I was just going to walk her around the dog park while on leash. Again, any dog that approached her she went after. If a dog just ran by her, she'd lunge for it. Once out of the dog park she was fine with Lego in the back of the car.
That same day, Sunday, I decided she needed major training so I took her out to brush up on her skills. My friend, the one who owns the GSD, has just come back from some training with his dog.

We both use prong collars on our dogs, correct fit and everything. My friend was told a correction on the prong collar should make the dog yelp every time, so I figured it was worth the try since it was working for Duke. I tried correcting that hard and Ollie started becoming aggressive and trying to nip. At first she wasn't hurting, but I would correct her with a stern "NO!" and make her sit again. My friend tried it with her and she did the same to him. The next day, Monday, we went out again and trained some more with both dogs. It was the same thing. My friend worked on her more, and then she finally broke down and was acting very afraid, even though she'd still bite at corrections. She wouldn't listen to commands and kept rolling onto her side.

This is a video of Ollie's handler aggression:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubh1Y6eaeHU

What can I do to establish my place as the dominant one in the relationship? Is there anything I can do to make her not bite? Should I stop doing such hard corrections, which I only started on Sunday? She was doing fine with training before that, but then there is still the fact that she'd box me when she couldn't get at a cat or squirrel. I need help!!

Thanks for posting the video. It pissed me off. And yes, you do need help.

I don't think I can call that handler aggression. It's bad training. Your dog must have an exceptionally sweet nature to not have seriously injured you by now.

Buy this book: http://www.leerburg.com/928.htm YOU NEED IT!

Get some treats: http://www.leerburg.com/1078.htm (Cheaper here than at most pet stores.)

You need to motivate your dog - not drag it around. You are correcting the dog unfairly.

You must learn to use markers to communicate to your dog.
You must learn to be active in training, not passive.
The tough-guy image doesn't impress the dog. Lose it.
Don't tower over your dog and use dominating postures.
For the love of Dog, stop alpha rolling her!

So why am I being so short, blunt and rude with you? I RUINED a dog by training EXACTLY like you are doing. I took her to a trainer and followed his method perfectly. It cost the dog her life. I had to euthanize her because of health problems related to stress and anxiety cause by the training style.

Watch your video again. In heeling, your dog pulls away from you and is unwilling to go with you. That's not disobedience - your dog doesn't feel safe with you.

Your commands are so short and so similar that your dog CANNOT understand what you want her to do.

If you are unwilling to relearn how to train a dog take it to the nearest shelter or send her to me. She deserves better.

The person handling the dog in the video is not the OP apparently.

That is not me in the video. That is my friend. I myself do not alpha roll her and up until Sunday I was doing what I felt were the correct level of corrections which she was not attacking me for.

I told him that I didn't think she should be falling behind like she ended up doing, but he reassured me that she just needs to learn who is alpha and this was part of her training. She was far more afraid of him than she is of me, and was actually pulling toward me and running away from him.

Also, please do not assume I am unwilling to relearn how to train a dog. I am asking for help, am I not? This crazy behavior has popped up in the last few days! And not just handler aggression, but dog aggression.

I also choose to reward via praise rather than treats because I mainly did treats with my pit bull, and he listens better for treats unfortunately. He does listen to me, he is just better behaved if I'm handing him food left and right.

Like I said, I've found her actually less than three months ago and she is difficult to train because she is a slow learner. I've pretty much only have her mastered on sit, and she gaining the idea of stay, heel, and come.

Thank you for the two cents though. The way she is being trained in the video was not my idea, so please keep that in mind while you chew me out.

Oh Gosh,
That was painful to watch! Stop this type of training now, if you wish to have any kind of bond with this dog. Listen to Anne's post. Do lots of research. Find a GOOD trainer! Search this website. Order Ed's DVD's!
You are well on your way of ruining this dog! Please put all training on hold until you get educated. It looks like you have a nice dog.

Good Luck,

Tracy

 Quote: Anne Vaini

The person handling the dog in the video is not the OP apparently.

He's been learning his recent technique of making the dog yelp at every correction from a trainer. She breeds, raises, and trains schutzhund German Shepherd Dogs. He came back with his GSD who was acting like an angel, so I was trusting him when he told me the method would work.

The sad thing is that she is such an angel. She really is a very well behaved dog. She loves people, and shows great affection. I'm evening training her for her CGC and she is going to be a therapy dog, but this has been a major set back. Believe me when I say I am in shambles over this.

I get that I should stop the method, that is clear enough. I figuring as soon as I stop that, she'll get better.

But what can I do about the dog aggression, which was pre-training that you see on the video. I want her to at least act politely when in the presence of dogs, or squirrels for christ's sake! I can easily stop the hard corrections, but I really need to fix the animal aggression.

Good to see that's not you!

This training will turn on a dog's nerves and you'll start to see aggression cropping up other places unexpectedly. Keep Ollie away from other dogs and situations in which you would expect aggression to develop.

Working on motivating Ollie in training and regaining her trust in a training environment is your first step. Lots of treats and praise.

If you weren't getting paid, would you still work? Dogs learn when there's a good reason - a good payday so to speak. Go back to treats and start completely over on the three commands she "knows." Assume she knows nothing.

You've only had her for a little while. Don't worry about the rate of her learning obedience. Worry about developing a solid, positive and working relationship with her.

Ed's Basic Obedience DVD is completely awesome and will be very helpful to you. It explains everything you would ever need to know and it always helps to see it rather than read it. If I had read your post rather than seen the video, I would have given you a very WRONG response.

P.S. Thanks for hanging in there. I was pretty rough on you!

 Quote:

He's been learning his recent technique of making the dog yelp at every correction ..... The sad thing is that she is such an angel. She really is a very well behaved dog. She loves people, and shows great affection. I'm evening training her for her CGC and she is going to be a therapy dog, but this has been a major set back. Believe me when I say I am in shambles over this.

That's how I ended up with the trainer who is about 1/2 responsible for ruining the dog I had. (I did follow the method to a "T" so bad me also.) The trainer had AMAZING results with GSDs. The problem was, I didn't really understand completely about a dog being "hard" or "soft" to corrections.

Don't worry about the animal aggression right now. Do damage control. In a couple weeks I can walk you through some training that works to control animal aggression. I use it with a lot of dog v dog aggressive dogs that are preparing for the CGC. Best part is - it's a totally fun game for the handler and the dog.

Alright, I get what you are saying.

I was planning on stopping that method anyways. I've taken her out every day since Sunday by myself and have since reverted back to my old correction levels and she hasn't done a single nip. She trusts me fine, my mother has even gone as far as to say she is obsessed and quiet possibly would die without me! Like I said, she is such a wonderful dog, it was hard for me to watch her during the training my friend was doing with her. I don't completely blame him, he was just following the advice of someone he trusted.

I'll take her out tomorrow, and start completely over.

edit:

Thank you for the help. My pit bull, who is my life, love, and child would do so well for the CGC. He truly is a perfect dog in my eyes, very loving and adores people. His one downfall is dog aggression. The dog is fight crazy like you would not believe, it's a miracle I can ever get him used new dogs. But now he co-exists peacefully with five other dogs through the training I've done with him. He's gotten a whole lot better around strange dogs but if given the chance he'll go after one. If I could just get him over that one obstacle he'd go everywhere with me. Camping, hiking, beach, he'd get his CGC, become a therapy dog...As you can see now, Ollie is my prospect for all the things my pit bull cannot do