Hi Alison,
The biggest thing that stuck out in your post was that sometimes you might get a little scared of the dog, that's not good. You can't fake being in charge, dogs are smart this way. Have you tried to locate a good trainer near you? I love my dogs but if one growled at me for real, it would get really ugly. If i were you i'd find a good trainer to meet you and elvis and give you advice on how to proceed. Get a trainer and not a stupid "behaviourist". There's probably people on this board that know of a good trainer near you,
Good Luck with elvis,
AL

Your description of his behavior at the fenceline really cements my picture of him as a sharp dog, not necessarily as a dominant one. I do think that the hormones are definitely playing a factor - and having a female in heat very nearby also.

The turkey bone incident does sound like a trigger, on top of the hormones.

I would work with him on the hands = food, to reverse the hands = food taken away. Unless you gave him food immediately, like I mean within a matter of seconds after taking the bone, then the food he got was not associated with the taking away of that turkey bone.

Also the incident as a pup when you took him from his food for growling could have caused the initial association with people not always being great to have around during feeding time. Half the time being fed from hands and occassionally being stressed out and bodily taken away from his food by the same human causes confusion, and makes future relapses into defending food more likely. The dog becomes nervous because it is unsure what you are going to do.

When he vocalizes for being picked up... is it aggressive/growling or is it nervous/yelping? Either way it sounds defensive in nature and also makes me think he is on the sharp side. That and his growling/snapping if he is accidentaly stepped on.

The tail injury ... that is a tough one. He could be holding his tail up because it is more comfortable for him. Hard to tell without seeing him in action.

 Quote: Alison Voore

His eyes and ears do most of the talking. His head position too. He holds his head away and looks out of the corner of his eyes or even out the top of his eye lids if direct. He lowers his head slightly and stiffness his neck and corners of his mouth. No teeth baring. His ears tilt slightly back, but erect and stiff. The ear towards me is leaned my way. He usually stops panting and closes his mouth, but not completely. Then he growls and moves his mouth quickly towards me. The growl and movement is instant and quick- like a fear biter but the body language doesn’t show what I would call nervousness. (No licking of lips, not low tail.) No snapping noises, no teeth bared, and then he immediately goes back to what he’s doing. He may place his ears flat and wag his tail low and quick afterwards and eat his food.

He also raises all the hair on his back and gets very aggressive looking when the neighbors leave in their car and he paces the wood fence and sounds like he’s trying to kill someone. He absolutely ignores me and will dodge me to fence fight with the car. I can’t catch him.

If I correct him, then he gets in a down position and acts somewhat confused. But not defensive or fearful-yet not overly submissive either. His body language is not apologetic but rather like he doesn’t know why he got in trouble. As soon as I move on or walk, then he’s back to normal wagging happy dog trying to jump on me and play bite. (these are two behaviors he seems to never quit doing unless I constantly nag at him.)

Alison
Your post was very thorough, I'm sure you will get some good replies.
Here are my 2 cents. If I'm wrong on anything I'm sure the experienced trainers will set me right.

If you leave a long line on him you can catch him and stop the car chasing.

When you correct him and he looks confused, he may be. Work on making your timing exact. If you catch him in the act correct him, if he stops just before you were going to correct him it's too late. Work at giving him lots of positive interactions with you.

From how you describe his growling and snapping it sounds like fear or insecurity rather than aggressive, being that he immediately goes into submissive posturing. His reaction to the pushy kids is the same body language he is giving you.

I'm sure it would help your situation if you could get a good trainer to observe your interactions and give you feed back and help.

Maybe feeding him in his crate would ease some of the food angst.

I will go back to feeding him from my hands but here's my question now...
What do I do if he shows any type of posturing or growling when I feed him by hand?
Do I verbally correct to get him to back off or do I go straight to a dominant collar correction if I need to?

Can someone explain how the whole situation should go?

I would agree that he is somewhat sharp now that I have gotten some feedback. He freaking barks at everything when he wants to chase it and kill it. It's not a nervous bark- it's in drive and he fence fights with the neighbors car and repeatedly gets the skunk that lives under our house pissed and get's sprayed (like 5 times in the last two months).

The growl when I pick him up is a defensive, low growl and he fights to get free then looks at me real serious like I annoyed him. He does this when he's excited and in drive and I am trying to get control of him.

He is great when he is on a long line. He obeys stays and is perfect but if offleash he ignores. I literally can never have him offleash, but with usnig the ecollar I hope to give him more freedom.

I will seek the help of a trainer if neeed be. I am a profesional trainer of pet dogs, but I do not have experience with this type of possible non-dominance related aggression. I want to use this as a learning experience. I am not afraid when working with clients dogs, but because of my emotional attachments to Elvis, I am upset emotionally to why he would want to bite me. But I have to let that go and train him regardless of my feelings being hurt. How silly huh?

Alison,
Why do you think feeding the dog by hand is a good thing? What, he doesn't know how to eat out of a dish? Just put the damn food down for the dog and let him be. If he eats it fine, if he doesn't, he's not hungry. It's that simple.
Skunk? It is a pet of yours? Why is it allowed to live under the house? Why not a porcupine? Jeez, trap the stupid animal and move it out of town for crying out loud.
You pick him up? A 12 month old Mal? Is he hurt? You pick him up because he is out of control? Oh yes this is a good idea. So tell, how is the ob. going?
You can't have him off lead, well join the crowd. More walks, more ob., more interaction between owner and dog=happy family.


If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy