mostly fear aggressive? low threshold for dealing with certain situations?

(i took the dogs to a dog boutique today to get new collars, teagan was muzzled and another customer in there was SURE teagan had been abused previously. i really don't think so, i explained that she can be dominant and she's prey aggressive, but apparently, if you have an aggressive dog, the only way they can get like that is through abuse. )

just curious what dogs who actually have been abused (aka not teagan ) behave like.

i'm sure every dog handles it differently.
Roxie was severely abused. When i first got her, she first of all wouldn't budge out of her foster moms van.
Then when i got her home, she sat on my couch for 2 weeks and didn't move. She was affectionant enough, btu afraid of every loud noise and fast movements.
She basically was waiting for me to hurt her.
With work, she has come out of her shell. She is still fearful of men, but if they are standing still, she will let them pet her. If they walk up behind us, she flips.
She is also terrified of gun sounding noises(she was shot).
Back in sept, i had her in my yard on a flexi leash, and she wrapped herself around my grill, at the top of my steps. Well, a car backfired and she bolted, taking me and the grill in a tangled mess down the stairs. I broke a rib.

But, she doesnt have an aggressive bone in her body.

Sometimes it's hard to tell though. Some dogs act like nothing ever happened. They move on, and love life.
Some are just afraid of sticks or newspapers or whatnot, but can cope.
Others never get over it, and do become unstable and fear biters, or can't walk without peeing everywhere and falling over themselves because they are belly crawling.
Then too, some weak nerved dogs do this, and have never been abused a day in their lives.

you know I actually havent met any dog that was aggressive for being abused. All the abused dogs I have met with have shut down because of it, emotionally and are REALLY hard to train because they are afraid to come out of their shell to have fun. I volunteer regularly at a shelter so Ive seen a few cases. the dogs that are aggressive are usually aggressive for lack of leadership. I had one ACD who was a case, he lunged snarling and acted rabid and just stark raving mad, out of his mind. I took him aside (this was at an adoptions showcase; why the dickens did they bring him I want to know?) put a snap chain on him, had him sit a few times so he knew what "sit" meant and took him back out, after two or three "sits" when he started to fixate he became and Angel, social, happy NO aggression; it was amazing. made me look like I did something but it totally a lack of leadership. I fostered him for a few months and he never challenged me or showed aggression the whole time..odd but Im sure he wasnt abused, he was just a blank check that time filled in

Mine was extremely hand shy. If you raised your voice in anger, she crouched and SQUEEZED her eyes shut, flinching. THIS is a sign of abuse. Many signs people chalk up to abuse are simply poor genetics. She has no environmental issues, no noise sensitivities, is friendly toward people, but if I'm angry (more so in the beginning than now, since she knows I will not beat her) she hits the ground crouched with her eyes shut waiting for her beating. I just touch her now and she opens her eyes and gets up. She is no longer hand-shy either, which reaffirms that it was a learned behavior and not weak genetics. She is still cautious around men who aren't happy, though, but only those in a position to correct her, ie, random strangers are all fine.

all of this makes sense. confidence (or the lack thereof) seems to be a common factor.

....it just bugged me, b/c teagan was behaving calmly, but i don't want to take chances so i have her muzzled as a safety precaution, and i felt like i didn't do a good job explaining to the lady why i did it and why teagan wasn't abused. i was also taken aback 'why on earth would you think that?'

Jenni Williams gave a good example I would just like to add that a dog that cringes, or even flops over on its back and yelps like its been hurt at the mere raising of your voice has not necessarily been abused. It is a good indicator, indeed, but overly sensitive, naturally submissive and soft dogs can and will do this, even submissively urinating. Hand shyness is a good indicator also but you will notice they just don't like to be touched anywhere and flinch or cringe if you touch their side, their back, their head, etc. Though not one of those alone, combined I would generally say yes that dog may have been abused.

As far as dogs that have been abused and it caused aggression - dogs that have been beaten purposely to make them aggressive, or dogs that were beat and became aggressive and were gotten rid of immediately? Either way these dogs do not back down, though the second is more likely to after a period of time. Dogs that have been abused and mistreated and became aggressive and were beaten after the first or second time of being aggressive and have actually engaged someone or something, corrections don't mean jack to those dogs. The harder the correction the more aggressive they get, guaranteed. The only thing that works is a DD collar type of scenario and even then they still have a lot of fight once they come to. These dogs need very little to attack someone and generally bite first ask questions later.

 Quote: Jennifer Marshal

Jenni Williams gave a good example I would just like to add that a dog that cringes, or even flops over on its back and yelps like its been hurt at the mere raising of your voice has not necessarily been abused.

Jenn, Did I imply this or are you responding in general? That sounds like a soft dog, not a beaten dog.

The dog I am talking about is not like this; it's one specific behavior at one specific time. A submissive dog is genetically that way, for the most part. My young APBT is like this; he crawls around looking sad if he's in trouble, and he's rarely even been corrected; he's simply submissive and sensitive. With the dog I used as an example, I was saying that this is probably NOT genetic, as it has a very, very specific trigger, and has all but disappeared since she's not been hit, and even when she was acting this way, it was only if I had to correct her...not a generalized fearful reaction or generalized submissive temperament.

Sorry Jenni, I added an example after referring to yours, not saying all dogs that are hand shy or voice sensitive must act that way to have been abused or to just be submissive. I just wanted to add in that voice sensitivity alone isn't a sign of abuse.

I was responding to:
"If you raised your voice in anger, she crouched and SQUEEZED her eyes shut, flinching. THIS is a sign of abuse."

Not saying your dog was not abused, but I know dogs that are sensitive to voice and no other loud noise and are just naturally submissive.

It can be difficult to tell if a dog has really been abused and is not aggressive from it/has no physical marks or scars or wounds etc. To you or me or experienced people that have seen and dealt with abused dogs it is easier but to the average Joe like half the dogs in America have been beaten half to death.

That's what I thought , but I wanted to make sure someone else wasn't reading my post thinking every dog who does this has been abused; some are just that way. I meant to say that these are the reasons I think this particular dog was abused, because the rest of her temperament is totally different. Also, genetic softness doesn't usually disappear so quickly for no other reason than non-occurrence of abuse.

Yes, the average Joe thinks they've all been abused. <rolleyes>. I used to get people asking me if Caleb was abused (HA!) just because I asked them not to pet him b/c he's not a fan of strangers.

Yeah I completely agree and don't worry I know what you mean about prefering clarity in posts. The reason it takes me so darn long to post sometimes is because I read through and edit my wording like a million times trying to be as diplomatic (most of the time...) as I can.