Ok so most of the regular readers will know I have a rescue BT who is aggressive with animals (any sort) and who I am trying my hardest with. Tonight I had a caller at the door (expected) and copper is fine with people calling. However, when I answered the door I did not have him on a lead (should I have - and please give me your comments here). The dog had no problem with the caller but as we stood on the doorstep a big dog (looked like a alsation/collie cross) bounded up off the lead out of nowhere. I could not see anyone in charge of it and I called my own dog in but it was too late. My visitor had (understandably) left the gate open and Copper ran out and attacked. The result was an unpleasant incident where I had to wade in, grab my dog, get my hand snapped at (by my own dog) and we have now fallen out big style. I ordered my dog to his bed, and he went immediately, but my visitor told me I had a problem dog (in the nicest way - he was concerned about the snap to my hand). Now my dog is inching his way across the floor to try to get to me - I assume to make amends - I'm having none of it and it makes me feel horrible because I know its not really all his fault but I can't make him think I accept that behaviour. What shall I do. When do you forgive bad behaviour???? Please advise.

CG

To be honest with you, if more than 5 minutes has passed after the event, Copper will have completely forgotten about it, so any further "punishment" will only confuse and stress him.

Rightly or wrongly, I 'forgive' bad behaviour as soon as it stops, and the dog is being good again. That sounds like now.
:)

thank you JG - he's on the sofa with me now and I feel happy and I think he does too :0)

CG

:)

Hi

I have just read your message and my advice is as jeangenie said, I would also recommend calling your local vet or pet behaviourist (we had to get one in for our lab) it cost us 50 pounds but was so worth it. Good luck

Michelle:)

:D So glad you're friends again.

In your boys mind he was only warning the other dog to keep away from his human. I have a dog who would do the same given half a chance and that's after 9 years of training! I think you'll get more used to preventing incidents like this and they will arise less frequently.

I hope you can persevere as you obviously love eachother!

If the visitor, hadn't of left the gate open,
If the dog had been on a lead,
If the loose dog was not straying the steets,
All ifs', just an aciident this one in my opinion. Saying that, I would never allow my dogs to the front door with me, you are then increasing the likelihood of an accident ten fold.
Dawn.

My old girl was exactly the same. I have told you about her before in a previous post.
Bess dog (BT) was so bad we had to have the front door on a chain. We would see who the visitor was, ask them to wait a second while we got bess into the back yard with the back door shut and then invite them in. All a lot of messing about but it was necessary to stop her flying out after anything on four legs.
We couldn't ever let her off the lead, she was embarrasing in the vets waiting room screaching abd yapping at other dogs and she would have a go at anyhing. Her attack on a Rottie was her best move. The Rottie stood there and looked at her while she crumpled into a pathetic heap, i think she did a sort of canine feint!

Its just a case of your being very very careful. Try not to be too hard on him, he's finally found someone to love and who loves him, don't give him too much reason to fall out with you. He was doing his job, protecting his home and his new mummy who he loves and respects.
Good luck with him in the future
Caz xxx

I'm sure a good behaviourist/trainer will be able to help. You might not cure the problem completely, but surely any improvement is of benefit. :) As it is, you have a catch 22 situation - he cant meet dogs as he goes for them, so he will never learn how to behave properly towards them. Good luck.

How's your hand ? Hope you both feel better today after your fright last night. Just to encourage you, we know a smashing beardiexBC, a rescue whose dog aggression problems are now behind him. He goes round our place off lead, walks with Morse on lead and even plays with Morse now and again. His owners have trained him to return to them when he gets stressed and they always put him back on lead if another dog approaches until they check it out and decide whether to release him to play or not. :)

hi.....as a pro trainer i must say we need to be realistic...when people start getting hurt these are more than red flags....you are trying to give the dog human thought process if he were so aware as to be concerned about your hand he would realize you also don't want dogs attackedand the whole night disrupted by his violence,and to say he's protecting his ower is ridiculus,protecting from what,?? a major law suit??...if this were a human who was violently attacking another human i wonder if people would minimize it.......please get some professional help with him if he's a rescue he has history you are unaware of,this will not be an isolated incident,i like dogs who have a more 'live and let live' mentality..don'tmake excuses for him...get him in a boot camp for dogs!!!

<< get him in a boot camp for dogs ...>>

I disagree strongly.

A dobe who was in our rehab group was put in a boot camp when his owner got fed up. He came back with worse problems, in fact it probably ruined him for life. He is now with Angela Stockdale who is trying to put the poor boy back together.

Lindsay

My suggestion first off would be to train the dog that he is not allowed near the door unless he has a leash on and is by your side. This is very easy to do. All my dogs are trained that all the doors to the outside are not to be approached whether someone rings the door bell or I am talking with the door open. All the dogs sit at the top of the stairs or in the door way of the ajoining room. That way I never have to worry about bolting. In the begining of training this keep a leash atached to a wall or stairs or something that is close enough to the door that when the door bell rings you can tie him to it and then put him in a down stay. Then answer the door.

As for the attacking it sounds like to me that he thinks he is a boss. So I would stop letting him up on furniture and such. I would allow no barking at me or jumping up. And when I feed him I would make him go into a down stay first and then I would place his food on the floor and walk a few feet away. I would make him wait a minute or two with me looking like I am doing something else before he could eat. All of these things will help him to lose his dominance.

Years ago when i was a teenager, our family dog, a lab X whippet, did the same thing - ran out when mum opened the door and "attacked" a dog walking past - a neighbour's Borzoi :rolleyes:

Any dog will do this unless it has been exceptionally well socialised and adores other dogs and is used to them coming to the house or walking past.

I think you cannot blame the dog, and i agree you can't deicde "when" to forgive him, it has to be straight away as he doesn't think like a human :) Next time,(with the advantage of good ol' hindsight!) put him in another room when you answer the door as there is always a chance he will want to run out. My dog gets put behind the child gate in our lounge and runs to look out the window at our visitors, this works well :)

You do need help from a good and experienced trainer or behaviourist who will be able to help you with all these little training problelsm and maybe help with the dog problem a bit too. Somebreeds will always be a bit more "feisty" with strange dogs than others but i am sure i remember there was an element of fear in your dog's actions? Try to get help, you will feel much better :)

Lindsay

sounds like the part about biting your hand is a bit of a worry,
if he can get away with doing this how else is he going to know its wrong ? he must have been aggressive towards dogs for a long time and now he knows he can do it with humans what's next..
that was my thought when i read this but i didn't reply because i know that alot of you say ignore this behavior , keep the animal away from what he/she is being aggressive towards .but if they get loose still anything could happen so it doesn't really sort the problem it just delays it. sometimes this forum makes you feel you cant say what you think im glad someone else has the same thoughts on dogs as i do.
professional help(trainer) is required with a dog like this. after all it could end up with the dog being put to sleep if it gets out of hand and things need to be weighed up with the best in mind for both the dog and what may happen. i honistly think ignoreing is like watching a kid peel your wall paper off without saying anything ,only you can replace wall paper. plz keep in mind what im trying to say
And no i don't think any dog will go attacking other animals . i could of let any of my dogs out and i know they wouldn't attack.they dont have much aggresivness in them ,even my old staff was well behaved towards the cats. attacking other animals is a mental problem in the animal ,can even be bred into them.
its like saying all animals attack each other in the wild realistically only a few animals attack there own kind. like wise its the same as humans who kill other humans ,
But i belive that if you have a animal with attack in them you can train them not to . my cats will never hurt anyone and thats cats! its because i used to say no and put them out the door. its about training.

Thanks to all who replied and I have read all your posts (I'm glad people have different opinions on this!) and taken every point on board. I suspect I am too soft with Copper and let him get away with too much in the house (lying on the furniture etc), although he responds to all commands in the house and does what he's told. It's just outside its a problem. I agree he needs professional training - in fact he was owned by a guy that trained animals before I took him so I suppose if he had been an "easy dog" he wouldn't be with me now. I am budgeting to cover the costs of training and I shall get him in somewhere soon. I won't give up on him as we love each other's company and he can be the "model pet". At least now he seems to realise when he has done the wrong thing which is a definite improvement. Thanks again for all your help.

CG

I doubt if you are toos soft with him, esp. if he was crawling towards you earlier.

The hand thing was probably an accident, it's really best not to try and get a dgo out of a fight for this reason (hard i know).

I always feel dogs and owners do best learning together - if you send them away, you don't know what will happen to them and you won't learn how to train yourself.

Training will always improve obedience - a dog trained to a very high degree will always be better behaved than one not trained much - but it may not help if your dog has serious issues with other dogs :( If that is the case, you need a behaviourist or a trainer with behavioural experience to help IMHO :)

Have fun, hope it all goes well. Maybe invest in John Fisher#s "Why Does My Dog...?" from www.crosskeysbooks.com, it 's a great help

Lindsay

Im glad you decided to go think about training it would really be a shame if he did get too out of hand and he had to be put down, im sure they will be able to help you work on him better , good luck and let us know how you get on with him.

Thanks to all - I know he sounds difficult and sometimes he is but never never never would he be put down for bad behaviour. I mean I would never think he was just a pain and get him put down. I muzzle him in public usually so that there is no chance of him biting anyone. I agree this was just a one off incident from which I'll learn. I never physically smack him although I have been known to shout which more than likely doesn't help. I'm learning a lot and you're all helping! Training is definitely needed and I'll let you know how I get on. You'll all be sooooo jealous when I have the ideal dog!!!

CG

Just read your message and all of the replies. I agree with Kelly Mccoy (not in the boot camp sense) but in that it is dangerous to belittle aggresive behaviour, handled wrong, the problem will escalate. Please seek the advice of a local behaviourist, they are worth the money spent. No matter how much we try to 'humanise' dogs, they are still dogs and do not understand life in the same way that humans do. The more you learn to understand a dogs natural behaviour, the more you learn how it is sometimes us humans (although with best intentions) who actually cause most canine problems. Also on a practical note, could you not use a baby gate to prevent your dog getting to the front door? We had a dog once who was not aggressive, but was seriously scatty, so we used a baby gate to keep her out of the hallway whilst we opened the front door. Hope your hand feels better.

this isn't going to solve the problem,but if you go to wilko's you can get a spring you can put on the gate so as soon as it's opened it swings shut again,that would stop him running out into the road and getting hit or running out to attack other dogs.That way he will be able to meet and greet visitors/callers
vicky xxx

Thanks for your advice - the dog is honestly great with people, the only problem I had was at the very moment the caller came and left the gate open, another dog appeared. My dog is a magnet for other dogs! I will get a spring for my gate and that will solve that problem. I live in a cul de sac so there is hardly any traffic here, the risk of the dog being run over is minimal but I agree I don't want him running all over the street if the postman leaves the gate open. I am usually very careful with him. I have booked Copper into the kennels when I am on holiday and they do dog training classes. I am going to ask if Cops can be assessed while I am away and then I shall take some training with him when I return as I really intend to crack this.

CG

Where are you based? Maybe someone will know a good trainer or behaviourist near you.
If you go down the behaviourist route (I strongly suggest that you do) then you need to be referred by your vet. Anyone who will see you without a referral is probably a bit dodgy, and is likely to be someone who has done a correspondence course in dog behaviour or something similar. You need someone with lots of practical experience and a very in depth academic knowledge.

Good luck,
Jo