I have read several times on these forums about weak/strong nerves in a dog. What are the traits that each aspect are shown in a dog? I assume...and this is only an assumption...that weak nerves=defense aggression/tail between the legs vs. strong nerves=confidence and willingness to either take on a problem with confidence/dominance or ignore it altogether? Any help in understanding is appreciated as well as maybe citing specific examples in behavior...thanks!

Jeff, I think you pretty much discribed it.
A dog with weak nerves IMO is not a matter of how much you have socialized him he is uncomfortable with his surrounding, therefore he's more likely to be a fear biter, hides behind his handler, not nessacerely a dog agressive dog.I have seen weak nerve dogs that look very comfortable in the field but very unsecure during bite work, hesitant , not very confident.Yet they've had good foundation work on the protection phase but really never came out with a lot of courage.SO I don't know , I think a lot of people will describe weak nerves on different levels.Are you having an issue figuring out your pup?

Not so much difficulty figuring him out but best trying to see what exactly makes him tick. I read Ed's aggression tempermant profiles and he most difinitely fits the prey drive aggression and territorial aggression bill, as well as dominance aggression and absolutely in no way shape or form fear aggression. He will not hesitate at 4 months old to chase after a truck or car...or at least attempt to while he gets a couple of pops with the prong collar and is immediately made to "down"...he will also bark at anything he sees be it a block or 2 away...dog, person, name it. He would go right after it no questions asked and he does so with chest out staunch stance etc, but is very good with our female shepherd, and anyone that comes into the house or when we went to my wife's folks for 10 days over Christmas and they also have 2 Rott's...one male and one female with which he got along with great and everyone human wise as well that visited that full house over the holidays. I would definitely say IMO he has VERY strong nerves and is pretty much fearless and extremely couragous on all accounts...but we also have a 6 year old son that he is not to fond of so this is going to pose a problem, but oddly enough, our 9 year old daughter is quite loved by him in all aspects...like he is to me and my wife. We are really working right now on him learning his place in the house,especially with our son. Everything that we have done is by the book on Ed's "puppy 8 weeks to 8 months" and "basic dog obedience" but I feel a good ol' furry nugget snip and "dealing with dominant or aggressive dogs" DVD will help curb that. The dog is so damn smart it makes my head spin...especially comparing him to our male shepherd that we put down from Lupus and our female shepherd that we have now...both are/were extremely bright, but this dog is something else. I guess I need to know what kind of correction I can give him immediately not to damage him like I have seen Ed say about over-correction. It seems he would withstand a pretty serious correction and not take it to the grave, so I guess this is why I asked the question I did. Thank you so much for your reply.

Like Ed has said in his articles, I think it has a lot to do with drive thresholds. Weak nerved dog will be more uncomfortable in defense and go into avoidance with less stress than a strong nerved dog. They will also "sound the alarm" sooner, or be sharp, if they hear a noise. They also can crumble under hard corrections.

A strong nerved dog will be able to take more defense and stress from a decoy before nearing avoidance and will probably not even get up to see a noise he hears outside. Hard corrections won't cause them to blink.

Jeff, you sound like you have a strong nerved dog who will probably be a nice protection dog! Sometimes a strong nerved dog can have a tendency to be more dominant, so keep up the obedience and good pack leadership. I also think a stronger nerved dog can begin defensive bite work sooner also, but only a good decoy that has seen your dog work in prey will know when she is ready.

I think most people would desire a strong nerved dog over a weak nerved one. I had a dog with such weak nerves that she couldn't handle anything more than a verbal correction and would actually go in to avoidance during marker training. During shaping, the stress of encouraging her to offer behaviors to discover what I wanted her to do would be too much and she would tuck her tail and go lay in the corner of the room and refuse to come to me. And that after I already marked and reduced my criteria. Bitework was a joke. Not fun or easy. She did find herself a nice home as a family pet though.

Alison Voore

You know your dog is going to change so much that figuring out what makes him tick now , may not be the same thing in another 4 months.My young male at 4 months was so laid back and could care less about the cats, never even tried to smell them ect... now he has more energy than I can handle at times and he gets plenty of exercise, he chases the cats ALL THE TIME, we look back on some videos of him from back then and it looks like a different dog, I would put a nip in the butt quick with the way he is with your son for sure, ours tries to bully the kids all the time but knows his limits

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r77/cadogancna/

thank you both for those words and experiences. It helps out a lot.

Alison, you made 2 excellent points about noises and how a dog reacts. My father-in-law uses a .22 rifle in the north woods of no-where on his property to shoot the blasted red squirrels that get into everything and cause problems. well while it is not a high-power caliber, it still has a sizeable report when shot. Mojo and I were standing about 10 feet away from him when he shot a squirrel and Mojo went right in the direction of the shot with his chest out, tail up head high and growling at the noise. My dad-in-law laughed at him and said" well if you had any doubts about him being gun shy...there's your answer" LOL...meaning he didn't even get phased by the noise at all...actually he wanted a piece of where it came from...same thing on a walk today in SE WI where I live when a plow came through. We were coming up to an intersection on the sidewalk and the guy dropped that plow right on the pavement and I was so close I could feel the ground tremble slightly from it...once again, Mojo didn't even blink but immediately started to walk in front of me to go check it out...he got a small pop with his prong to mind heeling to me, but I think these are 2 very good examples of LOUD noises out of the blue that didn't bother him in the least...well actually he had to investigate and go after what the noise was a bit, but I am guessing some pretty strong nerves.

Thank you for the posts to help me thus far...I needed to know so I know what kind of tempermant he has...definitely courageous and definitely strong nerved. He will need a firm hand in training IMO but this will make him become the obedient and confident dog that he should be while not losing his spirit.