Quote: Elizabeth Munoz

PERSONIFICATION ?

Your's is a good one that I could probably remember how to spell though. I'll have to file it away. Thanks.

anthropomorphism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism

I'm confused - what breed is the dog?

"He is about 60 pounds, and genetic test for breed showed german shepherd, schnauzer, boxer, and lab. "

"with a pit-bull/satan mix"

 Quote: Rovena Kessinger

I thought it was really interesting, myself, and I'm still thinking about "fear" as a reflex (see snake, jump back) vs. "fear" as the motivation for complex behaviors (hear UPS truck, assume intruder into territory, leave garage, accost intruder, do not allow intruder to leave, etc.) What is the fear of, in that case?

Okay, trying to explain the "fear" thing here simply....I'm not a behaviorist but I find looking at it like this helps me avoid anthropomorphizing...

replace "fear" with discomfort. In the case of dogs there aren't as many ways they can deal with discomfort. People can talk things through, people can apply logic and confront their discomforts and understand them. They have all sorts of resources to solve them. Dog's don't, they default to select behaviors and without guidance by their "pack leader" will default to whichever one they perceive works. A person walks into a dog's perceived territory (which is not always consistent with what the actual property line is) and makes a dog uncomfortable. The handler does not recognize this or make any effort to make the dog comfortable (teaching them that the person is not a threat, that the person is a positive thing). The dog, uncomfortable and on edge barks, the person leaves. Well, barking worked. So next time if the dog is uncomfortable with something it may try barking at it. A lot of overcoming fear is teaching the dog that the thing making them uncomfortable is actually a positive thing or in the very least managing that fear. My ACD will never "like" the car but he's been taught that the car IS a positive place and that he is not in any danger when he's in it. When he gets nervous or feels sick (which is a biological reaction that sometimes you just can't control) he knows that to manage that he should lay down not scream bloody murder or eat my headrest

oops thanks for showing the right one my English teacher would kill me right now


Steve: no problem even though its meant for the non living

I'm sorry but you say that you taught him growl and bark in one session but you cannot teach him the difference between sit and down....? Stop and think here... Tricks are nice but no substitute for control.

It really isn't enough to say Mondo rarely sees people, so it isn't that much of a problem. If he were my dog I would start taking him places where I could work with him around people. I would invite people over once I had started retraining him and work with him around them. You need to start tackling the issues and don't rely on your isolation.
Wouldn't you both be happier if you could 'trust him' more?

You really need to find another trainer in your area who can work with you. Unfortunately you are a novice at training, which isn't ideal but that doesn't mean that you have to stay a novice. Find someone who can work with you both, there is no shame in not being experienced.

Start training more outdoors. Work on your obedience more. Go and watch a training class to get ideas. Look at teaching him to track - that's a hugely tiring on leash exercise.

With a dog like him you need several things that are trained so well that they are almost ingrained. This'll give you a bit to work on.
Recall - dog immediately returns to you and allows you to grab or leash it.
Down - dog lies down instantly at any distance from you regardless of speed.
Watch - dog immediately looks at you until told otherwise.
Leave it - applies to food, game or people. Dog should immediately disengage.
Quiet - dog stops making noise.
Stay - practice until you have 5 minutes reliably with you 30-40 feet away.

That'll be a start.
I train dogs like him all the time and I wish that I were near enough to help you both.

You love your dog. Believe it or not, we all want what is best for him - that's why most forum members can be a little aggressive. If we didn't care we would have given up long ago. However you have to treat a dog like him the same way that you would a loaded firearm, containment you have but you should ensure that you both have enough training (and a leash), that'll keep him safe.

Good luck and we look forward to seeing your progress

 Quote: Rovena Kessinger

.... OK, if I'm not going to talk about irrelevancies in this thread, can we also have a ban on judgmental statements from moralizing people who obviously don't know enough about the situation? Seriously, you people need to get out more. You've lost touch with how the common folk live. There are a lot of dogs owned by non-professionals who have happy lives. Even ones who guard the house.

But if no ban is possible, I can ignore them.

Ignore is good. When you post on a public board, you take your chances and you choose and use what's helpful to you.

The dog isn't guarding the house in the sense of dominant territorial aggression. This is a typical misconception, along the lines of "the dog was protecting me," which is almost never the case.

The dog shows classic fear-related territorial aggression, in my opinion; the number of obvious fear-related and anxiety-related events related already make it a given, to me, along with the behavior during an "interloper" incident.

Fear-related territorial aggression doesn't come from confidence or a sense of security or from perception of a strong and protective pack leader.

Desensitizing for me encompasses correctly-done marker work (a real confidence-builder!) and focus on me. It has benefits galore, including a much better owner/dog bond, reliable basic ob under distraction, and a dog who looks to me for the appropriate reaction to a potential trigger.

All JMO!

 Quote: Tanith Wheeler

Work on your obedience more. .... With a dog like him you need several things that are trained so well that they are almost ingrained.

'Zackly.

As mentioned before, a command that's 100% reliable inside, with no distraction, can have venue-proofing started simply by moving it from room to room, from house to fenced yard to garage, etc. All this can be a positive first step on the path to adding wide-world distractions (outside his reactive zone).

 Quote: steve strom

Just at a glance of what you've posted in this thread Rovena, I get the idea you're trying to apply human thoughts and reactions to a dog. There's a big long word for it. You probably know it, its too much for me.

I'm trying to do the opposite of that word. I could understand him if I thought he had the motivations of a person; it makes perfect sense what he's doing (assuming he doesn't know that delivery men aren't really potentially dangerous intruders.) I don't think a dog goes thru a long thought process like a human would. I don't think Mondo thinks: "That intruder could eat our food or kill my meal-tickets....shit, I could starve to death!", then become scared, then run out and face the lesser fear of the intruder. That's why I can't understand why leaving a place of hiding and safety to confront intruders is based on fear. For a person, it would make sense, after analyzing the situation, but for a dog, it seems more likely (to me) to be based on something else like territorial instinct/training. My other dogs go out if they hear people too, but that's not fear, because they love all intruders once they intrude. Before they intrude, they are targets of barking, and I don't know what or if they are feeling an emotion. I think if people threw rocks at them or something, then they would be afraid, and instead of going out, they would stay in. Why doesn't Mondo stay in, if he is afraid? I'm not doing the a-word, just comparing it to what I think a lot other would dogs do, which is flee if they could, instead of fight. (And Mondo does too, under different circumstances, like when he was scared by something in the woods.)

The reason I thought it mattered was that it might be treated differently, and I did learn that the prong collar is not good if a dog is scared, and the nylon collar is better, so that is good to know.

Also, Mondo is becoming much better outside the house, but worse at the house. If they are both fear, why would that be? In both cases, the object of his fear leaves, so why doesn't he get more aggressive away like he did at home? I think even in my inept, slow way, he is being desensitized to people outside the house.

I do think that there was an element of fear once he accosted the intruder after his instinct or whatever it is that causes him to accost intruders put him in the scary situation of potentially having to fight a person, however, I think that quickly faded as he realized every time he did it, the person was way more scared than him. He learns very quickly; just once or twice for something like that, and he's got it figured out. (Not doing the a-word, just saying, he's a really a smart dog; he has learned other things after only once or twice.)

I wish I could find a person to walk past on the street or trail so I could record it. It's kind of hard in WI in the winter, nobody but crazy people walk around outside. So of course he is going to be scared of them. Just kidding. He most likely won't be scared, unless they have two heads or something, because he learned quickly that people on the street never bother us. I'll see what I can do over the next week or so. (I know, I'm incredibly slow!)

 Quote:

With the different triggers and thresholds combined with drives in a dog, there's a lot going on. I doubt anyone can honestly know exactly why they fear the ups driver or why they hope that barking will make him go away, only to be happy to meet him when he doesnt.

Oh yea, I'm sure that's true. It's hard enough to know why other people do what they do or what exactly they are feeling, much less with a dog, and the vagueness of language describing emotions on top of that. But then what the emotion is may make the difference between making the situation much better or worse, so it gets very difficult. Hence my continued talking/thinking about it.

However, I do think dogs are much simpler creatures than people, with a few obvious instincts and the basic emotions. I think it's pretty simple what's going on: Mondo was scared at first, but now he's confident. If you could have seen the difference between the first time (several feet away from the man, barking but moving back and forth, allowed me to grab him easily) and the last time (very close to the man, leaping, not allowing me to grab him, circling him to try and get past his "weapon"), I think you might think the same thing. That's why I thought it made a difference; it's not being in denial of the problem; actually, when I thought about it, I thought it was probably worse in that case. (Not that he will ever be able to get to anybody, so I should say, the hypothetical problem.)

I'm sure it's worse if he's confident, but at least people don't have to worry that he's a miserable quivering creature, lol. (Anybody worried by that, remember the disclaimer, I got smart and he cannot go where people are now.)

 Quote:

Is there one thing, training wise, you're looking to accomplish in all this?

At first I wanted to know if there were anything I could do in case of rare emergency (many orders of magnitude much less likely than the delivery man dying in an accident driving to my house) that we did find ourselves in a situation where he had already begun barking at somebody to call him off. I also wanted to know if it were possible that just the general training I'm doing with him would do it naturally, eventually. I didn't know if I should set situations up or not, like have a brave friend walk into the yard (with him on a leash, of course).

I thought my clicker-training was going pretty well, but now I find out it's not, so I wish I could learn how to do that better. I think Mondo is really trainable, other than the aggression thing in very particular circumstances.

 Quote: Tanith Wheeler

I'm sorry but you say that you taught him growl and bark in one session but you cannot teach him the difference between sit and down....? Stop and think here... Tricks are nice but no substitute for control.

I didn't say I can't teach him the difference. I said I had just started working on it. The bark/growl thing was something that I did with him at the beginning of clicker-training, but when I got him, he already knew sit/down, and already did a down for sit, so I'm having to undo something, and we haven't worked on it very much, and I was doing a crappy job of my already crappy training while trying to video it at the same time. I thought it wasn't that big of a deal, the fact that he always downed after he sat, but then when I started watching the DVD's and thinking more about training him, I thought it would be nice if he actually knew what sit and down were.

 Quote:

Wouldn't you both be happier if you could 'trust him' more?

Yes...that's why I'm here...why do people constantly question my goals, I don't understand. I don't know what I'm supposed to say or why everybody thinks I don't want to do what I'm saying I want to do, and have come here and asked people to help me do.

 Quote:

With a dog like him you need several things that are trained so well that they are almost ingrained. This'll give you a bit to work on.
Recall - dog immediately returns to you and allows you to grab or leash it.
Down - dog lies down instantly at any distance from you regardless of speed.
Watch - dog immediately looks at you until told otherwise.
Leave it - applies to food, game or people. Dog should immediately disengage.
Quiet - dog stops making noise.
Stay - practice until you have 5 minutes reliably with you 30-40 feet away.

Yes, that would all be great; I made a list like that, but I'll focus on these. He already does "leave it" really well, because he was really bad about grabbing every single thing and wanting to carry it around, play with it, etc. when he first got here. I did make a video him staying while I fed the cat cheese, but people didn't like it.

 Quote:

I train dogs like him all the time and I wish that I were near enough to help you both.

I do too; I really did look around, but I haven't found anybody else yet.

 Quote:

You love your dog. Believe it or not, we all want what is best for him - that's why most forum members can be a little aggressive. If we didn't care we would have given up long ago. However you have to treat a dog like him the same way that you would a loaded firearm, containment you have but you should ensure that you both have enough training (and a leash), that'll keep him safe.

I know. I know you all like dogs, that's why I thought you would be good to ask about this, and I know Mondo is potentially dangerous under the circumstances, and I will do everything in my power to avoid. I think there are some nutty people here who think only PhD's in animal psychology should be allowed near a dog, but I think the majority are probably well-meaning and knowledgeable.

I do think it's very, very difficult to get past all these assumptions and jumping to conclusions (like you did at the beginning of your post) and the Aha! moments that prove I am a delusional person after all. Plus I keep being accused of things I already admitted, hence the disclaimer.

 Quote:

Good luck and we look forward to seeing your progress

Thanks.

 Quote: Rovena Kessinger

I think there are some nutty people here who think only PhD's in animal psychology should be allowed near a dog, but I think the majority are probably well-meaning and knowledgeable.

I do think it's very, very difficult to get past all these assumptions and jumping to conclusions (like you did at the beginning of your post) and the Aha! moments that prove I am a delusional person after all. Plus I keep being accused of things I already admitted, hence the disclaimer.

Honestly, flippant remarks like this will get you nowhere.

You need 2 things. Pack structure and Obedience. Both need to be solid. Look them up, I am in no mood to deal with more flippant remarks and senseless attempts at humor from you.