Hi

good afternoon ,just wanna hear it from you guys.and your
opinion on this one,i have a workingline gsd..progeny of heiligen bosch and a felsenmuhle,..i had it assesed its 20 months now for pp...they agitated the dog and in my novice opinion i was surprised how it reacted,it was lunging at the decoy while still on my leash,it was really barking harshly and it was showing its teeth,really wanted to go after they guy,however to my dismay the trainer told me that he wants to see it again come back after 3 days he would asses it again,sayin it aint fair coz its the first time,and on my second assesment he still reacted the same,baring its teeth and barking like theres no tom,tryin hes best to reach the decoy,and when he was tested with the rug the decoy suddenly left, it bit it..there are some few seconds moments though when he would divert his attention somewhere else when the decoy was in front,however it was just the dogs second session,and the trainer told me that my dog doesnt make the cut,and he told me that its got weak nerves and the showing of teeth is a sign of fear or fear biting???whats your take on this?in my novice opinion, i think the showing of teeth is like dominance aggression?and the fact that he was lunging forward,for me, was a sign not of fear...but please correct me if im wrong...many thanks and godspeed

Hard to say without knowing exactly what the helper did and seeing the dogs body language and hearing the bark. In general, a dog showing teeth/hair on the back going up etc is a defensive reaction. If the decoy wasn't threatening him at all and just waving a rag around then to me thats simply a sign of a dog that is leaning more toward defense and doesn't understand what he is supposed to do. I have worked dogs like this before and it just takes 5 or 6 sessions and you start to see the dogs hair go down and his bark change and the curling of the lips stop. You have to make a dog like this understand that he is not in a war.

To a novice it looks very impressive to have a dog curling his lips and snarling like a demon. It does look very impressive, but it is indeed, in most cases, a sign of thin nerves. The dog feels threatened so has to anounce "rah rah look I'm a big badass dog! get away from here or I'll do something!". If the decoy pressures the dog correctly then the dog will change his mind about his lil display and turn around and run. Looking away and losing focus, especially for a dog that is being defensive, is a sign of avoidance. He decided that he's not sure he wants to deal with the decoy so he's gonna try and ignore him and see if the problem goes away.

Now like I said, this is just general information, I don't know how much applies to your dog because I haven't seen him myself. If I were the decoy I would spend 10 sessions on it, if I don't see improvement I would admit defeat and tell you honestly where your dog stands. But if your dog is from Nick lines (Nick vom Heiligenbosch?) then I am assuming there is prey drive in that lil head of his and he comes from very civil lines, so its just a matter of getting thru to him and communicating to him what is expected from him.

But no, it doesn't really sound like dominance aggression to me.

He is currently 20 months, correct? Has he ever seen a helper before? Have you done any drive building (prey) with him up to this point? If not, it is pretty early (2 quick sessions) to write a dog off as being weak nerved unless there was total avoidance after posturing or peeing or something stupid like that, especially if nothing has been done to cultivate his natural drives up to this point. But again, without seeing it live it's all speculation.

Didier,

I hope you don't mind me asking my own question here? We have a dog who is very very aggressive and he does show his front teeth too. Now when we pressure him he will deffently take out the decoy. Now how can you tell when the dog is snarling if it is defensive or aggressive. After working with this dog i know he is aggressive and not defensive i am just saying when you start out.

(i know its hard to tell when someone is trying to explain it to you on the computer)

Its incredibly difficult to describe that on a forum, you will see it if you see 2 dogs side by side, an intense defensive dog who is comfortable working in defense, but is still too defensive, is still a defensive dog and will mislead alot of people into thinking he is confident. But there are alot more things to watch for than just the teeth, there is the dogs posture, the body language, the way he is acting, the sound of his bark, as well as working with a decoy that really knows how to pressure a dog. Often people think they are pressuring a dog when they're not really doing all that much.

I'm generalizing here but one clue is looking at the ears and sides of the mouth. If ears are back and sides of mouth are pulled back during the bark, this can be related to fear. If ears are forward and sides of mouth are more forward, this can be aggression.
I went to a behavior seminar and saw multiple videos of dogs doing both expressions and we could see how the expressions matched with their environment. Very interesting.

Heh yeah i didn't think it would be simple to describe on here, although i deffently wouldn't mind going to a decoy school.

hi
thanks mike that info was very helpful indeed ,i dont expect much really coz you guys havent seen the dog in real action but the info you gave me is sufficient enough,..and i got your point...yes i will try to give it more time coz the third session his lip curling has lessened and i will give it a few more sessions before discarding him afterall he wasnt expose to such drive building exercises...you sure answered my questions very well and also throwing advices...i dont expect people to have esp lol...but your article and answers were like hand in glove to my questions,more powwer to the board and godspeed