Yes, I agree and forgot to mention that.. if she does challenge you you have to gauge the situation, but don't let her get away with anything unless you are afraid and feel you really cannot control the situation. I think you should build up your confidence a bit more through smaller things before you take her out and try your hand at controlling her in more serious instances.

I know how being bitten can make you feel, you feel uncertain, you doubt yourself, but I think you are capable. You have come a long way with both of your dogs and don't you dare loose faith now!!

Edited by Jennifer Marshal (12/04/2007 03:15 PM)
Edit reason: spelling...

i am trying to push her boundaries, and i am learning how to be more confident with her - i've always corrected her, but i mean being more confident in that i project a persona which expects proper behaviour. watching the SchH handler and then the other trainer w/her, it really struck me that while they both had to correct her, they both expected proper behaviour.

there is one dog we go past fine - holly - who is very docile around teagan. and i do correct her for being predatory, i don't want it to sound like i just let her wander around doing whatever, but i also think - wouldn't it be kind of mean of me to walk her past strange dogs knowing she might go after them so i can work on correcting the behaviour? if someone did that to me w/luc, i would KILL them.

and to be honest, while i used to see regular dogs when i just had luc (that maybe i would be comfortable practicing on/would know the owners) we don't see them anymore. the only dog we regularly see is an out-of-control lab whose owner tries to control it by screaming 'SIT!' at the top of her lungs repeatedly, and i don't even want to go there.

i guess - after she bit me (a week ago), i decided we needed to really go back to basics, she has a lot less freedoms, and i want her to be really solid in the 'easier' environment before i start working her in a more challenging environment. does that make sense? my thought is that if she's learned to accept me in the 'easy' environment it will be more less of a challenge for her to do so in another environment.

I agree Jennifer (Marshall) there's too many Jen's in this thread! (JK)

Are there other little things that she challenges you on that won't have to end up in a physical confrontation between the 2 of you?

you mentioned that you avoid other dogs, I can't remember, but is that because that was the type of situation where she came up the leash at you?

or was it the thread where you put her in a down stay, she broke you went in to correct and that set her off?


EDIT: answering another question.

I don't think taking her past other dogs to stimulate her aggression is unfair.
that is EXACTLY what i had to do with Tucker. I wasn't willing to avoid the park just because he wanted to see what the Rotweiller on the other side of the park tasted like.
You know she can be ok around other dogs (you mentioned one that didn't set her off)
To do it ENDLESSLY or for a long period of time would be a bit unfair. But putting her in the situation for a bit at a time is the only way you're going to deal with the problem.

 Quote: Jennifer Marshal

Yes, I agree and forgot to mention that.. if she does challenge you you have to gauge the situation, but don't let her get away with anything unless you are afraid and feel you really cannot control the situation. I think you should build up your confidence a bit more through smaller things before you take her out and try your hand at controlling her in more serious instances.

I know how being bit can make you feel, you feel uncertain, you doubt yourself, but I think you are capable. You have come a long way with both of your dogs and don't you dare loose faith now!!

i'm not losing faith! i really enjoy learning everything from teagan, and i'm not scared of her - it's more that i respect what she's capable of, if that makes sense. i think a lot of the issues around her coming back up at me would be solved by the DD collar, which i now have, but like i said - i've tried to take a step back, b/c i also saw her willingness to bite me/go for me as a signal that we really needed to work on basics. does that make sense?

i should also note, i didn't let her 'get away' with biting me or coming up the leash (she moved fast, but so did i). i did correct her, but i stepped back, let her calm down physically since i didn't think alpha rolling her was wise, and then i made her go through a bunch of obed., very rapidly and corrections for anything not done immediately, and treated her like she was a pain for me to take the time to even deal with her, if that makes sense.

 Quote: Wendy Lefebvre

I agree Jennifer (Marshall) there's too many Jen's in this thread! (JK)

Are there other little things that she challenges you on that won't have to end up in a physical confrontation between the 2 of you?

you mentioned that you avoid other dogs, I can't remember, but is that because that was the type of situation where she came up the leash at you?

or was it the thread where you put her in a down stay, she broke you went in to correct and that set her off?

she hasn't gone after me after breaking obed. commands. she went after me after i corrected for biting me.

i avoid other dogs, not b/c i'm worried about ME, but b/c i feel like it's really rude to walk her right past a dog she may suddenly turn and go for. as a owner of a soft dog (luc), i would be furious w/some random person who decided they could use him as a training tool - it seems inconsiderate.

she challenges me on lots of little things, and i correct her for them, don't let her get away with them. and i think that helps build the pack order.

Do you only get a re-action out of her when the dogs are close?
Or does she re-act regardless of if they're right in front of her or 10 feet away?

depends on the dog.

small dogs, she sees as prey and will react from any distance.

large dogs, as long as they are respectful, she's okay with. any dog that shows any disrespect she will go for, but she generally will act like everything's fine until she gets within striking distance of the dog, and then she turns and goes for it. what startled the trainer when we working on small animals at my house - 'she showed almost no warning signs' is very true in a situation w/a disrespectful dog.

edit: which also made me feel better to some degree, that it wasn't just my inexperience not recognizing the signs, but that she just doesn't show them. it's the 0 to 60 i mentioned before. she usually will appear alert, but she often does anyways. there's no obvious warning she's about to strike.

 Quote: jennifer marshal

I want to just make a comment that I have seen and been around trainers that claim to use purely possitive reinforcement methods on "very aggressive dogs" and the fact of the matter is they just simply do not know what true aggression in an animal looks like.

This is what I meant to say in the other thread! YES!!!

 Quote:

They are working with dogs that are biting out of prey response .... chase prey, catch prey, though the prey happened to be a child. Or a dog that wants to "go after" smaller dogs and has no reaction to same size or larger dogs, or are working with fear aggression. NOT true full blown dominant aggressive I will eat your face for telling me no, kind of dogs.

PRECISELY.

 Quote:

They are taking "aggression" to mean any use of teeth by an animal on another thing, whether it is mouthing(not a real bite) or an over excited dog in prey drive that is being teased with a ball by a small child that then takes off running, screaming, waving its arms with the ball in hand (and not being supervised by an adult) And I am not saying that a dog biting a child or anybody out of a prey response is an acceptable thing, but conditioning a dog to redirect when in prey with purely possitive is possible (depending on the dog and the other temperament factors) and I have done this myself. That of course is just one example of many I can think of where a prey response caused a bite.

Well, a handler aggressive dominant female rottweiler taught me a lesson. Treats don't matter. Toys don't matter. Kind words don't matter. Commands don't matter. Very few things of a possitive nature even cause a blink of an eye to a truly aggressive, and dominant dog.

YES! This is so true, but most people will never see this, not in it's most serious sense. It is so hard to explain to someone who's never seen it that it exists, it is ugly, and happy happy ain't gonna fix it.

 Quote:

If you are stuck on a no correction mentality your only choice is to back down and in some cases backing down is all you can do if you do not have the proper equipment and safety is a serious issue. When you back down, you are essentially admitting your low rank, you are being submissive. Some DA dogs will cool it, depending on the situation - because you backed down, you are no longer a threat in need of energy to subdue.

You can WORK WITH a DA dog being PP, absolutely. As long as you never challenge that dog you can seem to be best friends to the inexperienced eye. You can coax a DA dog with treats and toys and good things when it is not in drive and get good results as long as you never become an authority threat to that dog, BUT you have not solved anything.

I think this is the most important conflict we have w/John Q. Most people who swear by this will never have the dog in a situation to prove them wrong. They simply don't have the temperament themselves to evoke this response in a dog, and will allow the dog to do as it pleases, all the while working for cookies, and never (hopefully) realize that the dog is every bit as dangerous as it was-if they should ever use the word "no."

 Quote:

I have seen the look at me game put towards dog aggression. Teaching a dog that every time it sees another dog it must redirect its attention to you because you are the holder of some absolutely incredible reward. Conditioning a dog that when other dogs are present, and only when other dogs are present, if it looks at you it gets a very high value reward, is not eliminating the aggression, it is merely redirecting the reaction/response of the dog when you are there holding that dogs leash. But these were not handler aggressive dogs, and these were dogs whose food and toy/prey drive was stronger than their aggression towards other dogs/animals.

I have had one dog like this; got a flood of emails telling me to try this crap instead of rehoming the dog. Bottom line is the other animals were in danger as long as that dog was around. Fine dog w/people, but prey was simply too high. All you can do is smile and nod.

Jennifer, this is probably the best explanation I have read on why PP doesn't work w/a truly aggressive dog that is aggressive for the sake of aggression-not because Daddy didn't love him, or Jr. stole his food, or Mommy made him insecure by being a moron. Nice job.

thank you Jenni!

I just wanted to add I got all obsessed with abreviating heh, in my posts here DA means Dominant Aggressive .. not Dog Aggressive. Just an FYI, had me a brain fart.

I agree. I was telling someone in a PM that I blush to think back many years, when my success with fear-aggressive dogs, for example, had me smugly convinced that my magic touch and a flat leash were all I needed for a dominant-aggressive dog.

:>

The fact was that I had not yet met one.