Hello,
We need your advice in regards to dog parks, we have read that we need to socialize our puppy with other dogs and people .Max is 11 months German Shepherd Dog, since he was 4 months we have taking him to three different dog parks so he can be ok around dogs, and he has been fine playing with everybody with no problem, now that he just turn 11 months we have noticed him more agressive with the dogs there, it seems that he feels he is a big guy and 2 weeks ago he was agressive to a dog and we left the park, we left pass by 2 weeks and went yersterday to a different park, there were 5 dogs medium size, max got his hair up and growled at them we told him in a severe tone , no, no, he stopped but then he barked at them when they will try to get close to him and growled again and got very close to one dog with his teeth, to us he was attacking the other dog, we inmediately told him, no, no, bad dog, and left.
He gets around people ok, he sees a lot of them since he is in the office with us and travel with us, every where we go, but it seems that he is not doing ok with dogs in the parks. He knows the basic obedience since he was 5 months, but we have enrolled to a obedience class so he can get some manners around dogs, when we are in the class he is ok, once he gets to the class he gets a little beat excited to see the dogs, but he acts very good for the hour we stay there. Also, we never seen a German Sherpherd in the three diff. parks we have gone, is this the reason the normally people don't take their GSD to the parks?. Max has 4 acres to play around with us, we exercise, play, groom him daily and love him a lot, so really the reason of taking him to the parks is so he can be ok "socialize" around other dogs.
Please advice how can we control this behavior or what did we do wrong?
Thank you for your time

Same thing here at 9mths with my rhodesian ridgeback - the behaviourist told us it is a male thing. Whilst our dog is very gentle in termperament - the male hormone burst of adolscence sent him into overdrive - he became totally focussed on looking at teh ladies , and showed early signs - like your little lad that he would not tolerate other male dogs on his patch, he also strated to become protective of me, at that special time of the month!

WE had three months of it form 6-9mths - tried to avoid castration - but clearly it was making us and Blaze miserable, we couldn't enjoy going out with him. So we made the decision to have him castrated - it takes a while for the hormones to settle too - no overnight quick fix , but by about 13mths I have to say he is becoming an adorable well behaved dog . Some would argue that the behaviour settles down naturally after adolscence anyway , but not all dogs are the same - like people , some of them do not have such strong hormone drives. Also being a large breed I did not want to leave it for learnt behaviour to establish, as it's much harder to correct this once it is there - and having a ridgeback run to confront other dogs or people in my opinion wasn't acceptable .

However you have a large male breed and all dogs do play quite roughly at times - especially two boys - think abouit two teenagers fronting up to each other to see who is the coolest! It looks much worse though when the dogs are big, but sometimes it is just playing - remember dogs do communicate through body language and facial expressions. Our dog is so gentle now, but when he meets another young male dog you can almost see them both trying to be bruisers - showing off - trying to outmanover and out run each other. At this stage we try not to get concerned but keep our eye on what is going on. Its like children play fighting, but you have to be the one to call them to continue for a walk, before one of them accidentally hurts the other one or they become over excited and it becomes fighting not playing.

Speak to your vet, trainer or behaviourist and if you are not intending to breed consider castration as an option - it will save a lot of stress, anxiety and confusion in your dogs life.

As for not seeing other GSD or large breeds , like with other guarding breeds , we have to accept that some people allow the behaviour you are seeing to continue and get to the stage where the dog can not be taken into public places basically becasue it is unmanageable - many walk their dogs in the middle of the night as a result - I know two people in my area that do this, and it needn't get to this stage!

WE see about GSD's, Rotties, Dobes , Great Danes and Irish Wolf hounds on our walk - all are very well behaved. However larger breeds do carry an image with them which we can not ignore - and as a result can attract irresponsible owners just looking for a new accessory - trouble is with a larger breed this can be downright dangerous.

Fortunately the fact that you are concerned about the behaviour is good - be patient and make a decision which best suits you and your dog

Hope it goes well

Nikki

It's the teenage stage, like young men who seem to want to fight every thing in sight, and like young men they do grow out of it. It is part of his nature to sort out his place in the scheme of things. Within the home it goes on and hardly ever leads to anything more that posturing and a lot of noise. But other people in the park do not understand so it is a case of lead walking or making sure the other dog is a bitch.

If you can manage a reliable recall then you only have to worry about other dogs aproaching you.

I am glad I saw this post, my 11 month springer has just started this going from an adorable dog to a barky thing when we see other dogs, we though it was us but this explains it, when he is away from other dogs he goes back to being that well behaved adorable boy again.
How long does this phase go on for, is it a long time.

Hi there,

we have been having similar problems with our 18 month old staffie, soem people on this site mentioned a book called 'The Dog Listener' by Jan Fennel- which i have got stuck into and it explains a lot about why. I also spoke to a dog aggression specialist who said that some dogs are just protective and ive set to work on my staff with a halti trainer which works like a muzzel when the dog, pulls or lunges it then shuts the month (which would also stop the growling/barking). It gives me a lot more confidence knowing he cant actually hurt any other dogs but he is also not being restrained all the time - which is then giving him the oppotunity to play nicely and me the control if he doesn't.

THe trainer though did tell me the dog will hate it at first (which he does) and you will take about a week to get used to it. But im on day three and last niyte me & winston had the best walk ever!

Kelli

Hello Everybody,
We thank you so much for all your comments, it is so nice to know there is someone out there that goes through the same things than us and with their experience they can help us to understand better our "max".