Dealing with dominance/aggression

[skKi]

I often tell myself I don't believe in labeling a dog as "dominant". I dislike most of the things people associate with the word and find the most commonly recommended training methods to deal with it are completely nonsensical and useless (eat before your dog eats, always walk through doors first, etc...). Lately I'm having a hard time denying that Zero is a very dominant male and it is starting to become problematic in our daily routines.

His bad behaviour is STRICTLY with other dogs -- he is an absolute dream with people of all kinds. He started posturing and growling at young, intact males first, but that was easily interrupted and redirected. It then progressed to any male that exhibited "young dog" energy and mentality which if wasn't caught immediately, he'd go from posturing, to growling to pinning the dog at the blink of an eye. Again, if caught early, you could interrupt and redirect to something more appropriate. This then progressed to any dog, male or female, exhibiting the same young behaviours and most definitely sparks scuffles if the dog is brave enough to stand up for itself.

It has gotten to the point where I can't walk him offleash with my other two boys if there's a chance we might run into other dogs as I most certainly do NOT want to harm anyone. He now approaches ANY new dog with stiff posture and a low growl even before he decides whether or not he needs to "deal" with the dog. He comes in looking for trouble.

I'm thinking at this point he would be considered aggressive to most, but I'm admittedly having a hard time accepting it. If he's OK with a dog, he LOVES them and will play blissfully until it's time to go, it's just the introduction that has potential to go terribly wrong, and it just so happens that any dog we meet while out and about is going to be a first introduction.

I don't know what I'm asking. Reading it all back to myself it's clear we need to see a behaviourist. Aside from living a life on leash, does anyone have any advice? Personal experiences? Lectures? Well wishes? Thanks.

 

[Dekka]

I wouldn't really call that dominance, but that is how some people use it.

Dekka is like this, its a lack of confidence, a truly dominant dog would be very relaxed around other dogs until there was something they wanted and the other dog wasn't giving it up. Its also a low threshold for 'rude' strangers.

What has worked for her is to teach her to relax around other dogs so she doesn't think its her job to make these offensive somewhat scary dogs run away.

 

[HayleyMarie]

Emme is the same way. Its what Kerri said as a lack of confidence. Emme is completly fine with stable, older dogs. But with younger, crazy dogs or dogs that are weaker she reacts to them. Either it being a growl or charging. She feels the need to stop whatever they are doing.

I've been working with trying to get her to pay attention to me when were around strange dogs and praising her when she does not react to them. Seems to be working so far.

 

[skKi]

Interesting -- I've never thought of it as a lack of confidence before. He just seems so antagonistic and OVERLY confident that it hadn't crossed my mind, but I can see how that makes sense.

In order to teach a dog to relax around other dogs, what would you recommend? He's very well-behaved on leash and doesn't react this way until face to face with the dog - we can walk by very uneventfully as long as the other dog doesn't pay much attention to us.

 

[HayleyMarie]

Can you use treats and when your dog looks at the other dog and does not react you give him a treat and lots of praise. Eventually he should get the message that when he acts relaxed around another dog he gets rewarded for it.

Thats what I did with Emme and its worked really well.

 

[Dekka]

The biggest 'aha' moment with Dekka was working through the 'look at it' exercises. At trials I would click (if I could) and reward for her calmly watching other dogs. It was handy because other dogs running agility, particularly frantic BC types would set her off even if not right near her.

In public it would have been harder, but not impossible. First I would teach him to focus on you, then teach him to look at what is upsetting him calmly.

Also don't let other dog's get in his face. Easier said then done, I know. Its even worse when your dog is adorable, seems well behaved and is only 11 inches tall. But you need to be his advocate, esp whilst he is learning. No dogs in face!

 

[skKi]

I think I have a good controlled area to practice this with him while he learns. I feel like this is quite similar to how I had to work on Pit when he went through practically 2 years of being terrified of everything. Exhausting... but possible! Thanks ladies

 

[Tazwell]

Fleetwood is almost exactly the same way. In some situations he would appear to some to be 'dominant,' but viewing every situation you can clearly see he's incredibly uncomfortable around unfamiliar dogs. Once he meets a dog, and befriends it, he's wonderful and okay with the bossiest of behavior. But when he meets an unfamiliar dog, he wants to posture and look bigger, growl if they're obnoxious and young. If they're old dogs he generally does okay, just acts very uncomfortable.

He goes to daycare every week, and he has NEVER reacted negatively there. There's just so many dogs that he has to shut up and deal with it. He always has to start in the small dog area, because he's too intimidated to go to the back with the big dogs!

We do a lot of LAT and ignoring exercises, so he's not reactive at a distance at all. When meeting dogs up close, I always let him go to the other dog first, when he's calm. If the other dog rushes him, he's always uncomfortable. Perhaps you could try that, too?

 

[milos_mommy]

LAT is great, and so is Click To Calm if you don't have it.

You can also try the premack principle to get him to be more focused on you and it will build his confidence and basically just teach him that when another dog is approaching, the right thing to do is to turn to you.

 

[skKi]

I was in the process of ordering Click to Calm when I realized I already own it and had completely forgotten about it.

I've started some of the exercises at work with Zero (tailored slightly so they can be performed while I'm actually working) and so far so good. We're at stage 1 where he gets rewarded for looking at dogs at a great distance and not reacting; he does very well with it.

In my frustration with the poor guy, I admit I had forgotten how much he loves working and how well he picks up on what we're doing when approached in a way he understands. I'm optimistic about the outcome.

 

[HayleyMarie]

I was in the process of ordering Click to Calm when I realized I already own it and had completely forgotten about it.

I've started some of the exercises at work with Zero (tailored slightly so they can be performed while I'm actually working) and so far so good. We're at stage 1 where he gets rewarded for looking at dogs at a great distance and not reacting; he does very well with it.

In my frustration with the poor guy, I admit I had forgotten how much he loves working and how well he picks up on what we're doing when approached in a way he understands. I'm optimistic about the outcome.

YAY!! Im so glad to hear that. You better keep us posted about his progress

 

[skKi]

Very belated update time!

Zero is more controllable at work now around dogs in the lobby. For the most part, he's not very interested in them and won't bother with the whole meeting thing if they don't try to approach him. Yay white dog!

In the great outdoors it's a different story. It's very difficult to find training buddies to help out with the process that is in click to calm. Of course, we started with dogs he knew (like Pit and Holden) and just rewarded Zero for not reacting to them walking by and smelling him - and we knew he wouldn't, but it's good practice. I'm finding we get ambushed by off leash dogs that set him off when I set out to work on him in public on a somewhat regular basis. This wasn't an issue where I lived before, but around here it seems acceptable for people to have roamers.

Occasionally he surprises me with EXTREME good behaviour, like this last weekend I went for a hike in the woods with 2 friends and my standard group of 4 dogs. Zero was on leash, as usual, and the rest were off. A man and his 4 shephard mixes approached us coming the opposite way while SCREAMING his head off at his dogs to come, down, whatever but they all came running towards us anyway. Pit ran and hid off of the trail, Navi ran back to her daddy and Holden trotted on his merry way as he does. They collided with Holden and all scuffled for about 30 seconds before I could grab him (wasn't quite sure if I could get in between them and not get bit by straying mouths, so it took me longer than it should have) and wait for the man to go away. The dogs kept following us for a while, disregarding their owner, but eventually left. All this time Zero just stood and watched and didn't try to get involved, which is absolutely amazing of him.

But I digress somewhat. As of now, I'm still trying to arrange for well-behaved dogs to assist in the outdoor training part. I'd like to start moving forward on this again instead of running into setbacks.