Cindy asked me to review this thread. I have done so an it appears that Scott has made up his mind to resuce this dog. Others have posted sound advice.

If this were my dogs I would follow the protocol in my rather wordy article THE GROUNDWORK TO BECOMING A PACK LEADER (I am rewriting that article to clean it up)

I probably would use a dominat dog collar and not a prong collar on a dog like this. I would not worry about BONDING to the dog I would focus on not getting bit and exhibiting pack leadership.

Pack leaders don't care if their dogs love them they only care of they are subordinate to them. Through fair leadership principles the dog will learn to respect the leader. I cannot count how many handler aggressive adult dogs I bought over the years. I never cared nor did I try toi make these dogs love me. I only worked to make them respect me.

If you push this process, which you are doing, and this dog is truely dominat, you or your wife will be bit. Please send photos of the bites. I AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR DOG BITE PHOTOS. I use them to help teach others what not to do.

Get the 301 DVD and study it. Get a dominat dog collar http://leerburg.com/746.htm and use it. Make sure its properly fit. When the dog tries to bit you - hang him - hang him until he is almost passed out. This is one of the reasons your wife will have a problem with this dog. She cant do this unless you set up the exercise in a way I would explain here.

Those who POO POO hanging a dominat dog have never been attacked, have never been bit, have never seen a dog attack a human and do real damage. Click here and look at the photo of what can happen

Bottom line is you had better control ever second of this dogs life or he will control yours.

Ed and all: I appreciate the caution. Suffice to say I was busy this morning and my wife picked up Tonka herself. He remembered her. Not a nip, growl or grumble or even an attempt at one. She walks him and he goes right into the crate for her without me present, no sweat. She can wipe his feet and mouth with no aggression at all. Unless this dog decides to go unstable on us or stresses out during the transition I think we're good as one could hope for after 1 day.

Everything today has been 100% positive. He and I walked 1.5 miles before dinner--I wore him out! Good behavior around neighborhood dogs and prey. No pulling at the lead. At the end of the today he wanted play and love (both withheld for now). Assertive but not overtly dominant today. A little slow to respond to commands, but he does respond.

Two near term issues I'd specifically appreciate feedback on:

1. He didn't eat dinner. His original owners warned us that he often doesn't eat under stress, like when a family member is away for more than a couple of days. He's also been free fed (surprising given his excellent weight). I suspect (hope) he'll be plenty hungry tomorrow morning. He's drinking fine.

2. When he sees a cat (from his crate) he acts like he wants to play, as if they are puppies. Whining, pawing, tail up, happy aspect. No growling, grumbling, barking or any hunting behaviors. Should I attempt to squelch this behavior even though it is "positive"? I.e., should I attempt to train him ignore the cats in every way, shape and form? The cats, meanwhile, are keeping their distance but are not cowed so badly they won't eat or use the litter, so that's great.

We'll see how the first night in the crate goes, and how his personality changes over the next week or so either due to stress and/or just settling in.

Thanks,

Scott

Scott, sounds like you are making pretty good progress so far. Keep it up as often a dog after a month or so of being in a new home will start to push its boundaries a bit. Dogs, dominant or submissive, crave consistency and structure. For the eating, don't be too concerned. I take a foster dog for the weekend from the local shelter so I can do a behavioral eval on it, get some basic obedience in to get it more adoptable, and often I'll give them some ester vitamin C as shelter colds and kennel cough is perpetual (my current foster is a huge 11 month old German shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix who's sitting right outside my office snuffling). Anyways, the foster dogs for the weekend don't typically eat for me either unless they were an abuse or neglect case as the majority of dog owners seem to free feed and they get it that way at the shelter. So don't be too concerned. Probably by tomorrow you could try tempting him a bit by putting a bit of olive oil or slightly warmed raw egg on his food. My dogs get olive and fish oil and raw eggs (with the shell) several times a week anyways. If not, some cooked chicken or ground hamburger with rice and/or boiled egg usually does the trick.

For the crate, this might reach you too late, but I crate the foster dogs I get and many of them are adults who aren't crate trained. I make sure they are very well exercised the day I take them home with a long trail walk so usually they settle in just fine. I always toss in a few yummy treats and maybe a pig ear or Kong. I haven't had one yet that protests much long than 10-15 minutes. Good luck tonight!

Sound like you're doing well with him. The eating thing will take care of it's self. Is his behavior with the cat positive?? Well yes and no. At least he's not trying to tear the crate apart or being blatantly aggressive. But...the excited play/prey behavior is usually a precursor to full on prey and chase behavior. I would NOT trust him with the cat and I would not allow the behavior in the crate to escalate beyond what it is now. If he gets too fixated on the cat while he's in the crate you are in for trouble when he's out of the crate. All that pent up frustration will let loose. I may even put a towel or blanket over the crate if he seems too interested in the cat, just so you can manage the interest level until he is listening to you better and you are introducing him to the cat under control.

~Jamie

I'll second that Jamie,

I thought I had introduced my GSD to my moms cats very well and in fact he could roam the same room as them without too much of a problem, still very interested in his prey and prey drive hit the roof when the cats moved but we had enough control over him to tell him to "leave" and he would.

Cautionary note ;D.......I made the mistake of picking one of the cats up WHILE the dog was in the room. Well needless to say the dog went apeshit and lunged for the cat. Cat scratches me to ribbons and gets bit on the leg by the dog for it's trouble lol (I can laugh only because no harm came to the cat).

Bottom line is.....Can you trust a high prey drive animal to be in the same room/house as "prey"? My answer is a resounding NO! Well not without CONSTANT supervision and more thought before action that I had that day <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Take care

John

Thanks, gentlemen. I think that I'll try to discourage Tonka from ANY cat attention, positive or negative.

The night passed without a peep or a whine. We even had coyotes howling outside last night. He whined a little when he heard me get up in the morning.

The food thing turned out to be simpler than I thought. We got every dog related item the previous owners owned EXCEPT for the food and water bowls. So we bought one of those nice stainless sets that let a dog eat standing up. This morning after 2 miles (I swear I'm in better shape than the dog!) I put his food in his crate and then him. No go. I hand fed him a little bit, which he took willingly. Still no go on his own. So I'm standing there thinking about it a bit and I thought "Maybe he simply won't eat out of something that's not on the floor." Bingo! Took the bowls out of the stand and chomp, chomp, chomp! Truly amazing that as hungry as he had to be he simply wouldn't touch it as if it were on a table or counter, even after offered to him in his own crate!

Time for apres breakfast walk!

Scott

It's really interesting how much dogs are creatures of habit. My next door neighbor (we share the same duplex) had adopted my husky/Rott mix and he stayed the first night overnight with her. I let her borrow one of my extra stainless steel bowls for his food, but she used a tupperware container for his water. Well, he woke her up the next morning at like 8 AM scratching at the wall where our duplex is connected. She brought him over thinking he missed my two dogs. He totally ignored my dogs and made a beeline for the water bowl and drained it like a camel. But yeah, he didn't "realize" that the tupperware she set out for him was his bowl. It didn't work out for her adopting him (I still have him), but interesting testimony to the need for "sameness" with dogs.

Still all good here. Just learning new things about each other everyday. Visitors in the house with him in the crate yesterday was bad. It's the only time he's shown any aggressiveness since the first hour or so. Bring him out of the crate on lead with visitors and he's OK. My amateur guess is he feels very unempowered to protect us in there. No obvious prey drive on lead, which makes it easy to get from crate to outside and back without having to make a federal project out of the cats.

He's back to testing us but by trying to ignore us as opposed to any aggressive behavior. Perhaps he's a bit off his game as he may have expected to be returned to his original home by now. My wife cleaned his ears yesterday and he was happy to have the direct attention.

After some reflection I suspect that his original owners wanted to re-home him because mom couldn't/wouldn't handle him. Unfortunately this has left Tonka with 4 years of training in how females are low in the pack order. My wife has done wonders in changing his world view.

st

I owned 2 Akita's for close to 15 yrs. Get used to him ignoring you. My experience, if a Akita stays within 10 ft of you they really like you. They were not like most dogs the Akita's I had didn't crave constant attention or need to be right next to you. They could be very independent and learnd quickly by the tone of my voice, when I meant what I said. My two challenge me a couple times every year. You have to be consistant, fair and firm with what behavior you will and will not tolerate.