Hi,
I have a 2 year old working german shepherd from an excellent bloodline from Germany. He is almost perfect except when I give him a hard correction on a lead with a prong collar. He growls at me, but I shout back at him with a firm no and he stops growling. Is this a normal reaction from a male working german shepherd or does this dog have a heirarchical problems? This is my first male german shepherd, I've had 2 females before and did not experienced any growling problems. Any comments will be appreciated. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

After you give him the "firm no" did he do it again, either in the same session or a different session? Personally one of my "no exceptions" rules is that my dogs will never be allowed to growl at me (or put their teeth on me, or show agression to other people/animals). If they do, their world comes crashing down. I'm guessing if your dog is growling on a hard correction, its dominance. The correction for growling needs to shake his world.....vocal corrections aren't enough. Just because he stopped growling at the time, if he tried it again its basically because there was not much reprocussion in his mind. He will keep pushing these boundaries. The correction you give should make such an impression the first time that he doesn't think of doing that again .... ever.

My dog pulled this on me and at the time I reasoned that it was normal, or not dominance, or not serious because it wasn't followed by a bite. It went on until a trainer really explained to me the importance of getting rid of this behavior and going to battle with my dog. When I did it left such an impression that I never had to do it again. Its hard to explain the correction that was successful with my dog, because it may not work with your dog, but I choked him up off the ground by a choke chain and just screamed at him in a way that let him know that he did something really, REALLY wrong. Since I'm such a docile person in training, this was a huge wakeup call for him. But he wasn't a super hard dog, the harder the dog, the worse the correction and some dogs just never learn depending on their history.

Hopefully someone else can give their 2 cents, and you might want to consider working with a trainer if your dog is very hard so you can safely give the right correction. My opinion here is to just get ready to go to battle.

Simon ,

What type of behavior are you giving a hard correction for ?

Does your dog fully understand or been thoroughly taught the proper behavior that he is being corrected for ?

You stated your dog was " almost perfect " . Does this mean he is usually very obediant ?

Is your dog showing any other forms of dominant behavior ?

I wouldn't jump into physically correcting your dog for growling at you just yet . First you need to figure out why he is growling at you .

Simon asked;

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Is this a normal reaction from a male working german shepherd or does this dog have a heirarchical problems?

I don't know about it being normal but it's fairly common and dominance isn't the only reason for it .

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I wouldn't jump into physically correcting your dog for growling at you just yet . First you need to figure out why he is growling at you .

Just out of curiosity, when do you feel it acceptable for your dog to growl at you?

I can't speak for Jim, but I would want to rule out medical/pain related possiblities first.

Everyone told me that my Border Collie/Husky's issues were dominance and that Border Collie's were "just like that". Turns out he has a very painful case of lumbosacral stenosis.

I'm not saying that the above case is pain related but wouldn't you want to check it out first?

Natalie
http://www.heathphoto.ca

Dana asked;

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Just out of curiosity, when do you feel it acceptable for your dog to growl at you?

It's never acceptable for a dog to growl at it's handler . But a dog doesn't always growl at it's handler out of dominance .

A dog may also growl at it's handler after being given an unfair correction . The dog may not know what it has done wrong to be getting a correction or has been over corrected and is protesting or trying to protect himself . In those cases it is counter productive to give a hard correction for growling at it's owner because it's the handler making the mistake , not the dog . The handler usually has moved too fast in it's training and the dog is blowing commands out of confusion . The handler in these cases should step back and teach the dog , making sure the dog understands fully the desired behavior then move on the the distraction , correction phases . Not punish the dog for the handler's mistake .

I'm no softy when it comes to training . But I am fair to dogs . I have seen correcting a dog that growls at it's handler under these types of situations lead to very hectic , nervous behaviors in dogs . They are constantly blowing commands not out of defiance but out of fear of the handler . They are constantly trying to think ahead for a command (usually getting it wrong) or constantly trying to get back to the handlers side to submit .

This leads to a constant cycle of blown commands , corrections from the handler , growls from the dog out of self preservation , then even harder corrections for the growling . It leads to a dog that is a bundle of nerves constantly trying to think ahead to keep it's handler happy so it doesn't get it's butt kicked again .

Good points all round, Dana I totally agree with you, I would also not tolerate this, but perhaps he needs to use his discretion and establish whether the dog is challenging him because it is dominant, or whether it has health problem, inappropiate correcting(to harsh)can also get this response.
Once he has ruled out some of the points below, he can then take advice from one of those suggested below. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My puppy is 15.5 weeks old and when we play together she gets mouthy and growls. I honestly don't feel like it's threatening, but should I be disciplining her for that? I feel as if I don't she'll grow up thinking that is acceptable behavior. When I posed the question to Ed Frawley he said she's just a puppy being a puppy. If that is the case at what age should I start cracking down on such behavior?

every puppy i've ever had gets mouthy and growls. none of them grew up to be dominant with me. i would not discipline a 15 week old puppy for this behavior. it's a puppy being a puppy.

every dog is different, but with most of mine, i've simply shrieked "ow! that hurt!" and that has been sufficient to teach the pup to be more gentle with me. a pup does need to learn how to use its mouth gently. you can train for this more directly by teaching it to take food very delicately from your fingers, instead of grabbing. withhold the food until he acts like a gentleman!

my current dog, at three years old, still likes to take my arm gently in his mouth and gleefully take me for a walk around the yard. he's just playing and being affectionate.

if/when the dog displays aggressive behaviors along with the nipping, and if you have already effectively taught him to use his mouth gently, that is when i would correct, and not before. puppy growls sound very different than adult dog aggressive growling. i think most of us instinctively can tell the difference.