How do you correct a dog for being aggressive once he is in his crate? I have a 7 year old male English Springer Spaniel. We have had him since 10 weeks. Bench bred and shown to 6 pts. We stopped showing him because he developed an issue with his crate. He became very aggressive when he was put in his crate. Goes to back turns and comes back at you. He NEVER balks or objects to going in his crate. It is all after he is in the crate. This has escalted from being a once or twice a year thing to being weekly. He is also object possessive. Yes, I am one of those digbats that was talked into using this passive leftest crap training of bribery only. So, you can trade him out of anything. Truthfully, I'm embarrased and feel stupid, everything in life has balance and I knew better, but now I have a problem and I don't know what to do. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This is at a point of being afraid of this dog. I either have to fix this or destroy this dog and I really don't want to do that, but I won't dump the problem on someone else. It's my problem.

Thanks on behalf of your dog and the wider community for wanting to take charge of the problem instead of just getting rid of the dog.
For clarification:
Is this every single time he is in his crate, or random?
Does he behave aggressively outside of the crate or in cases where he does not have an object to defend?
Could there be a single incident that stimulated this behavior, or did it truly appear out of the blue?
What kind of personality does your dog have (dominant, submissive etc)?

It sounds to me like this is an extension of his possessiveness regarding objects, but there could be a different underlying issue such as a medical problem or dominance issues. More info would be really helpful.
Also, search the articles and Q&As Mr. Frawley has up on the site.
http://www.leerburg.com/articles.htm#dom

Thoughts from the pros (which I am most certainly not)?

It is a random behavior that is increasing in frequency. Never aggressive other than when he doesn't want to give up an object. He will "trade" you, but he growls if you try to take it from him and will not "give". He is moderate to submissive. Very willing to obey. Good with other dogs, loves children and everyone outside of his crate. He does "guard" the fence. Goes nuts if strangers come near his crate. I do not know for sure, but I believe he was mistreated in his crate by a handler or someone in her setup or home. After he was with her one time, this behaviour began. He has never put a tooth into anyone, but we have never "pushed" him. You do not reach into his crate for anything. I never "loop" (put on a leash) inside his crate. He steps out and I "loop" him. He pulls on a lead, but it's not anything over the top like pulling me down.

As an aside. These episodes are usually preceeded by several days of very needy behaviour. They can also be brought on by a radical change in routine (such as travelling to my daughters for Christmas for 4 days). He has a heart defect (VSD) and we live in Florida, so he can't have extreme exercise to make him tired. His exercise consists of short walks and free running in the backyard, which is quite large.

This has been going on since he was 18 months old. Maybe once or twice a year. We have tried everything we can think of and are truly at the end of our rope. I love him, but I don't want to wait until we get hurt before we put him down. So, here I am again, giving him one more chance and seeking a answer that will work one more time. He's just absolutely the most wonderful dog except for this one thing and it's so dangerous, because it's not predictable and because it is escalting in frequency and level. I'm not asking anyone to make me feel good about destroying this dog. I'm seriously asking if anyone has any idea of something that I can do to fix this. This forum seems to be well balanced reasonable people who know dogs. Perhaps someone has an idea.

It's very bizarre. He goes in with his tail wagging, turns around and comes at you like Cujo. I shut his door with my leg planted against it.

cb

Could be a seperation thing. How do you put him in the crate? are you nervous and tense when you do? Does he do this when you're leaving to go out or anytime he's put up? Sometimes if you do the same things all the time before you leave, the dog will know it's going in the crate and then get hectic and nervous and then when you put him up, he's probably all fired up. Try putting him in, out, in , out at different times of the day and reward him when he's not crazy, if you walk by and he's a good boy, throw in a treat and say "good boy", have you tried this kind of stuff yet? I haven't had a crate aggressive dog (to me) but this is what i would try,
AL

I would feed him inside his crate (before he gets angry, otherwise he'll think you're rewarding him for bad behavior) and try to make him associate the crate with positive things. Don't let him be inside the crate for too long at first, just like a puppy. That's what I would start doing.

Regarding the aggression with objects... there's no doubt this dog thinks he's the pack leader. You even said you felt afraid of him (and I don't blame you), so he senses that and reacts in a dominant manner. Not sure what you mean by 'objects' (food, toys) but try to replicate a scenario where he would normally be protective of a certain object (leash on) and if he becomes aggressive, make him understand it's not appropriate conduct.

 Quote:

He pulls on a lead, but it's not anything over the top like pulling me down.

I wouldn't tolerate this. Get a prong collar for those walks, and don't allow pulling.

Have you seen 'The Dog Whisperer'? Seems to me this is a typical case of a dog who thinks he's boss. Go back to basics (exit doors before him, eat before him, make him sit for his food, don't allow on bed or sofa, don't allow pulling) and that should work, hopefully.

Good luck.

For help Google "Springer Rage Syndrome" and "English Springer Spaniel aggression."

I'd suggest going to some English Springer Spaniel specific sources for advice on this, including vet. recommendations.

From my cursory review it appears there is a debate whether this syndrome is simply dominance aggression or something genetic.

rgds, andrew may

Do you live with your dog so that he knows that you are the pack leader?
Do remind him he is subordinate by eating before him, walking out doors and stairs before him, not letting him on the furniture, keeping him out of the bedroom, not letting him demand attention, starting and ending games with your toys, and other ground rules of being a pack leader? If not, I recommend it. This may help him be prepared to receive and submit to a correction to his aggression.

I cannot tell if it is something he has learned or associated with the crate from shows or other environmental stresses. He may be reacting out of habit, turned obsession and need some rehabilitation rather than just good, hard corrections. You said he might have been mistreated by a handler once and he began this behavior after he was with her... Sounds like he picked this up with her. You'll have to pair corrections with rehab with the crate like small periods of appropriate behavior in the crate. Help to reassociate the crate with positive things.

You also say he responds out of stress with this behavior so it does sound like a displacement behavior and OCD kind of issue. If this is true based, you need to be careful for redirection of the behavior towards someone else when training and correcting it.

This also may be a genetic issue too, so it may not be curable but only manageable with environment& situational changes.

For corrections, I would say have a leash connected to him on a dominant collar & feed it through the crate wires. When he is aggressive, I'd give him the good old" hard to breath, huh?" correction until he understands what not to do. But I would not recommend you do this alone. You should probably get advice from someone who has actually seen his reaction and can help correct and then rehab the crate association. Where do you live? You'll have to find a trainer there to help, I think.

For the toy issue: Put a dominant collar on him. Not prong for this issue. Have someone else who is not afraid of him & that knows how to deliver a correction handle the leash. Does he know "give" command? Do not trade. Ask him to give the toy. If he growls, you verbally correct him and the leash handler gives a harsh correction. Not a jerk, but a choke. Lift his front feet up off the ground to close off his wind pipe until he settles down. Then let him breathe and ask him to lay down. Act aloof, & put up the toy. (choking sounds horrible... but what you are relaying to the dog's brain is that you can control his life as his leader and that is a clear message by taking his breathe away for a few seconds that your are not playing and whatever he did is not acceptable to you.)Then and try something else for awhile. Put him outside or ignore him for awhile then try again another random time.
The corrections you administer for this growling behavior should be severe enough that you do not have to do it more than about 3 times total. He needs to know that aggression is something you do not tolerate.
Again, please don't try this yourself because of possible redirection. A trainer who looks at him will know if and when he might redirect aggression at you and should probably handle the correction giving. Overall, I think reducing stress or finding methods of decreasing the sources to trigger the crate aggression should be the first step in treatment.

Let me just add that even though Alison's correction sounds harsh (I myself have trouble administering them), it's peanuts compared to putting the dog to sleep. In this case, I wouldn't hesitate to do this (once confirmed it's not a genetic issue or whatever).

WOW i had the exact same problem with my Leerburg dog and he became very dominant and crate agressive when he got to 1 year of age. We fixed the problem with with feeding in the crate.We started keeping treats near the crate so when we wanted him in there we just lead him in with treats. we also got a e-collar for when he got really bad and needed correction. Leerburg has a great video on dominant dogs I would recommend, it helped me a lot with my dog.

get it under control now--it will only get worse!!!

Thanks to all of you for your input.