I have a 1 1/2 year old Doberman who about 2 months ago started showing signs of aggression towards me and my girlfriend. I purchased Ed's "Basic Obedience" & "Dominant & Aggressive Dogs" DVDs and they have helped tremendously. After watching each disc several times, I went to leerburg.com and purchased a dominant dog collar and a Dogtra 1700NCP to help out with training.

Each are helping with his training but I had a question about when to use the E-Collar. The other day I was at my table doing some work and I had him lay down next to me so I could keep an eye on him. He started growling for what seemed to be no reason at all. I calmly looked at him and told him no. He quickly got up to confront me while showing all of his teeth! I again told him no and to stop. He went absolutely bezerk, barking and just going plain nuts while slowly backing up.

After about 20 seconds he stopped. I then told him to come to me and lay down, and he did with his head down and ears back. He layed there looking at me like he was waiting for me to tell him what to do next. I remember Ed saying from the dominant dog DVD that growling isn't really a bad thing, he's just telling me that he's uncomfortable. Maybe he was just bored and wanted some attention, I don't know.

My question is, in a situation like that, would using the E-Collar freak him out and trigger him into attacking me? I usually just pull up on his dominant dog collar for about 2 seconds to let him know he's misbehaving. I didn't have a leash attached to the collar, but I did have the Dogtra's remote on me. I'll admit this is my first dog and from watching the DVD's I learned that I raised him incorrectly. I had no prior knowledge of pack behavior and figured that if I showered him with love and affection he'd be fine. Man, was I wrong.

All I was doing was teaching him he was the leader and now I have to confront him. I do apologize for the long post but I have so much to ask/say while trying to keep my post short. Thanks in advance!

Not so much about the e-collar but a good piece of advice that I got on this site was to also have the dog checked out by a vet to rule out any medical issue that could be going on.

Someone much wiser than I will probably have some great advice for you on this - good luck and good for you for investing the time, effort, and money into finding a solution for this situation with your dog.

I think the first thing you need to remember is that this dog needs a line on him all the time. You had no way to control the situation when this happened. You know your dog will challenge you, so set yourself up for success.

I would have lifted him up with the DD collar and/or used the remote on him but not without a line on him.

it's not uncommon for this kind of dominant behavior to appear as strong male dogs mature. at 18 months your dog is just becoming a young adult and if you don't nip this behavior in the bud, in my experience it just escalates.

Ed stresses in the dvd to only pick battles you can win, you may even want to consider a muzzle for this dog so you can deal with the next episode with confidence.

First off I want to say I have no idea on the kind of history you've had with your dog so my post is targeted at stimulating a little thinking.

I would absolutely positively correct my dog for displaying any aggression at me regardless of his motivation.

I may be wrong but this may not be a "dominant" dog issue. It doesn't sound like one by your description.

You may want to troubleshoot the aggression though and ask yourself why your dog is behaving aggressive towards you?

What's happening in your relationship with your dog that's causing him to become defensive with you?

A lot of times people with no training experience will get a training video and start correcting their dog unfairly out of ignorance. I'm not suggesting that this is what you've done but it does happen. It's happened with me in the past. In the very distance past when I started training dogs but it has happened. And it's allowed me to learn how to be fair because I was able to make the distinction that I went wrong.

If you feel you've always been fair with your dog then it may very well be a medical problem. But only you know that.

First of all, I would not "confront" this dog if I were you -- Why not? Because he has already become an old pro at being Top Dog, while you're a novice owner who's just beginning to learn the basics of pack structure & leadership (no offense intended).

In order to re-adjust this Dobie's behavior, you need to re-arrange the way you & your girlfriend live with him, 100% -- He needs a steady diet of Ed's Groundwork for Adult Dogs, which is a non-confrontational program, where the dog is virtually never at liberty to exercise his own free will...

That means he spends most of his house-time in a crate, most of his yard-time in a kennel, and all of his limited time when he's with you wearing a dominant dog collar, a tether & if necessary, a muzzle -- It's one thing for a very dog-savvy owner with lots of experience managing high-drive and/or highly dominant dogs to re-train a pet like this one, but I'm afraid you & your girlfriend really have your hands full with this beastie <:-(

Just for starters, I would give him no freedom, no attention, no eye-contact, no conversation, no petting, and no interaction at all except for quick onlead bathroom breaks & a few basis commands that you know in advance he WILL obey for sure (like, "Sit" before receiving his food-bowl IN the crate, or "Busy" before relieving himself outdoors, for example) -- I would keep him on this super-strict protocol for a minimum of 2 weeks straight & see if his behavior improves, before going on to any obedience lessons.

Thanks everyone for all of the great advice. I placed an order for a muzzle and I'll start using that. A while back I thought he was coming down with some kind of medical problem, but I found it was allergies towards the food we changed him to. He was on Innova puppy for a year, then switched to the adult formula. He developed a rash and got a couple of bumps.

I switched him to a raw diet and that fixed the problem. I'm sure it's like Ed said on one of the articles I read. My dog may love me, but he doesn't respect me as pack leader. I'm willing to put as much time, money, and work necessary into rebuilding our relationship. Thanks again everyone!

That's great to hear, David <:-) We have a rescue Dobie who was NUTS, but Ed's DVDs & articles have saved all of us !

Now this thread is COOL! There is a ton of great advice in every post.

Dave, if your dog is baring teeth you need to be really careful with the DD collar. I really have no place in my house I can hang a strong enough line so I was using the DD collar just by lifting. They'll use their paws to get you close for a bite if they truly want a piece of you. As for the electric collar, I use mine (1700) for aggression in addition to obedience and man can it be tricky. I was to close one time and got nipped as fast as he got nicked. I'm trying to correct him and I wound up the one standing there with a stupid look on my face in shock and awe. My wife was standing there and started cracking up.

Then sometimes if I stim him for aggression he'll come towards me already pumped up and now really pissed so you have to be real careful when using the e-collar for aggression. I would never recommend it because I have no fool-proof way nor the experience to advise someone else on the practice.

All the posts about the ground work sound dead on. I think the DD video would help out allot. Then again, there's the medical possibility which seems far fetched in most scenarios but you never know.

The biggest thing in this is consistency. You already trained him wrong, as you stated, but these posts are telling you the right way and getting the proper info is most of the battle. Now you and others living with the dog need to follow these protocols very strictly and consistently or you will be the ones chasing your tail. Good Luck!

David can you continue to post your progress in this thread. I would be very interested in hearing how things work out.

thanks,

Dan
http://www.reliabledog.com

David
Listen to the people that can help you here. And if you have a police Dept. that has a k9 unit you might want to contact them and ask them the same question maybe they might be able to help you too.
Jerry