I wasn't thinking about it until recently when I was working Drago on a flirt pole. I had my 16 yo son holding the lead and I was working the pole trying to get Drago to bark, in fustration Drago spun around and started chewing on my son. got the pupper's attention back and changed games. I'm not calling it handler aggression but it did remind me that Erika's sire would come up the lead, Drago and Erika are cousins and Drago has a recent ancester that really put the hurt on an experienced trainer. Erika has bitten me twice on the buttocks, once during tug excercise and the other time I was ignoring her. We fixed that. Anything I can do to prevent this from developing while Drago is still a pupper?

I wish I had an answer. Danke is the same way.

When she's frustrated, the likelihood is high that she'll turn in on me. The best I've managed is to make sure that she understands the structure of each exercise so that frustration is kept to a minimum.

If I may, Dennis? If the puppy realizes that he cannot get the toy no matter how hard he tries he might either give up or get frustrated and redirect at the next available target within his reach.

You may try either better presentation or making fewer misses before he gets a bite

Fresh from the class

Thanks, and I'll instruct my son to let out more line, distance equals time to react in this case.

The length of the rag line, motion (side to side or frontal presentation) and time interval + miss to hit ratio are key to the pup's development level. As pup is redirecting on handler, one of the above key variables needs fixing. Have a video? Our club always instructs new handlers to not to practice rag work at home by themselves as it causes too many problems to fix. Best to let an experienced helper do the rag work.

Sounds more like redirection out of frustration then handler aggression. At least at this point.

To me handler aggression is a dog that will come up the line out of anger at a correction or just because he feels like it with no correction necessarily involved precipitating that aggression.

Sounds more like Erika was playing & being fresh or just trying to get your attention to play with her. Innappropriately, but not really handler aggression. But you know your own dog.

I guess that I don't think that occasionaly coming up the lead is necessarily truley HA.

My female will occasionally redirect during aggitation & nail ya in the leg if given the chance to if she is overloaded & can't unload. She will also come up the line on what she perceives as an unfair correction. She has always been like that. I don't see either of these as true HA. She is just a very high drive reactive dog that is not always 100 % clear headed when wound up tight.

By the same token I have a male that is HA. His sire was very HA & the dam had some history of it also, but I don't know how much that REALLY means in terms of his behavior. I knew the history of the HA in the lines before I got him. Or if it means that a pup will develope that issue. For my male, it has been extinguished by being dealt with swiftly & calmly when he would try it & is no longer a problem. He had a few come to jesus moments to correct it. But it was a problem for a while as he was going thur his maturity phase. He would just come at ya with no reason at all or sometimes when given a command. No correction at the time this would happen to cause the HA reaction. Just a temper & pissed & challenging me & let it rip. He was NOT playing at all. He meant it. Just testing big time. He is not a dominant dog, just a pushy one that would often try testing me.

Maybe someone like Aaron or Will that may have had many years of experience with HA will have more to offer. I have only been thru this with 2 of my males.

Just sounds like you have a good drivey pup. I don't know if doing anything in advance other then what you have done with the dogs that you already have that are strong dogs will do any thiing to prevent the dog from getting pushy at some point & testing you.