Whenever I go walking in my neighborhood with or without my dog, I always carry a very large stick for protection. I have been confronted many times with loose dogs and I have no problem with swinging it to protect both of us. So far, the dogs have been intelligent enough to back off.

I would like to ask a question to the original poster. Why is any dog allowed to be off leash at a camp ground? To my knowledge all dogs are SUPPOSED to be on a leash or contained at all times. I have gone camping many times with/without a dog and it ticks me off that dogs run loose. I have had my share of strange dogs visiting my campsite and don't appreciate it. This is a safety issue put into place to protect everybody. Those who ignore it will only encourage campgrounds to ban dogs in the future.

If somebody's pet injured me or my dog while walking on leash, there would be a discussion with the owner as to who is going to be paying my medical/vet bills.

 Quote: Jennifer Marshal

Hehe I haven't put much thought into carying weapons when walking because I have my dog, but instead of him protecting me now I'm protecting him and I'm at a loss lol

Jennifer

I think this post of your own answers your question. Since you say your dog would seldom fight back or show aggression before this, it must mean he trusts you to protect him (pack leader!!!)
However, even though this was out of your control, you still failed to protect him. In his mind, he must protect himself now until he is shown otherwise by you. I would be willing to bet you have more than a tough couple of weeks ahead. It can take months, years, or even more to recover from somethig like this.

Edited by trevor morris (08/05/2007 08:03 AM)
Edit reason: spelling???

Update. Another walk last night, more dogs on leashes encountered with the usual aggression from them, he did as he would have prior to camping, ignored them, looked at me until we were past. It's how he was taught, he did very well.

The area we were at was not a "camp ground" as people usually think of compgrounds, these areas are very rural, in the mountains and foothills and only one camp per 1/2 mile or more. Cajun had an e-collar on and has been to this location before, he is kept close at hand for many reasons (a big one being poison oak)

I agree that dogs should not be allowed to run loose without supervision or any kind of control, that is what caused my incident.

Trevor, I I may not have worded myself right The part you quoted was a joking one about what kind of weapon to carry in order to fend of loose dogs while walking.

My original post described how he does not "fight" back but he does assert his dominance. When another dog shows aggression to his dominant behavior it looks like he is playing, he thinks it is a fun game. The times he has been bitten badly enough to cause a wound by another dog they have been pulled apart before anything else happened, though he did not vocalize at all his interest in the other dog remains intense.

I don't want my dog to fight, I know what he is capable of doing, and so he has always been prevented from "defending" himself against another dog. He has defended me from another dog and woe the person who ever breaks into my house, but he shrugs off the face nips, snarls, and growls, wholly intent upon knocking them down and then sitting on their head. He is dominant with other dogs, but not aggressive.

The times he growled at this female rottweiler, he was several feet away. The first time, he was 4-6 feet away from her, the first time drinking water from the water bucket and she walked up to me, and I reached out and patted her. The second time laying on the floor by the chair while I was walking past her, the female got up, followed me a step and I turned to pat her and tell her to go lie down, as soon as my hand was on her head, he shot up and came over, growling and put his head over her back.

I should have described that better, but my point is that she was not being aggressive towards him, wasn't even looking at him, she came towards ME.

I hope that helps a little. Did you mean that this episode may damage his ability as a working dog? Even with his non aggression towards dogs I never had any problems with his protection work, he heartily defends himself from humans, but with dogs his focus is not to fight, but to dominate.

Have I done something wrong by discouraging and preventing aggression towards other dogs? :-/ Now I'm concerned :-{

Insight, anyone?

Hi Jennifer,

I'm happy to hear Cajun is recovering well from the attack. He sounds like a resilient boy. My dog's work is family companion, so I am sure there are differences in what I would reinforce vs. what you would reinforce with Cajun. What are you working him in?

One thing our boys have in common are victims of "unprovoked" dog attacks. When my dog was around a year old, a strange phenomenon occurred, dogs from out of nowhere would start going for him. Luckily, none of them ever did any physical harm, but none the less it was very upsetting to be charged by a snarling menace or have a dog straining at its collar to get to yours and during it all my dog was well behaved, not returning the aggression. After a couple of times I had to admit that maybe Thor was sending out the wrong signals because not every dog could be psychotic.

Sure enough when I observed him, he was attempting to signal his dominance. He was making and holding direct eye contact, carrying his tail high, approaching and walking past with chest thrown out and walking on his toes. Many dogs found this behavior unacceptable and were trying to correct him. Until I watched closely I never saw his part in the confrontations because he just seemed to be walking with me.

I'm not sure if this could be the situation with Cajun and if you need to allow him to be dominant to other dogs for the type of work you do with him, but I can tell you after I put a stop to Thor's nonsense, the dog attacks ceased.

IMO the need for a solid pack structure and established hierarchy is important for all dogs but especially the "family" pet and the two legged teen agers . For Thor's place in the home that means he defers to me and isn't allowed to assert himself to either the family members or other dogs. LOL...not that he doesn't try to occassionally dominate other dogs, but I put my foot down each and every time. I think this is sound practice for a companion dog but I am not sure it would be applicable for you and Cajun.

Goodluck

Cajun is a PPD, trained by me, he is the first dog I have trained on my own for PP. I will admit Cajun is definitely dominant towards other dogs, his body language says "I'm the man, you are not" and I know his body language sets other dogs off because it is dominant, but on walks he doesn't display this body language until the other dog barks, then his head and tail go up and he "prances" past, even though he doesn't look at them, his eyes are on me.

I do correct his dominant behavior when it comes to some dogs, dogs I know will be aggressive, or older dogs that he might hurt if he jumps to put his paws on their back or hindquarters. I usually have no problems with dogs he is around often or all the time. I haven't had any issues since last Sunday evening.

I don't want to diminish his dominant behavior too much as he is a very confident dog, I don't want to knock him down a peg or two. I currently don't compete with him but will be next year when he is closer to 3 years. After his hips have been cleared I hope to CH. him in at least one of 4 registries. He is currently registered NKC and I will be registering him with the UKC, ARBA, and ABA if his hips clear, then I hope to get his TE, BST, and WST from WABA.

He has quite a year ahead of him, that's why I was so concerned and want to know if either I have done something wrong in his training or what I need to do. For though he seems back to normal now, I'm still watching.

If I should be completely discouraging all dominant behavior I don't know how much I would be willing to do that, but if someone with experience in PPD training can give me a list of reasons and protocol to follow I will consider it more. It just seems to me, and I may be wrong, that for him to be discouraged from any dominant behavior at all would take away from his confidence level and ability to work, or I would definitely have stopped it a long time ago Again, my theory may be way off but I have noticed that a dog dominant over anything (aside from the handler/owner) is more confident and resilient than a dog at the bottom of the totem pole.

Thanks for your insight

Did you have a background that prepared you to train PPD's?

I have been around them almost my whole life, my family knowing a lot of police officers and having military in the family that had working GSDs, my aunt and uncle used to breed working GSDs way back when. I have been "training" dogs since I was 12, little stuff I won't attempt to boast vast experience but I have trained dogs of various breeds for myself and my family, 2 CDX dogs, one Rottweiler one Am. Staff. I attended schutzhund competitions as a spectator with a friend I had in Wisconsin that owned a dog that was competing(Though he did not train or handle it, he was the $$ not the care) and asked a million questions of random trainers.

I did a lot of reasearch online, read everything I could on this site though I didn't have the resources to purchase the DVDs I wanted. I spent a lot of money on equipment, which I should have waited to purchase until after I'd gone through all the info but I jumped the gun a bit.

I hope to attend the Tom Rose School next year to learn as much as possible because I want to be a professional trainer, have as far back as I can remember.

I hope it was not naive or ignorant of me to train a dog myself without direct assistance, but I felt I was ready to give it a shot. Though I won't be training any other dogs until after I'm completed the Professional course I hope to attend.

IMO there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever in allowing your PP dog to express dominance towards other dogs, if anything it will encourage bad behavior that will come back and bite you. You want your dog “dog neutral”.

Hi Jennifer

When I said that it may take weeks, months, or even years to recover from this, I was referring to dog aggression. Once he has been attacked he will usually feel the need to defend himself on his own. He may think that he had better attack before the other dog attacks him.

Any yes, I feel that dogs should be neutral to other dogs. Not wanting to play but not wanting to fight.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.