I would appreciate any ideas on a problem I am having and continue to have. My soon to be 5 year old male and I have been constant companions for the past 2 1/2 years. By this I mean he is with me pretty much 24/7. I have turned him into a house dog and he is my closest companion. I bought him at approximately 2 1/2 years of age and he was and is a real serious dog with DOMINANCE and RANK issues. He is also a dog that is a bit SHARP and can be very CIVIL. He is not and will never be a family dog or sport dog because he was never socialized. He "IS" dog and people agressive to the poing of being a serious liability if he were ever to get loose. I have spent a hugh amount of time and energy bonding with him and feel very comfortable that he knows that I am the pack leader and I can do anything to this dog and he would never hurt me personally as scarey as he can be at times. My problem is this. I live alone and SELDOM have company. Because of this I do not have the opportunity for my dog to get use to people comming into the my home. As you can imagine when we do have company he immediately becomes vocal, guardy, territorial and aggressive. Because my dog is such a mean ass monster I have yet to find "ANYONE" willing to come over on a regular basis so I can do the necessary training and corrections needed that will allow company to enter the house without having to fear being attacked. I always have to resort to kenneling my dog when we do have company which again is very very seldom. Kenneling him everytime the door bell rings and I have to answer the door is a pain and it also reinforces in his mind the fact that anyone who comes to the door or enters the house must not be ok because he always gets locked up. Does this make sense? I would also like to know how do you teach a dog who IS and IS NOT welcome or allowed in you're home. Right now he feels like NO ONE is allowed in the house. Can this problem ever be corrected if we continue to have company on a "SELDOM" basis? If Richard is reading this I would appreciate his opinion too.

Glenn,

The dog you describe reminds me very much of my first male GSD. The problem you have right now is not how to you teach a dog who IS and IS NOT welcome or allowed in your home. I doubt that someone who is not welcome will even dare to enter your home. Nor do I think that you'll EVER have to worry about your dog letting any undesirable element in. What you need to concentrate at this point is explaining to your dog that he has to accept anyone you allow to enter your house. Whether it's possible to succeed 100%, I don't know. I can only tell you how far we managed to get on with the problem. We had the dog muzzled, and the visitor was instructed not to make any overtures toward the dog and not look the dog in the eye, i.e., act totally neutral. The dog was put in sit and corrected with pinch collar when attempting to bite. To make the long story short, it got to the point that all we had to do is mention in a happy tone that "a friend was coming" to have the dog run to the door barking menacingly and then right to the closet where his muzzle was kept, point to the muzzle and wait patiently for it to be put on. Once the introduction was over (consisting of furious sniffing and bumping with the muzzle) and the guest was settled in, the dog would indicate that he was ready for the muzzle to be taken off. How long it took depended on a person, seemed the more comfortable a guest felt about the dog, the shorter the adjustment period. Then the dog would bring his ball and throw it at the guest. After a few minutes of play he would settle down and remain calm for the rest of the visit.

I am not saying that this was the ultimate solution, more like a compromise--realizing your own limitations and those of your dog--but it beat crating every time we had a guest over. The dog is 8 years old now and much calmer, but I still would not dare let a new person in without having the dog muzzled--too much risk involved.

I'm sure Richard will provide you with better advice <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> .

Renee thanks for you're input. I was lucky enough to have had a few very experienced dog people in my home a long long time ago. What you said about the guest remaining neutral, paying the dog no attention and not looking at him was exactly what these people did. This seemed to work but I knew I could not leave the room or leave the company sitting there alone with him. It would have been an accident waiting to happen. Unfortunately these people were not from around here so we have not been visited by them since.

I also have only had a few chances over a 2 1/2 year period to leave him run lose with company in the house. I have tried the muzzle and no muzzle approach. The minute things start to look good and the company tries to pet him he immediately goes into the offensive mode scaring the crap out of them. He likes to try and dominate other people. This dog will fight you even when muzzled and can put out a pretty mean growl / bark while muzzled also.

I guess because of the inconsistent or lack of company this is one problem that is never going to be overcome. My male would also let someone feed him and play two ball with him but the minute the food or balls were taken away they would not be safe. He would turn on them in a second if they tried to push themselves on him.

I thought I had heard that there was a training method to teach a dog to distinguish between friend and foe. I guess they haven't made a dog that smart yet huh?

Glen,

It is not that hard to teach the dog to discriminate between friend and foe. The principle is that the dog must be socialized to start with. This type of training is why the dog must be accepting of an agitator before and after an agitation session. Different dogs "cool down" at different rates. The better socialized the dog was the quicker they can re-accept the person as no longer being a threat.

At this point what you need to get across to this dog is that OUT means OUT. Once the dog is outed he needs to behave and not be threatning. Ultimately the training involved here is to teach the dog that people aren't the issue, it is their behavior. If the person makes no aggressive move the dog is to remain "out". The way we train this is that the agitator is suited up and interacts with the handler in a non-agressive manner. The dog should not growl or make any overt move towards the agitator. The agitators that I work with will handle the dog before and/or after an agitation session. If necessary the dog is double leased and and worked by 2 handlers. The dog has to learn that it is the behavior that triggers the aggression by the dog. He further must understand that if you tell him to accept a person he must accept that person. Another thing that I have found that helps with visitors is to have an article of clothing with the persons scent on it in the house for a while. The dog comes to accept the person because the scent is present in the house for long enough for the dog to accept the persons scent as just part of the house. So they accept the person as belonging. I have used this frequently with the people that are going to house sit for us or are staying for an extended visit. I leave the clothing in an area that the dog frequents. Since the dog accepts the person they are free to come and go as needed. If there is no secnt item left behind, the person is not allowed back in unless we let them in.

I keep dogs for personal protection. They do me little good if I have to lock them up every time someone comes over. They must accept somone that I let in the house. In addition if the person that has been let in turns on us the dog must react and make the bite. For any of this to happen the dog must first be accepting of people. With your dog the dog will probably never be friendly towards people, but there is no reason that he couldn't be socialized to accept strangers in the house.

Richard as usual you're posts are not only enlightening they are very informative. Best of all you're solution to my problem makes perfect sense. Thank you for responding to my post detailing the solution in terms and words that I can understand. I do have a couple of question though.

Richard, I do not have the luxury of having access to an experienced helper, agitator or equipment such as a hidden sleeve. That is problem number one. I would imagine I could still correct this problem with an inexperienced person if I muzzled my dog? Although my dog has no problems attacking anyone while muzzled he would at times need to be allowed a "BITE" wouldn't he? Or is the act of the threat running away enough to satisfy the dog.

Another thing, my male has been and always will be "GROWLY." He is famous for being this way and to this day he is growly with me whenever I do certain things. It is his way of communicating with me. What I am trying to say is that I have never corrected him for this behavior. Will this be a problem?

Because my dog has not had any "REAL" life experiences of someone trying to attack or harm me I wonder if he would see this as a threat? What I mean is because of the dog's lack of experience in being in a situation like this is it possible that the dog would become confused as to what to do? For instance, if my dog and myself were seperated by distance, etc. If my dog and I were together or he was on a 6' leash and an agitator was to make a threatening gesture how do you know if the dog is protecting himself or it's handler. In other words is he going after the agitator only because "HE" the dog feels threatened? I have no doubt he would protect "HIMSELF" if the threat was directed towards him but I have always wondered if he would protect me, even as bonded as we are. What happen's if he does not attack an agitator who is attempting to harm me? Hope that makes sense. Can you explain how this is trained into a dog, "HANDLER PROTECTION?"

I don't understand why it would be necessary to work the dog with two leashes and two handlers. Can you explain the need for this?

Sorry for all of the questions but I do need some help here.

Glenn,

This work isn't done with a hidden sleeve. This is done in a bite suit or a sleeve. Most of it is done with the bite suit for more protection against a non-arm bite. The preferance would be to allow a bite for the bad behavior on the part of the agitator. There will be many times that the dog gets no bite, if the dog is aggressive to a non-threatening person the dog iss removed from the situation with no bite. The dog must remain calm to get his bite. You can start with a short time and extend it. This just becomes a basic agitation session. Driving the person off provides for some satisfaction, but not as much as a bite.

Dogs learn fairly early that there is power in their vocalizations. If they growl or bark they can control people's behavior. If you look at most fear biters they are extreamly vocal. Big display, hair up, lots of false charging, all of these lead to people backing off and leaving the dog alone. Your dog has learnd this type of behavior with you and everybody else. He growls and people leave him alone. Dominant dogs will tend to do this because a handler will not allow a full blown attack, but will back off if the dog growls. The problem with this is dogs learn by experience and the behaviors tend to escalate over time. This is how you get into the situation you have. The thing you have to do is realize what is happening and control the dogs behavior.

Owner defense comes from 2 things. First the dog is worked close to the handler. The dog has no idea if the agitator is attacking the dog or the handler. If the dog doesn't react, the dog is attacked. The dog learns that if the handler is attacked he is next so he may as well drive in. This is also supported by a dogs packing behavior. The other thing is that the dog is trained to bite on command. So the dog is commanded to make the bite in response to the attack. After a few times the dog knows that the command is comming for this type of behavior so he anticipates it. After some training the dog is positioned away from the handler and the owner is attacked. If the dog doesn't respond the dog is called and commanded to make the bite. After time the dog starts to get the idea and the command isn't required. With multiple attackers the dog may have to be given an out on the first to be redirected to the second. In addition the dog learns tone of voice from the handler to break off and re-direct.

If the dog is likely to "crawl up" the leash on the person handling him the second leash is attached to a second correction collar. When the dog attempts to go at the handler working him the other person can keep him off. In addition both can streach the dog between them so the dog can't move to either. The idea is that the dog needs to learn that fighting with the handler does him no good. He learns you go along to get along.

Richard, I appreciate the time you have taken to answer my questions. I'm still not totally clear about everything but I will re-read both of you're posts before I bother you with more questions. I guess the main solution to my problem is finding an experienced helper with the right training equipment. Did you get the personal message I sent you yesterday?

Thanks Again!

Richard as usual you make alot of sense. I always find, at least in my case one question answered always tends to bring up another question.

Richard says: There will be many times that the dog gets no bite, if the dog is aggressive to a non-threatening person the dog is removed from the situation with no bite. The dog must remain calm to get his bite.

I understand but how is the dog removed from the situation? Put up for the day? No more training for the day?

As for a dog being vocal or growley Richard says: Dominant dogs will tend to do this because a handler will not allow a full blown attack, but will back off if the dog growls. The problem with this is dogs learn by experience and the behaviors tend to escalate over time. This is how you get into the situation you have. The thing you have to do is realize what is happening and control the dogs behavior.


What are you trying to say here Richard? I mean the part about the handler not allowing a full blown attack.

Richard says: Dogs learn fairly early that there is power in their vocalizations. If they growl or bark they can control people's behavior. If you look at most fear biters they are extreamly vocal. Big display, hair up, lots of false charging, all of these lead to people backing off and leaving the dog alone. Your dog has learnd this type of behavior with you and everybody else. He growls and people leave him alone.

Comment: My dog learned this type of behavior long before I bought him. When I first got him I have to admit his "GROWLEY" nature did exactly what you said in you're above comment. He had me convinced that he was going to kill me. Of course he was new to me and he was the one operating with the advantage. He now knows and has known for a long time that this behavior gets him nowhere with me now. I also know that his being growley with me and his growling at someone else means an entirely different thing.

Are you also saying that a dog that puts on a display such as hackeling, posturing, etc. are dogs that will not really take on a serious challange, protect itself or handler? That this is always a show and never action on the part of the dog? All done out of fear?

Glen,

By put up I mean walked away with out the bite. It may be attempted again right then, or wait for 15 min or more for the dog to let it soak in. The dog needs to get some bites during the session to maintain interest.

Many dominant dogs also have rank issues. Almost all of the Giants I have dealt with make at least 1 attempt to bite me in an attempt to dominate me and gain rank. That isn't tolerated. Most dogs figure this out fairly quickly. Most of us will allow some vocalization and may modify our behavior in response to it.

NO. I am saying that this is very typical with a fear based dog. A dog that is serious may do the same thing. You can tell the difference in the dogs based on the character of the of the attempt. Body posture, tone of the vocalization, tail position and a host of other things will tell you the difference. It is just a function of reading the dog. The fear based dogs may actually put up a bigger show to try and scare off the problem.

Thanks for you're help Richard.