I have a 9 month old male pup from a strong working-line of protection GSDogs. Since about 5 months of age, my pup began barking aggressively at both people and dogs (lunging on the leash, total loss of focus on me, essentially a mad dog twirling on the end of the line). While no biting or fighting has ever occurred, the pup has topped 80 pounds and is quickly on his way to reaching his father's weight of 100+ so if I can alter this behavior now.... it seems prudent to do so.

I have worked with him myself since the behavior surfaced and I haven't made enough of a dent in the aggression to make life pleasant again. The various methods I have tried include using food as a motivator, a prong collar, an e-collar, a dominant dog collar and I've purchased all of Ed's relevant DVDs. The pup knows his place in our pack, has all his obedience commands down pat and is quite an impressive dog to look at- it's just this one, not-so-little, thing.

My question is this: I recently spoke to a local trainer who has worked with a number of aggressive GSD by placing them in his "pack" at home. His pack consists of 6 - 8 dogs (Golden Retrievers, GSD, Labs, etc.) I wonder if anyone has had success with this method for helping a dog work through aggressive behavior?

Thanks for your thoughts -

Terri

Terri, what is your experience level?

What kind of desensitizing have you done so far?


JMO, but the "training" you mention sounds terrible. Even if I thought this was a desirable method for dog-dog aggro (I don't), how could it possibly help with people-aggression?

I do eval and work with the "problem" dogs (fearful and aggressive dogs) for a shelter, so I'm not speaking from a limited-aggro-experience background.

Others will help too, though. Lots of experience on this board.

Maybe you haven't given the dog a firm enough correction with the prong yet? Sometimes a dog in high drive requires an extremely hard correction. Ed shows that in the fence fighting part of the Dominant and Aggressive Dogs video. I would say "leave it", immediately followed by a hard correction, and then a mark/reward for focusing back on me. You'd just have to get the timing right so you don't reward the aggression.

Unlike Connie, I am speaking from a limited background. I only have one aggressive young dog and had one that was fairly protective but far less sharp.