Hello,

I have been studying the posts and materials on this website for a while now and have found a great deal of useful info. I do have a question to pose and would like to give you a bit of background. My apologies if this is a bit long but I just want to provide some details. My dog Satchel is a 2 year-old mixed breed, Lab, Hound and probably Rottie. He is best described as looking like a minnie Rottie and stands about 19-20 inches. He has always been a fearful dog even as a pup. The litter was born in a high-kill southern shelter and the mom and pups were transported north to my friends rescue group. I have never had a puppy fear people like he did. I worked with him a great deal on this (and still do) by extensive people socialization too numerous to list. He is also obedience trained and is actually excellent at it. The bottom line is now he is neutral around people he does not know with no barking, grumbling, raised hackles, etc. He most likely will never be a dog who seeks attention from strangers and that’s OK by me. He is very polite.

He does have issues with some other dogs. From my observation of him over time I feel his aggression with other dogs is fear based. While on our walks he will stay by my side when others walk by with their dog with no lunging or snapping. He focuses very well on me and I use the “watch-me” command a lot. Other people always compliment us on how well we walk together. He is OK with close-up meetings with smaller dogs. For example at agility he is very relaxed around the small dogs if they should come close to him. I have to keep distance around the larger ones. I would like him to have a more neutral response to a calm, non-aggressive dog of any size at a closer distance. Since he is in agility he will be among various size dogs that will at times be near him. I do not care if he has other dogs to play with. We already have another dog at home that he adores. I just want a more neutral response. I guess my bottom line questions are 1)what is the best method to help him overcome this and 2)is the correction the same for an insecure/fearful dog showing inappropriate dog-aggression as for a dominant dog?

Thank you,
Mary Ellen

Mary, I don't believe that my dog is a fearful dog in most other circumstances, however, because of an attack from 3 other dogs at 6 months of age, he has determined not to be nice to any other dogs. Having said this, yesterday was the first time that I had him around other dogs in a class. Seeing two malinois' and one very large sable shepherd caused him to get a bit of an attitude. He immediately went into aggression mode. However, my trainer and I were both expecting this and were ready to deal with it. I was instructed to use the leash to bring him close to my hip, if he did not stop I was to draw him in tighter, kind of in front of me, if this did not work I was to start lifting up on the collar and continue to lift until he sat down. Let me just tell you that I was pretty much choking the dog out of breath before he sat down and looked up at me. At this point I was instructed to immediately loosen the leash around his neck. I was a little distraught the second time he flew off the handle when I was being told pull it up, pull it up! Wait till he sits! No sooner had I said, how can the dog sit when I'm hanging him in the air??!! When he sat down and shut up. That was the last time I had an issue with him that day. It only took two times but it worked. As far as the difference between fear and dominant aggression...well, I'm not sure their is a lot of difference when it comes to other dogs. My dog is aggressive because he FEARS other dogs getting the upper paw. I believe one is caused by another but I will refer that question to some of the others in the forum. All I can say is, this method worked for my VERY aggressive gsd in a very short period of time. We spent the rest of the class watching and learning. Levi came home more excited than I have ever seen him. Once he relaxed enough to WATCH what was going on, he actually learned something!

Interesting! Did you do it with a dominant dog collar? I'm just curious about what kind of prop did you use? How do you know that you have to wait until he sits before you let the collar get loose again? Your story is very cool!

Actually, no I didn't use a dominant dog collar. I had never even heard of them until someone from the forum told me about them. I will probably be investing in one soon though, now that I know about them. I have a prong but I have never had to use it. All I had on him was a harness and a choke collar which my trainer told me to use slowly, no yanking or jerking. It was just a matter of tightening the leash as he misbehaved. When you are pulling up on the collar the leash is getting tighter and tighter. As far as knowing when to sit. Well, really it was more a matter of when he stopped making eye contact with the other dog, when he chose to ignore the other dog or when he either looked up at me or sat down. Any of those would have warranted loosening the collar. Basically, you get to breathe and feel comfortable again when you aren't being a naughty dog, lol.

Hi Robbin,

Thanks for the info. I have seen the technique you discribed in our obedience class a while back so I know what you are talking about. I have a dominent dog training collar. We were given the training collar and lead as part of the course and it works well for us. I was fortunate to attend a class where the instructors not only taught the basic commands but also helped a great deal with pack type behavior problems. I guess I was not sure if the bad behavior was corrected differently for actions based on fear rather than dominence.

I'll have to work this method outside of my agility class since they won't allow us to have any training collar at all in agility. They would all probably freak out if they saw me correcting as you discribed.

Thanks again,
Mary Ellen

I have had to use a dominant dog collar. It works. I have also had to lift my dog's front feet up while he was being aggressive, when he didn't have a DD collar on. (It was a flat buckle collar). He did settle down on the buckle collar but it took longer. Pulling up or correcting with a prong collar while he was "worked up" made him turn on me. It is just like Ed says in his article. Mary, you should buy Ed's Dealing with Dominant and Aggressive dogs DVD. There is a lot of information in it that will help you.

From my understanding, there is no difference in corrections from dominant aggression and fear aggression. An aggressive move, is an aggressive move. The dog needs to learn to defer to your leadership whether he is fearful or dominant.

Hope this helps.

Good morning,

Thank you for your reply. I do use a dominent dog collar. I started with that collar when we first began obedience and I use it every day for our daily walks. My dog Satchel does not have any issues as we pass by dogs on leashes. If the other dog seems a bit out of control I just provide a greater distance. He has good focus on me. He did very well in obedience, held a down/sit-stay with the distractor dog walked around him with no problems. For a dog of random breeding he seems quite trainable. Thank you for reminding me that aggression is aggression no matter what the root of it is. I will buy the DVD on aggression for additional pointers.

The issue we have been having is in our agility class. Now that it is fall time the classes have moved inside. This means that at times dogs may be close to one another as we wait our turn to run. Satchel will just sit by me very nicely and has no problem with the smaller dogs if they approach him. He has a problem with larger dogs being too close to him especially the dobies. One of them has a tendancy to wander when the handler is not paying attention and likes to go right up into Satchel's face. That's when he goes ballistic. The approaching dog is not aggressive at all just curious. So, now when I see the dog approaching us I stand and tell the dobie "no" with my guy in a stay behind me. This is annoying but I guess it is a training experience.

I have asked the dobie handler to allow Satchel and I to do some heeling around them and we have had them in a down-stay within a couple feet of each other with no issues. It's the direct frontal approach that my guy has an issue with which I believe can be considered threatening in the dog-world.

Thanks again,

Mary Ellen