I'll just add that "see the belly" enforces your dominance & her submission, since a dog that's lower in pack order rolls over to show their submission.

Mike,
I think many on the baord can understand your being bummed about the bed thing, I for one would really like to have my dog be able to get into bed with my wife and I some times, here is the thing though, my dog leans toward the dominate side of things, so he is not allowed on beds or funiture, just to keep the rank and pack order. I would much rather my wife and I get on the floor with him then set myself up for future problems, so the no bed rule has to apply with this dog. I have had GSD's in the past ( American Show Lines) that could get in bed with you all day long and not challenge you for pack and rank ordeer, my current dog would challenge you in a heart beat if allowed. So there are times that we have to do what is best for our dogs even if we really would rather do things another way. Keeping the order of your pack is the most important thing you can do for the over all well being of your dog living with a human pack, then comes feeding/exercise. So I understand your heart ache there but with this dog you would do better to not allow them on your beds or other furniture. Some dog can do this and it is never an issue others well you know what you are currently going through.
On the roll thing, if you are or your kids are forcing the roll then that may not be a good idea. If your dog willingly rolls over then that is another story all together. I would not force this but if your dog does it, I would not walk away and not pet it either. A forced roll is much different than one that is given to you so to speak. The differnce is fored verse willing and the willing is fine, the forced is not. Hopefully that is clear as mud. Even my dominate dog will roll over on his back for me and you can best bet he get petted every time he does, I do not stare him down at that time, but pet and rub on him.
Do not feel to badly, all of us have either made mistakes with our dogs or were lucky enough to find and use this board before we did make them. I was one of the lucky ones and found this board before I made major errors with my strong willed dog. I can assure you that my Max would have been on the bed and done many other things if it had not been for the knowledge that I have gained from the folks on this board and I would be in a heap of trouble now with Max. As it is he is a very good and strong willed dog but one who knows his pack and rank order, yes he challenges this from time to time but he knows at this time at least where he stands. So take the advice of these very knowledgeable folks, keep your dog off of beds and furiture, it will go a long way to letting your dog know how is who in the zoo.
My Two Cents!!!
Jay

Folks,

I have a very confused, bummed out and sad dog right now.... But I trust once she gets used to the new rules, she will bounce back happier than before.

We have stopped most of the "bad human habits" recomended previously in this thread. No Alpha Roles, No Crates for the kids, No sleeping with the kids, no other dog contact....

We are working on the "invited on the bed" thing. Since this is usally a Saturday morning thing, we haven't had to push the issue yet.

We haven't started the "Leave it" class yet...but that will start this weekend. We also haven't started the "humans go through the door first" classes or the "heal" lessons.

On the very positive front, my wife (she is a stay at home Mom, so she has the dog for more hours of the day than I do) has been really focusing on "No barking" and "No jumping"...the change is dramatic. It isn't 100%, but at 60% we are seeing huge progress.

Let me slightly change the subject. Most of this discussion has been on Dominance. Can we talk a bit about Fear? If her snapping was a Fear based response, more specifically she smells Fear on a person or animal approaching her. How do I deal with this?

How do you stop Fear based triggers (or the smell of fear since I assume one triggers the other) that can cause the dog to reactive aggresively?

Mike

i think when most people speak of "fear biting" and "fear issues", they're talking about the dog's fear. you exhibiting fearful behaviour and the dog taking advantage of that is still dominant behaviour on his behalf.

dogs can "fear bite", not because they want to or because they think it'll get them somewhere, but because experience has shown them that in certain situations the safest place to be is hanging off the arm of the person(s) that's causing them stress.

i'm not an expert by any means, so take what i have to say with a grain of salt... but i'd recommend taking a look at this article in particular, and perhaps the dvds advertised at the top of it.

Hi Mike, about the fear aggression.
I think you have to first make sure what you were seeing was fear aggression and not dominance aggression.
I found this quote from another thread and thought it might help to differentiate the two

 Quote: Chris McMahon

Well Fear and Dominance are definetly different behaviors. So, yes you would definetly deal with them differently. You determine the difference by knowing the dog you are dealing with. It isn't too hard to figure out. I will try to give you an easy example. If a dominant dog decides to attack you, he will do so whether you are facing him, attacking him, running away from him etc. He doesn't care about your position he only cares about what he is inclined to do.

A fearful dog will leave his teeth marks in your ass, when you have turned your back on him. Or if you have pushed him into a corner and he has no other recourse but to use his last defense.

Update: Improvement seen.... more work to do.

We took the dog to the Vet this weekend just to cover all the bases. Our Vet basically agreed with everything that has been said here. As he put it, "She is a good dog but just runs Hot. You need to let her know that every human is number 1 and she is number 2." The Vet doubted that we would see anything in the blood tests, but we did it just to be sure.

I used the choke collar for our walks in the woods this weekend. They were the two most "sane" walks I ever had with her. The "No pulling" command needed to be constantly spoken, but the tug with the collar only needed to be a very slight wrist flick....not much of a tug at all.

When she got "on the scent" of deer in the woods, the "Leave it" command followed with a slight tug on the collar brought her back online.

When she goes out, we are making her sit, we give the "No barking" command and then let her out. She is doing very well with this.... When she messes up and barks we called her immediately back to the house and command "No barking" again...she always came running very obediently. I think we are makeing very good progress on this issue.

We had three visitors this weekend. Her reaction varied for all three. One she sat and stayed quitely while we when to the door, another she let out several small barks and tried to push her way to the door (I corrected this firmly). The last one was a bit more of a surprise for her. She was downstairs with me and someone was in the house upstairs with my wife. I didn't know they were there. The dog heard the visitor and started barking. Again the firm correction, sit, stay calmed her down... but it was certainly more like her previous behavior than I would have liked.

"Go to your bed" while we eat was working very well... It had to be spoken very firmly, but she obeyed and stayed.

After a week, we are seeing good progress but we have a lot more work to be done. As a family we need to get more consistent with the new "rules of the house." The dog can't be expected to understand and obey, if the humans aren't all the same page. So job number one for this week is to agree on a consistent set of rules and objectives that the humans all understand and enforce.

The dog seems to want to follow the rules. We just need to work on it more...

Mike

Michael, that sounds wonderful! I'm glad you're having good progress. If there is indeed coonhound or beagle in her you will always be fighting with that nose. If you'd like, you can teach her how to track for fun and that will give her an outlet for her instincts and drive to follow the scent. Concentrating on a track is one good way to exercise her body and mind at the same time.

Keep up the good leadership work!

would only like to add: choke collars are not good training tools. they can damage the dog's trachea because they can get too tight.

get a good quality prong collar and see the page on this website on how to fit and use one.

I would like to second or underscore Alice's comments about the choke collar being a very poor collar to use for the reason she mentioned.

My last dog damaged her voice box and lost her voice by using a choke collar. She was a good dog and we didn't use them for corrections, just for walks, but she did pull on it.

I will never use a choke chain again. I use a prong collar on my male Catahoula and I never hear those choking coughs they make when they pull really hard.