Quote: john ralston

I didn't encourage or discourage the behavior with the solicitor - I just let him do his thing and then took him in the house when it was over. I don't encourage any aggressive behavior, as I don't want a mishap with the neighborhood kids.

I am really just after the confidence to be able to sit/stand/down without any reaction when another ankle biter or stranger tries to assert themselves a bit.

My OPINION; not stating this as fact, and I'm sure many will disagree...

With MY dog, letting her do her own thing is positive reinforcement. If I don't stop her, she assumes it's okay, or even that it's what I want.

One dangerous potential pitfall that I see in this is that dog's don't discriminate...a neighborhood kid is no different than any other stranger. It would be extremely difficult, IMHO, to teach the dog who's okay and who's not. IMO, that should be your decision, and then communicated to the dog in the form of a command. If you let the dog decide for himself who to intimidate, you could end up with serious trouble.

From what my neighbor's tell me, noone who is not very familiar to my dog would be able to enter my property in my absence. She warns everyone who comes into sight, whether they are 8 or 80. However, when I am home she lets me handle business. She will warn me and stay alert, but she looks to me when she feels threatened (especially when the mail truck, ice cream truck, or a schoolbus comes by)

Edited by Duane Hull (08/15/2012 12:42 PM)
Edit reason: correction

I must have inadvertently deleted my last paragraph.

As Bob said, a lot of confidence is genetic. You can desensitize a dog to feel less nervous in a given circumstance, but some dogs may always react nervously to particular stimuli. You can build confidence to a degree if the dog has some inherent confidence, and you can teach a dog to be calm even if it's nervous, but it is very hard to build confidence if there is no genetic confidence present.

You might be right about rewarding his barking by not correcting him, but in the end, I guess that was really the behavior I wanted at the time. The guy was in my wife's face and shoving some kind of solvent under her nose and it was time for it to stop. When I went out with the dog, my intention was to let the guy know that she wasn't home alone and that even if we weren't home at some time in the future the dog would be. He was covered in tats and acting like a gangster from the hood.

Also, he doesn't get to run loose - even when he is off leash he has an e-collar on and responds quite well to it, although it is rarely needed.

I guess maybe I need to video tape him interacting with some of the smaller dogs and/or new people so that his behavior can be seen.

 Quote: john ralston

You might be right about rewarding his barking by not correcting him, but in the end, I guess that was really the behavior I wanted at the time. The guy was in my wife's face and shoving some kind of solvent under her nose and it was time for it to stop. When I went out with the dog, my intention was to let the guy know that she wasn't home alone and that even if we weren't home at some time in the future the dog would be. He was covered in tats and acting like a gangster from the hood.

That's what I was thinking John. Sometimes you do want the dog to send a message. I was suggesting that it's better to have it on cue, rather than let the dog decide when a display is appropriate. I wish I could control Sadie all of the time, but when I'm not around, she self-gratifies. I originally got her to guard the property, so I have to take some of the bad with the good.

I suppose a drawback to having a highly confident dog is that they also tend to be somewhat independent and self-soothing... I just work really hard at being a strong leader so that she knows I'm in charge when she is with me and we are interacting with our environment.

One thing that I neglected to suggest earlier... it may be possible to build confidence by having your dog do some obstacle work. If he gets a sense of accomplishment from besting a challenge, it could help his overall self-assuredness. I know Sadie loves it (as if she needs a boost in confidence!).

Would it be possible to take agility lessons with the dog? It would not only be a lot of fun, it's a great confidence booster.

And, don't over-worry the small dog thing. Dogs don't base which dog is the more dominant on the relative size of the dogs.

I have not looked into agility, but I am constructing some obstacles for him to use in our back yard - ladder, incline and a short wall.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

John, JMO, but I think you might be seeing something other what you think.

How long have you had the dog?

Protectiveness is often a rose-colored misconstruction on resource guarding (which is a category I also lump territorial behavior in).


QUOTE: And in contrast, at other times he really lets them know not to mess with his family - a solicitor came up our driveway and started to harass my wife, he wasn't liking what he was seeing from the window, and when I walked out on the porch with him to tell the guy to get lost, Jaegar was barking (with me holding onto his collar) in a very confident manner. It didn't appear to be out of fear, but more out of protection for his mom. The guy got the message and left. I just wish he was always confident and would like to build that if I can.

I'm just saying that this may be more something to watch carefully than to encourage and reward and look for.

This is JMO, and I'd like to hear others' takes.

And that's nothing negative about this dog. Or any dog.

Again, JMO.

100% agreement Connie!

John, the German pedigree with all the titles may not be as relative as you believe. It can depend on if it's show line or working line.
Don't want to start a "disagreement" with folks on the forum here but show line Schutzhund titles "could be" be next to useless as to ability OR temperament.
Could we see the pedigree? Even a good picture of the dog. If you feel more comfortable you could PM it to me.

I will have to dig for his pedigree, but here is a pic.



He is not a show line dog. The titles in his pedigree are working/protection dog titles (around a dozen dogs from each side with their SchH3, from what I remember)

Would you have a standing profile shot?

I don't think I do...what are you hoping to see?