My 2 1/2 yr. old male GSD has been the dog of our dreams all his life, stable nerves, calm, loves people, easily trained. I trained him and got his Good Citizen cert. at 10 months. He goes everywhere with us, gets many compliments for being so well behaved. He adores the attention and lets everyone come to him like they are his best friend. But last night changed everything, and now I am considering finding another home for him. While out for our evening walk, my husband holding the lead, a lady carrying a baby walked several yards from us going the opposite way. Out of the blue with no provocation this dog lunged at the lady barking ferociously. My husband was able to pull him back but of course it scared the hell out of the lady, and I am still in shock, wondering what would have happened if he had gotten closer to her. Today I decided to not take him out without e collar on as I am not strong enough to use prong collar corrections that have any effect on him, he is 105 lbs. We had stopped to talk to a neighbor who Kobe loves and after a few minutes another man approached us who Kobe did not know. I was talking to the neighbor's wife and had my eyes off of Kobe and in a split second Kobe does the same bazaar thing to the man that he did last night. I stopped him with a high zap level on the e collar but now I am worried that I have a dangerous dog on my hands and where did this aggressive behavior come from all of a sudden?
Any help in getting my old wonderful dog back would be very much appreciated.
Nancy

Hi Nancy,
Have you made an appointment with your vet yet to see if there is anything physically wrong with him? Has he recently had a rabies vaccination?

And just to clarify, this behvior is completely new for him? He's never had a similar reaction like this to a stranger?

Ditto everything Mike just said. The dog has now presented you with a new training opportunity. It's not the end of the world. But now you know that this is possible and it's up to you to always (or at least for a very long time now) be in tune with his reactions when you are out in the world. There will always be a cue, if you're looking for it, that he is going to react to something.

My GSD Luca had this same kind of butt-head behavior (he did it at 10-14 months or so). But we got through it.

I don't think this is "agression." It's apprehension--and that's different. I like how Mike said it: Take the lead, take control, project that leadership thing, and walk the dog.

Yup.

Nancy,
IF IT is as you say, no rhyme or reason for the change in attitude.
My first thought is a vet visit for a physical including a complete blood panel and hormone workup.

Mmmm I think those are the right words describing what I'd want seen about. If not the your vet will want a clarification for what he/she is looking for.

When that proves all okay, it becomes a training/management issue.

Lynne,
No appt. with vet. No vacs at all. Kind of ironic, having researched the after effects of vacs for many years I refuse to vac him as this kind of off-the-top behavior is famous for being caused by shots, especially rabies, which can affect the neurological system and cause dogs to become neurotic, nervous, aggressive, fearful, etc.
Actually a similar incident happened about a week ago when we were out to lunch at an outdoor rest. we often go to. The rest. owner, who loves Kobe and feeds him bacon every time we go there, was moving tables and at one point he was a few feet from Kobe and for no apparent reason Kobe lunged at him. The man had just moved the table next to ours which made a loud screeching noise as it slid across the concrete floor, and we immediately assumed that the noise startled Kobe. It still disturbed me but I did not think alot of it, even though Kobe has exceptional nerves, nothing has ever startled him before, he always seemed totally impervious to loud sudden noises. If I did not know better, ( he hears me when I whisper to him) I would think he had hearing problems. So last night was not the first scarey incident, and the one last week was not toward a stranger.
So what does this tell me? NOt a darned thing.
Nancy...

Hearing you when you whisper actually does not rule out hearing loss at either end of the scale, and of course vision problems are a possibility.

So as Randy and others have said, I'd check him out, and then I'd start working on management/training.

I (and I'm sure everyone) can pick out possible apprehension/anxiety aspects of each event: the person carrying a baby (that looked like who-knows-what from dog-level), the screeching table, the stranger.

I agree with this from Tracy about Mike's post: Take the lead, take control, project that leadership thing, and walk the dog.

Focus on me (by the dog), and emphasis on my own demeanor and my physical attitude of standing between the dog and everything else -- these are always major parts of desensitizing the reactive dog.

How much do you know about reactive dogs and how to re-focus the dog's attention? I know many of us can help you with the nuts-n-bolts details of, for example, working with the dog at the edge of a busy and distracting center of activity. You now have a couple of concrete examples of distractions you can recreate and work around.

I would begin a different protocol, though, with strangers and even acquaintances:
"He adores the attention and lets everyone come to him like they are his best friend" might be modified. Until you have a solid handle on what causes him anxiety and how to elicit his attention on you (both in general and as his first response to any new and potentially scary situation), I'd ratchet back his up-close-and-personal exposure to non-pack-members.

I agree with others that this sounds like an opportunity to enhance your leadership skills and the dog's confidence rather than a reason to rehome the dog.

JMO!

 Quote: Tracy Collins

Ditto everything Mike just said. The dog has now presented you with a new training opportunity. It's not the end of the world. But now you know that this is possible and it's up to you to always (or at least for a very long time now) be in tune with his reactions when you are out in the world. There will always be a cue, if you're looking for it, that he is going to react to something.

Huge ditto from me.

I'd make that vet appointment to check him out, and I'd start now to pay lots of attention to the dog's reactions to everything. It's easy for all of us to become complacent, and especially with a dog who has been particularly friendly and easygoing in the past.

Mike, if there is more to the story, beyond my response to Lynne, it is over my head, and after being a student of Ed for many years I think I have heard most of the reasons that a dog loses control.
Taking kobe for a walk 4 times a day is written in stone, as he does not go potty in his own yard, plus we both need the exercise. I am not sure I would try to duplicate the scenario from last night or today, as I might not be able to hold the monster back, and my husband is gone alot. It took the highest level on the e collar today to get him to stop barking and lunging at the man who approached him. There was absolutely no trigger to either of the events, we have walked that same path every day, 4 times a day for 2 1/2 years. Eerily enough, just a few seconds before the lady walked by a man, apparently her husband, walked by carrying a little boy. Kobe was completely calm and cool. Yet when the lady appears he loses it! And he had to have seen that she had a kid in her arms, and he is a typical GSD who treats children very gently.
Nothing new has happened in the house, he hates the UPS man and barks whenever he hears the truck, but that is normal for him. a couple of times I had to open the door to sign something and KObe walked out the door, sniffed the man, then ignored him. Don't think I would do that again.

He is never left with anyone else. Eating very normal.
I will keep walking him but will have the ecollar on him, and if we see anyone coming towards us, for the time being I will tell him Turn Around, which he obeys instantly, and if there is sign of him not walking close to me he will get zapped. I hope it is a case of laxity in continuing training, which is easy to do when everything seems under control. But that still does not explain the overnight change in temperament, except maybe an age thing, where he thinks he is acting out being an adult, and needs some heavy duty reining in. And your suggestion of getting him more focused on me is a good one, but it sounds like no small project at this point in time. But I see no choice if I want to keep him, and getting rid of our 7th grand son is not a good option either.
Nancy...

Just because you didn't see a trigger, doesn't mean there wasn't one. It could be something that you wouldn't even think twice about... but it causes your dog anxiety. Toni used to tense up when she heard dry corn stalks rustling in the wind.

If I didn't know what causes my dog anxiety, I would take him for a very controlled walk. I would watch HIM more than where we were going. As soon as I saw anything in his body language that indicated he was not cool with something I would look at everything in the environment, visual and auditory.

Body language could be a simple ear twitch or tail going straight and still. If he was panting, he may stop. He might look at something a little more focused than something else. It might only last a few seconds, so you need to really be looking at him.

My dogs change the set of their ears.. they actually get pointier and stick up straighter in a more alert fashion. They will stop moving their tails. They will glance at me, look at the object, and back at me. Toni will make a small chuffing sound, but Cat will stay silent.

Get to REALLY know your dog's body language and you will be able to see in seconds when he is anxious or when something is bothering him.

When my dogs are anxious about something, we do "watch me" and some very basic obedience exercises. I do just enough to get their minds off the object and onto me.

This is all assuming the vet check comes out clean of course....

Good luck.

--Kelly