This happened a while ago so I'm not really looking for current advice, rather opinions on what went wrong (wouldn't want to make same mistakes again). My boyfriend and I adopted a dobe female a while ago from the shelter. Here's the basic back ground and what happened.

A family got her from a breeder (backyard breeder) when she was a puppy. The household included a mom, dad, and young child. The mom never wanted the dog in the first place as she thought dobes were bad dogs. Dog got allong fine with the dad but the mom never got to like it. The puppy wouldn't listen to her, and eventually started to bully her. Things escallated to growling, biting, nipping, etc. Turning point came when dog was maybe abou 6 or 7 moths. The story goes that it launched and tried to attack the woman. That was enough to convince the woman that the dobe was vicious. Afraid for herself and her kid, she put her foot down and the dog got the boot back to the breeder. Again, the dad never had issues with it.

The breeder rehomed the dog with a single man. The dog didn't stay with him very long. He ended up abandoning her at a vet's while boarding her there (he never came back to pick her up). She spent something like 2 months in the vet's kennel while legalities were being worked out. Then she was taken to the shelter where she spent another month or two.

We got her on the basis of fostering her so that she would get out of the kennel situation. The trainer that worked with her thought she was a little dominant, but not to the point of it being an issue. She has never shown any sign of aggression and was a very intelligent although bouncing off the walls hyper dog. We brought her home knowing we can expect a some what dominant dog and treated her as such. Never allowed on furniture, must do something before she gets any thing plesant, down stays for food, a lot obedience training.

She seemed like the perfect dog. She was very intelligent, listened well, didn't give us any issues. She did have a bit of a house training problem at first. We got over her peeing in the house but still had the occational accident in the van if we were on the road for a while. I was pretty much her main handler. She was with me all day. I did the feeding. I did a great majority of the training. I was probably even more strict with her then my bf who is a much more laid back and gentle type of person. For me sit means sit, no bs, for him it was more of a sit, sit, sit, sit, c'mon, sit. She would only see my bf when he got home from work in the eve, the next moring, and over the weekends.

After about a week or two of being with us she started to show a preference toward him. Very settle things. Greeting him first, comming up to him for petting when we were both sitting on the couch, etc. This behaviour started to escelate to the point where she would almost totally ignore me over him, all while I was still her main caretaker. She showed an obvious fear reaction if he ever yelled at her for doing something wrong, while with me it was a more of a "ya, ya, ok, I wasn't supposed to do that". She still listend to me fine. In fact for obedience she probably listened to me much better.

Just under 4 weeks after we got her we had an incident where I asked her to down before getting out of the van (like I have always done). She didn't do a complete down and was hovering about an inch over the ground, so I went to put my hand over her shoulders to give her a little push. She turned around and tried to bite me, but she missed as I pulled my hand away and she was tied down. I gave her a sharp NO and went to reach for her again, but she just upped the aggression. We got into a standoff where when ever I tried to get close she would growl/snarl/launge/bark. Eventually I stopped trying and gave her a few min to cool down (the hole time I remained calm and tried not to get irrational with her). After the time out I approached her again, all was good, got a leash on her, got her out, did some obedience went for a short walk. Every thing completely changed though since that moment. She listend, but seemed very cold and distant. When I would feed her I would always make a point of adding better tid bits while she was eating, or taking her bowl and giving her something really good directly, she had absolutely zero issues with that and responded very happilly to the attention. When I went to feed her the night of the incident (went through our usual, even harder, do this before you get your food routine) as soon as I approached her when she was eating she responded negatively. Froze and starred very settly. She didn't do anything else, but to me that was the "oh great, we're in for it" moment. I didn't push her any more and just left her to eat while I went to talk to my bf about everything. Later that night we were all on the floor, her in a down us kneeling beside her talking. I reached over to pet her and she turned around and came flying at my face with her teeth at the same time giving out an almost panicky sounding bark (she had a high pitched voice). She didn't get me, but I don't think she was really trying to. My bf immeadietly knocked her out of the way and gave her crap. She looked as if she though she was going to die, she was so increadibly intimidated by him. He locked her up for the night away from us and in the morning she went back to the shelter.

We talked to a few trainers about this and got different opinions. One thought that her gender preference was a totally insignicant issue. She went after me because I was the more dominant person and an immeadiete threat to her rank. She didn't really see my bf as a threat since he is so laid back and it was only a matter of time before she would show aggression towards him. We can't really picture that happening though because of just how strongly she reacted when ever my bf would discipline her (raised voice alone would send her into the im so sorry look).

Another person said that considering how she was raised she probably had already made some decision on how to react with women vs men and that this preference was the issue. She didn't trust women and thought that men were the all that. She automatically thought that men were dominant and women were underneath her, regardless of actions.


What do you think?

It sounds like she really saw your husband as a more dominant person as she seemed to take him more seriously. Not sure if any of his behavior had anything to do with his past experiences but I would guess it did play into it.

The other thing that stands out is when you wrote that you were kneeling down next to him while he was laying on the floor. Probably not a good idea since this dog had a mixed up view of pack order. Also, may have been a really good idea to have implimented the N.I.L.F. (nothing in life is free) program with this dog. Sounds like you did the best you could. We all live and learn....

My last dog Shadow was in a home where the man was abusive. He was kept in an outdoor kennel with another dog and the man was mean to him but was also the person who fed him. The wife said she wasn't an outdoor person so while she liked Shadow she didn't have much to do with him. During the 8 years I had Shadow he was always unpredictable with men. He sought them out but was very quick to become defensive and start growling with little provacation.

My point is that perhaps the dog's behaviour was based on abuse from the woman in the first house she lived in. If a person doesn't like the dog living in the house all too often they find ways to make that dog's life miserable.

You lost her when you pushed her on the down, and she b.s.ed you away from her. Sounds like a difficult first dog <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I do a lot of rescue, and although it is a nice thing to do many dogs at shelters are too much for first time owners. This is not your fault, it is the morons before you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Don't give up though, there are good ones waiting for you! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for your comments every one.

Chris, I agree with you that she definetly saw my bf as the top person. The first trainer's comment didn't make any sense that she went after me because I was more dominant and a more immeadiete threat. Dogs don't go through the ranks from top to bottom. As for NILF, as I mentioned we made her do something for every thing! We were almost neurotic with her compared to how we treated any other dogs.

Pamela, that's my take on this too, but how do you deal with a situation like this where the rescue dog has obvious sex-based biases? I know a few dogs that have such preferences although I think it is fair to say that in majority of these cases the dogs mistrust men. I know of one rescue in particular that was fearful and distrusting of men but was adopted out to a couple with the hopes that the dog would get over his fears. This was a dog that never showed obvious signs of aggression while in the rescue. Story ends with the man in the household having multiple puncture wounds all over his body after the dog attacked him without obvious provocation. Where do you draw the limit of the rescues responsibility? Do you brush an incident like that off with a "meh, it was a one in a million chance" or do you change your adoption policies, maybe keep fearful dogs in the rescue longer for observation purposes??

Jeff, explain please: "You lost her when you pushed her on the down, and she b.s.ed you away from her". She was a first dog for my bf, but not for me. I probably have had about 100 dogs go through my house as part of my work, but this one really cought me off guard. I just couldn't get through to her, she wanted nothing to do with me. She listened to me and obeyed, but in the simplest of terms just didn't want to be with me as long as she had the option of hanging with my bf.

I didn't understand Jeff's comment either. Curious to hear it explained.

I could be totally off with this one but I wonder if she saw your bf as more of the dominant figure even though you were her main caregiver because he was more aloof with her? I had something similar going on with my dog and my husband and I couldn't figure out, why since he's with me all day, I do all of the training which he totally listened to me better than my husband, etc., did he seem to think of him as more of a dominant figure than me? I realized that I was giving my dog almost too much attention. As soon as I started to ignore him a bit and started acting less "mushy" towards him, is when I saw the biggest change in our relationship.

Elizabeth, you adopted a dog you were warned came with behavioral issues and then decided to put the dog back in a shelter when they turned up? A prong collar and leash weren`t even tried from what I read. If a dog snaps at you for reaching at them and then stares you down at the food bowl you don`t just try verbal corrections and then decide it was too much. You made a commitment to this dog and then didn`t even make a resonable effort. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> You even knew the dog had attacked someone before! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

>Jeff, explain please: "You lost her when you pushed her on the down, and she b.s.ed you away from her". <
I'm not Jeff, but I'd say it's pretty obvious what he's saying here. When you allowed her to get away with lunging/biting at you and disobeying the "Down" command, you lost her respect. You didn't call her bluff, so she decided you weren't worth listening to anymore. And then you let her run you off from her food bowl and only made the situation worse. If I'm wrong in how I am interpreting his answer, Jeff will tell me, but I think this is what He's saying.

Janice is right. When I was a kid there were more dogs with this sort of personality. Even crappy dogs would bite you. Now we have a lot of weak dogs, really sad. when she went to push the dog down and failed she lost her status. This is something I had to deal with a lot with dogs when I was a kid. Once they faked you out with the old I'll bite you crap it was hard to be in charge again. I know it sounds crazy, but I would of left my hand there. If they want to bite you you are bitten, when they "miss" they are not gonna bite you. I wouldn't of been mean to her either just left my hand there. I don't really agree with messing with the food dish. I am likely to stab you if you mess with my food. I just don't go there. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />