I have a 14 week-old female GSD who I have had since she was 8 weeks old. Over the last 2 weeks I have seen some aggressive behavior that I am very concerned about.

The first and most severe incident occurred at a family party when my 7 year-old niece reached into her crate -- while she was in there. I did not see this happen but heard the pup snarl and snap. I grabbed her out of the crate and gave her a shake on the scruff of the neck. Several other incidents have occurred since then when she is resting and someone has approached her in 'protected' places like in a corner, under a table or under my chair. On several of these occasions she was initially allowing the person to pet her and then all of a sudden growled. During several of these sudden growling episodes she was not in a protected place. For example, she growled at the vet receptionist when she slowly reached out to her. The pup had, just minutes before, taken a cookie out of her hand. The most recent episode was somewhat different. She was chewing on a toy. My 6 year-old reached to pet her and she growled. In general she is reserved with strangers but will approach and take food from them and gradually allow them to pet her.

In situations with other dogs she will growl if an adult dog sniffs her while she is under a chair or tries to dominate her by putting a paw on her back. She acts very dominant toward my 2 1/2 year-old spayed female shepherd.

The vet is very concerned about this behavior and has referred me to a trainer who uses the Clicker method. This trainer evaluated her and perceives her as being fearful and recommended I discontinue any scruff shakes but instead ‘mark’ the aggressive behavior with a 'uh-huh' and put her into her crate. She believes that if you give a fearful pup a scruff shake they will just become more afraid and react even more aggressively the next time. I have tentatively decided to try this approach while keeping track of any further aggressive incidents and will switch to another trainer if the aggression doesn't decrease. I do agree with taking a more 'positive approach' with a young pup but am concerned about responding properly to this aggression since she is so young and this is such a critical time. Any thoughts and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Martha Kesting

Hi Martha,

I believe you are correct, and your puppy is exhibiting fear aggression. Sounds like she has very poor nerves if she's snapping & growling unpredictably. My dogs also does this. He has poor nerves, in addition to many other problems, but he did not start exhibiting this type of aggression until he was a few months older. In my opinion, the fact that she's doing this at such a young age is a HUGE problem and needs immediate attention.

I don't agree with the clicker training, however. You need to show this pup who is boss. If you let her get away with this, even one time, she's going to think it's ok and continue doing it. You must put your foot down now. Since you aren't supposed to use much compulsion with such a young pup, I'm not sure how you would handle it other than a good scruff shaking. I would start working on her obedience training now also. Nothing really difficult, but teach her the basics. The better trained she is, the more confident she will become, because she'll be able to relax (hopefully) in knowing that you are the boss and she doesn't have to try to be.

How do you experienced dog people handle a young dog like this?

One other thing that you've absolutely got to do is socialize the snot out of this puppy. Get her out around as many different people, children, animals, and into as many different types of surroundings and situations as possible. The more of the world she sees, the more comfortable she should become in her own skin.

Good luck, and I'm sure you'll get great advice from the more experienced folks out here!

Martha,

Most puppies go through "stages" as they age. In part it is an attempt to "learn" the "rules" of proper behavior. A dog that has areas that are "their's", like a crate or other protected space, may defend that space at different stages in development. Even young dogs will do this for a while and then stop for a while, it will usually show back up later (usually around 6 months and again, at a higher level, when they start to mature any where between 1-2 depending on the breed). We have gone through a similar problem with my BRT bitch. She is a much different dog when she is with me than when she is with my wife. She is much more dominant when she is with my wife, along with more defensive. The less attention my wife pays to her the more the defensiveness and dominance comes out. She will also "defend" me if she percieves a threat. An example is when my wifes Cousins visited. Their little girl was standing next to me trying to jump rope in the house. Ora snapped at her when her arm came up towards my head. It was a defensive reaction to a percieved threat.

Based on the desription of the dogs behavior I would tend to agree that this is a fear based behavior. I would also tend to differ to people that have actually seen the dog, over attempting to make a descision based on a verbal description.

I would take a multiple pronged approach to this. First Obedience. It is not too young to start this dog on learning obedience. At this age the puppy can be worked in obedience for around 15 minutes and 3 times a day. In addition you can spring obedience commands at different times during the day. Depending on the breed, clicker training is not necessarlily the best method for training. It works best with dogs that are a little soft, eager to please, and very driven for a reward (ball or food). The click becomes associated with the reward so that it can be used as a marker for proper behavior. You can do the same thing with your voice.

Even young dogs can recieve age appropriate corrections. A scruff shake is getting to the edge of effectiveness at 14 weeks. At this point you can start to use a mild correction on a flat collar. Just enough to break the concentraion on the behavior. As the dog ages you can move to a correction collar, like a slip or prong or even an e-collar (with a low stim method of training). The age to do this depends on the breed and speciefic dog. The harder the dog, the sooner you can go to a correction collar.

Start by positioning the puppy and rewarding the proper position with a treat. After the puppy understands the desired positions you can start to give mild corrections for not performing the task properly and giving an intermittant reward for the correct behavior. The other thing that will work at this point is a "self" correction for heeling exercises.

Teach the dog to pay attention to you. This is done by starting to teach the Heel. If the dog looks away from you change directions in the opposite direction that the puppy is looking. Make multiple direction changes, go no more than 5-10 steps in any direction prior to changing direction. If the dog forges (moves too far forward) turn around and go the other way or turn IN to the dog. Make a big deal about "stumbling" over the dog. Don't step on the dog, but act like you may fall on the dog. Most puppies are very concerned about this and will pay better attention to avoid this situation.

The third thing I would do is teach the dog 2 commands. The first is an "OK" command for people. Telling the puppy to meet another person. With a dog like this it needs some firm direction as to what is the proper behavior. You need to tell the dog what to do PRIOR to the dog making a mistake and then trying to correct it. If you tell the dog that someone is OK it should accept this. It also tells the dog how you expect them to act towards this person.

The other command is an "out" command. I use this a little different than most people. For me the out command is a little more global than the way many use it. The idea behind the out command is to tell the dog to stop aggression immediatly (I extend this to all behaviors, out means "Stop what you are doing NOW!"). Use this command in conjunction with the Meet command. If the dog acts aggressively after you have told it to meet someone, correct it and tell it to meet the person again. I would work with people that understand dogs and will be patient with a dog that is going to take some corrections. This dog should never control when the interaction ends, you need to. It cannot end with the dog acting aggressivly towards the person. This teaches the dog that it can control these situations by acting aggressively, that will encourage an escalation in this type of behavior. I would avoid children for doing this until the dog is more stable.

This dog needs a ton of socialization. It needs to understand that people are nothing to be afraid of. In fact this dog should never have a negative experience with a person. It will take some time but the dog needs to see people as friendly, petting machines.

Get a crate and use it to help control behavior. The crate should be placed in an area that the dog can observe what is going on. When new people come over put the dog in the crate and close the door before they come in. After 15-30 minutes bring the dog out and make introductions. This time gives the dog an opportunity to watch your behavior and see how you react to the person. That will help cue the dog as to what to do.

Dogs are very sensetive to body position and body contact. They are much more aware of where they are than people are. With this dog I would also teach that any type of dominating behavior is not allowed. That means that you go through doors first, the dog needs to move out of your way. Don't move out of the dogs way, make the dog move out of your way. If the dog "bumps" you with out permission, put it in the crate for 30 minutes. The dog will learn to stay out of your way, and pay attention to who is in charge.

Keep in mind that dogs need direction. If they are not directed as to what behavior is expected they will make their own descisions and that is bad.

Thank-you so much for your recommendations. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your concern and the amount of thought you put into your answers.

I do have another question, if you don't mind. I co-own this pup with her breeder (who is very concerned about the growling, too). Would you say that this dog should absolutely NOT be bred or would you say there are other considerations that would still allow her to possibly be breeding material? She has an excellent pedigree, being line bred on some very good dogs. However, in one instance, in order to increase the line breeding on one excellent dog, the breeder had to line breed on a weak-nerved dog, too.

I'm thinking that if she is not going to be bred, that the sooner she is spayed the better it will be for her temperament and situation with our other spayed female.

Martha Kesting

I'd personally not want a puppy born from a parent w/ fear aggressive behaviour/bad nerves...IMO you should have your pup altered as soon as it's old enough. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Nice post Rich.

Richard...you said "if the dog 'bumps' you without permission". What exactly does that mean? I ask because I have a 5 mo. old working bred pup that when walking behind me "bumps" me with his nose. Sometimes he will bump and then walk between my legs to get ahead of me. I know about establishing dominance by going through doors first and not moving out of the dogs way, but this is a new type of dog behavior for me that I've been wondering about. Your "bump" comment makes me think he's displaying behavior that I'd better get under control.

 Quote:

7 year-old niece reached into her crate -- while she was in there.

Call me silly. But, why was your 7 year old neice allowed to do this? Not saying it was your fault. I don't get things like this. So, its a puppy. It is in its home. It has someone who it has never seen before invading its home. I'd bite em too. This doesn't scream weak nerves to me. Now, maybe I should read the rest of the post. But this is something....next time grab a squirt bottle... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> you know whats coming... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> SQUIRT THE PARENTS.

This trainer evaluated her and perceives her as being fearful and recommended I discontinue any scruff shakes but instead ‘mark’ the aggressive behavior with a 'uh-huh' and put her into her crate. She believes that if you give a fearful pup a scruff shake they will just become more afraid and react even more aggressively the next time Ok, now I have read the entire post. Last I knew using the crate as a punishment was not a good idea. I don't believe this is a fear agression type of thing. Everyone likes to label dogs as fear biter fear agression. Every thing you described tells me the pup is a dominant pup with a little below average confidence so it has to act out all the time. Not that it is fearful. Just the high dominance and low confidence leads to a conflict. The pup must act on. Scruff shakes are ok in this scenario. However, a better solution is to get a handle on the kids. It seems to me there is an awful lot of unsupervised interaction with kids and this pup.

Martha, why do you co-own rhis dog with the breeder? Is this a show line puppy? If so, there is part of your problem <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Todd, you should definitely read the rest of the post. Apparently, the pup has growled at people unexpectedly, even after taking a treat from someone.