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you have to be looking ahead and anticipating situations.

This is huge, IMO. I scan the road or path ahead when I walk my dog(s), and I'm not embarrassed to turn around or take a side street if I see an unleashed or large unfamiliar dog up ahead. And if I had a dog who was at all aggressive, I'd avoid small unfamiliar dogs too.

Yes training has been a continuous battle every day. I can see improvements on him. I still have to do a lot more obedient work under distractions. I have ordered the new dvd from Ed about dog aggression, hopefully I will get some more clues on how to act on certain situations, and hopefully it will identify the type of aggression that my dog has.

Scanning the road is mostly what I do when I walk Ben. The dog that attacked us was on the other side of the enclosed fence, and if I thought for one second that he was going to jump that fence I would have taken a different route. I did not correct Ben for defending himself; that dog was going for a bite on me or him.

A woman that I had an encounter (which did not end up bloody) with her dog off leash told me I should put a muzzle on him all the time when I walk. I was not really convinced that I should really do that just because people are irresponsible and leave their dogs off leash?

Now Ben started using another strategy to attack by first going down (like in a play mode) perfectly calm creating an ambush by luring the other dog that he is not dangerous, and as soon as the other dog would come near to him he would jump up fast on full attack. It almost fooled me the first time, thinking that finally he will not be aggressive.


Here is a picture of him down waiting for a dog to come close to him, while a dog was barking at him from a distance. This behavior is happening now more often and it is a lot more dangerous because now he is not alerting the other dogs to back away but kind of inviting them over just to attack them.

He is quite a challenge but I am not giving up on him, because he is the most loving dog with all of us, and we have so much fun with him.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b296/bthaqi/Ben_11months020.jpg

baton,
i don't see the picture you posted as an invitation to play. it looks more like stalking behavior to me. an invitation to play might be "bowing" behavior--his butt would be up in the air and his front legs pressed down on the ground.

you need to set your dog up for success. that means not putting him in situations where he is likely to fail. which for the meantime, means avoiding all situations where he could be triggered by another dog. every time he gets away with this behavior it becomes more reinforced.

you need to understand your dog's body language better so you can head things off at the pass. i really like turid rugaas' book and video "on talking terms with dogs" which shows which behaviors/postures mean what.

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don't see the picture you posted as an invitation to play

Thanks for your reply and reference Alice.
Somebody else told me that, and I thought that's true. But it makes sense what you are saying. I'm new to dogs so I am still learning. It's almost impossible to find a place to walk your dog where there are no other dogs. I trie to set him up not to fail, but unexpected things always happen.

As I said, this behaviour is new on him, and I am still working on finding the best way to deal with it.

Baton -

I sure do relate to your situation <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Fortunately for me I am an early riser so I go to a field close by where it is open and easy to see my entire surroundings. It has help quite a bit while I practice all my trainers techniques. I wish you continued success with your pup, he is beautiful dog!

Thanks for the comments Valerie.

Best luck to you too.

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2. when you see a loose dog, immediately put your dog in a down/stay.
3. step in between your dog and the oncoming dog
4. if the loose dog comes too close, brandish your hiking staff and order it gruffly to "go home!" or "get out of here!"

This sounds very good but is hard to accomplish in two situations:
1) you are walking two dogs
2) the loose/stray dog is biting your dog in the arse as he is maintaining his down/stay (you can still be kicking the stray and he can still get to your dog).
Yes, its best to avoid loose dogs when you can (there are TONS of them where I live). But when you see one, and walk in the other direction (which is what I do) many a time they will follow you and try to bite your dogs in the behind. Putting your dogs in a down stay is unfair in this particualar situation. Some loose dogs do not give up easily and will get around you (despite being kicked etc) to your dogs. I think it is best to hold your dogs off to one side so that they are able to move away from the loose dogs while you try to do buisness.

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..... I think it is best to hold your dogs off to one side so that they are able to move away from the loose dogs while you try to do buisness.

Both my dogs now know a "back" command, which means to step behind me and stay there. This came up before on this forum, months ago, and I believe that others had taught this command too.

One of my dogs is 100% with that command, and the other is in process (because I haven't had him as long-------excuses, excuses).

I find it challenging to teach this command. If anyone has suggestions for how to get the dog there and then praise/treat when s/he is there, I would very much like to hear them.

Yes, I can see that some dogs would be trying to get behind me to get to my dog(s)........... I guess I think that having my dog standing but staying behind me is their safer position. But I'm very open to other ideas.

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you have to be looking ahead and anticipating situations.

I know this isn't regarding loose rabbits, but I rollerblade with my dogs every morning. Today we ran across a loose rabbit and if I did not see the rabbit a split second before both my dogs I would have a broken back right now. I think we are never going to get enough people trained so looking ahead is about the best we can do. Silly Rabbit (I couldn't resist)