<< I don't know that we think so differently. :) ...>>

No maybe not, I'm sure there are many things we would agree on :)

De sensitising etc doesn't mean backing off or the dog "winning" if it growls. It  works on the dog's emotions - and growling is done because of an emotion, whatever that is.
If you remove the emotion, at a deep, root level, you remove the need for the dog to ever growl.
I feel, as do many others who work with dogs, that this is the best way to go for safety and everything else.

Something else that is always at the back of my mind is health - owners cannnot always tell if their dog is unwell. HYpothyroid can lead to an aggressive dog, but the owner would have no idea that there was something wrong with their dog. In a similar vein, I know of a dog who was growling and behaving badly in classes, and it was punished - it was taken to another person who sent the owner to the vet who confirmed the dog had a brain tumour :(

This is a rare occurence, but its not the only dog i know of who has been diagnosed with a brain tumour causing aggression - I guess we could go on forever discussing this, :) .... :P

Neither of us are going to change our minds though ;)

Lindsay
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Yes I think we will have to agree to disagree on how to handle a dog growling over its food. As far as I am concerned it was quite straightforward and he was simply warning me to get away from his dinner. He may also have been having a bad hair day but despite decades of owning a sizeable pack of dogs I don't pretend to know how I would deal with their emotions at a deep root level. I've always felt that dogs understand us rather better than we will ever understand them.:)

This boy was in the peak of health but I do agree that with a temperement change you have to think about health. By chance I actually owned another IW that had aggressive episodes a brian tumour. But her behaviour was quite different and it wasn't a case of a growl in some understandable situation like food guarding. She was her normal affectionate self most of the time but occassionally had what were probably seizures during which she attacked the nearest living thing without warning. Obviously she wasn't smacked  as she didn't know what she was doing, though in a last ditch attempt to save her while she was being investigated neurologically she was seen by a behaviourist. Unfortuantely the definitive diagnosis had to be made at autopsy as everyone including the behaviourist agreed that she had become too dangerous. It was very sad.

It's really sad to hear of that Jas, I'm sorry.

Lindsay
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I don't buy the dog being allowed to eat his dinner in pace stuff either Jas. Dogs are put to sleep in Battersea for it, heh. Its just too dangerous to allow a dog to growl while eating. You may leave a dog in peace but you may have a friend around with a child one day, that wants to give the dog a quick pat while its eating. It doesn't know the child, has not attactment to her and so may not refine from biteing.  A growl is a warning of "I will bite you if you don't stop", it can never be acceptable.

Sorry Becks, i'd just like to know how you know for a fact that Battersea do or dont put their dogs to sleep for resource gaurding ?

Because I was told by the staff when we had to give up our dog (not my present dog!), that she couldn't be rehomed as she food guards. They put her to sleep.

That's the point, becks! ;) A warning is great - to omit the warning and go straight to the bite is disastrous.

I think more the point is to get the dog to love you being around its food bowl, than to say "good dog" when it growls. A food gauarders food should be spread over the floor to make it harder to guard, then you should keep going up to the dog with something better than its food. That useualy helps.

Becks, where have you got the idea that you praise a dog (because saying "Good dog" is praising it for what it's doing) for food guarding? Nobody's suggested that! People are merely saying it's not necessarily wise to punish a dog for showing an emotion ...

I'm glad someone agrees with me. :) I'm quite shocked by some things that have been said on this forum recently and not just the 'allow a dog to have its dinner in peace' stuff. We have also had threads saying that it is unfair to put food within a dog's reach. Whatever happened to teaching the dog not to steal?

As simple tests (have you been watching 'Child of our Time' over the years?) have shown that you can't leave a child of 4 years old alone with a sweet on the table and expect it to leave it, even when it's been told it mustn't touch, I feel it's unfair to expect a dog ignore its instincts more than an intelligent child. ;)

My dogs must be brighter than a 4yo child then, because they rarely (I can't say never) steal. And that state of affair was achieved without smacking. :) Teaching not to steal is a necessity with hounds whose heads are higher than the work surfaces. It isn't just a case of them snitching a biscuit off the coffee table. Temptation is always at mouth level and so I couldn't have them in the kitchen at all if they stole.

My god these posts getting mixed up are giving me a headache! Why can't the owners of this site get a phpbb forum! The posts never mix up! :(

http://www.phpbb.com/
I used to own a Rammstein site and used phpbb, it was prefect!

Jas, I can totally see where you are coming from. I like the sound of you :) Not backwards thinking, just a nice balance of ideas (some old and lots new).  A dog must never learn how to scare or threaten you. Some dogs can be bullies and once they know what scares you carry on with it. Like dogs that chase and mount people when allowed to run free on their own which happened to me as a teenager.  I was scared to death! The dog clearly learned what fun it was to scare people. Dogs can be morons just like us humans too. So same with growling at you for some reason, they learn it works too.

Aany dog may learn that growling works - but many of us believe that if you stop the growling, rather than work on desensitising etc,  far worse may follow, and is it worth the risk? As for example, my everyday case of the GSD at the local club who was prevented from growling and later bit a waitress with no warning whatsoever.

He had been prevented from growling by punishment and so when he felt threatened, went straight in to the stranger he felt was approaching him.

He was made dangerous by what his owners and more specifically the trainers did - they worked on stopping the symptoms, not the cause.

I like Jas too :) but don't agree with her :P and we've agreed to disagree which is good, we've both had our say.

Lindsay
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And you seem very nice too Lindsay so i'll agree with Jas and agree to disagree with you :p

The thing is, Becks, no-one has suggested that if a dog growls at someone when it is eating that you should just accept it.

Some people are saying that, on the whole it's better to let a dog eat in peace and others are saying no you need to be able to touch them etc.  However, the first group are also saying that if you have one that does have a problem with people being around its food, then TRAIN out that problem.

If the chosen route  of the second group is smacking, I do not agree that the dog thinks, as has been suggested, "Oh, that growling I just did was entirely unacceptable, that's why I got smacked and in future I must tolerate people around my food."  No-one knows for sure but I think it's more likely the dog will conclude the growling was unrewarding, so it will try something different next time - who knows what it will choose?

PS Post in wrong place, as usual!

Posts are always getting in the wrong place on here :P

Becks, you mention dogs being put to sleep at Battersea for growling. I am  certain you are wrong - Battersea have a special rehabilitation unit with trainers and behaviourists who work with the dogs to get them out into homes again. They also work with highly respected people such as Angela Stockdale for aggression etc, so to say dogs are put to sleep at Battersea for growling isn't correct.

If anything the staff there support the kind of training that many on here would recommend for a growling dog :) and they support it because it works and gets dogs back out in homes.

RE the child and food guarding - experience has shown, (not my experience necessarily but that of people who work al the time, day in and day out, with problem dogs) that if a dog has been smacked by say, an adult owner, it may or may not growl  at a child. Often, a dog that has been punished physically will be OK with the person who did that(not alwys by a long shot, many get far worse!) but, behave far worse with other people - either in the family or outside it.

I believe the only sure way to avoid this, is to TRAIN the dog to be happy and to even look forward to humans around its food :)

If you go to any experienced behaviourist who has had success in dealing with aggressive dogs, you will almost always find that problems such as food aggression have been exacerbated by people getting physical with the dog. Yes, there are people like Jas who know their dogs, whose dogs are basically fairly placid natured, who will not react unfavourably to a smack, but this is not the case generally I am afraid.

Lindsay
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Lindsay
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"If you go to any experienced behaviourist who has had success in dealing with aggressive dogs, you will almost always find that problems such as food aggression have been exacerbated by people getting physical with the dog."

Is this really true? You said earlier that 25 years ago you yourself would have dealt with food guarding with a smack. 25 years ago just about everyone would have done the same. Are there really more aggressive dogs around now than there were 25 years ago? Its my impression that there are more people having problems with things like food guarding now. Even now I know many people who would deal with a dog growling when patted while eating exactly the same way I did, but I don't know of a single dog that became worse because of a smack.

Yes, it is true - unfortunately. I actually tend to agree in part with what you say re. more dog problems. I think there are many reasons for this -one definitely being that most people are living a fairly fast life these days, and often both adults are wage earners. I feel too many dogs are in the wrong homes with no stimulation or outlet... a big bugbear of mine. I feel that even over the past 2 decades lives have changed considerably - 25 years ago, peeps were walking kids and dogs to school, mum might then take dog home and do other things or work part time .. now, mum dashes off to drop kids off before she goes to work, hardly has any time for the dog and neither does the other adult who left even earlier...I'm stereotyping a bit but lots of households are like this now.

Did you see "Its me or the dog?" :)

If you did, it showed i feel an excellent example of why people just should not be advised to smack - the owners had no idea and were, yes, causing their Dallie to become aggressive because of the smacking. It's this kind of thing/way that most peeps would use, and that's exactly what behaviourists tend to see.

It was a very interesting programme - there's a Siberian husky on Wednesday's episode.

Lindsay
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I'd agree with what you say about more dogs lacking stimulation, especailly when people choose a live-wire breed when both adults are working. I also think there are more people who have not been brought up with a dog for whom getting a puppy is a whole new strange world. And my particular bug-bear, more people who treat their dogs as infants. No matter how small the package a dog is still a dog, not an infant human.

I've intended to watch the Stillwell programme every week since it has been discussed here but have forgotten each time. :) I'll try again to catch it tomorrow.

I have recently been asked if I would like to rehome a dog which had been food guarding.  Its owners went straight down the punishment route and it then started biting them when they tried to take things away from it.

I know it's only one dog and it's only anecdotal - but I can answer yes to that question.

There's also the Dalmatian featured on "It's me or the dog."  However silly people might decide the programme is, that dog had been smacked and it hadn't helped.

Snap (pardon the pun) Lindsay.

:P

Lindsay
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"Becks, you mention dogs being put to sleep at Battersea for growling. I am  certain you are wrong - Battersea have a special rehabilitation unit with trainers and behaviourists who work with the dogs to get them out into homes again. They also work with highly respected people such as Angela Stockdale for aggression etc, so to say dogs are put to sleep at Battersea for growling isn't correct.

If anything the staff there support the kind of training that many on here would recommend for a growling dog  and they support it because it works and gets dogs back out in homes."

Sorry Lindsey not meaning to pinch your words :-)
This is why i was asking about this, maybe some years ago this might have been the case but not recently, i think you'll find that "most" good rescues have booster blocks or rehab systems to be able to work with dogs for something as " simple" as food gaurding & other issues, restraint, other forms of aggression & fear.
Dogs DONT only have growling in their communication box they can/do/will show other behaviors to show that they are uncomfortable about things but many people do not read a dog, cant read a dog or just dont want too. As i said in a previous post i reward a growl, NOT the behavior for why that growl would happen that would be addressed seperately but again i would much rather a dog communicate with me when it feels uneasy than to go straight in & bite ! A dog that has been punished for giving warning signals can & will no longer use them & then you have NO warning of a bite about to happen.

They do have such a facility Stanley but I would doubt very much that they have the resources to rehabilitate every dog that passes through.  Given that a very high percentage of the dogs gifted in will have behavoural problems I would not be surprised if there is not considerable triage taken on them limiting it to those with a strong possibility of early and effective rehabilitation.

I suspect you may be correct Isabel, I'm not sure. I do know they had a very controversial shelter person visit their Old Windsor branch (as it was), and she seemed to show a couple of dogs that were really rather difficult but still at the home ...as well as many that were really nice dogs :)

Lindsay
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I'd say that most dogs that pass through a rescue shelter will have behavioral problems, unfortunately not ALL dogs can be rehabilitated :-(
I used to work at the windsor annex years ago ( god i feel old lol ) & have bumped into a couple of the rehab staff from Battersea on a couple of courses at work so i do know that they try their best.
Like any & every rescue shelter, they have to stay within their limitations, experiance & costs. Also from a public liability aspect a shelter can not rehome a dog that could be dangerous .....
That said "most" problems can be worked on & can be managed, given the right training & the right home.

becks, you seem to be trying to have it both ways..

On your other thread you seem to be arguing that dominance exists between humans and dogs, and you say that you think dogs see humans as just upright, hairless dogs. 

I disagree with this, but if we for the sake of argument, accept it just for a second....

It directly contradicts the idea of smacking a dog.  Do dogs smack each other?  Are you relating to the dog as another dog would?  No!

How do dogs use their paws on each other?  In play - they jump on each other, they paw each other.  Therefore it's highly unlikely that your dog understands a. what a smack means (they've done something wrong) and b. what caused it (what it was they did wrong).  All they will know is that it hurt and it looked like you were trying to play, which is a very confusing and contradictory thing.

How do dogs discipline other dogs?  With their teeth - they bite, or they snarl....  Unless you're willing to bite your dog (unadvisable) you can't relate to it as another dog would, in a physical way.  All you're doing is hurting your dog without it learning anything as a result...

I think you should have a read of an excellent book called The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson - it might help you to learn how dogs learn and why these two ways of thinking (dominance/smacking) are wrong...

onetwothree, if you read my post carefully you would see that i WASN'T FOR  SMACKING NECESSARILY. Just that I was questioning it. Its good to question things, it makes one more delighted. I was just being truthful that I have smacked dogs in the past and may do in the future. I wasn't saying it was the right thing to do. If you notice I said that I saw it as a fault on the part of an owner that doesn't know what can be done otherwise. However it doesn't make the owner bad, its just some times it really is hard to "speak" to a dog. You can't thing of any other way and it *may* happen. And wondering how best to tell a dog it had done wrong, how people here do so and what relationships people have with their dogs. I love to study people and I love to boarden my understanding of dogs.

There are some excellent explanations of why smacking doesn't work here, I must say!  I could've done with some of these a year back when i was trying to explain to my friend why smacking ehr dobe would never work - luckily she's stopped anyway :)

Personally I don't do it unless it's an emergency - not to actively try and teach the dog, but to stop them doing whatever they're doing at that precise moment.  I only ever smack my dobe if he's trying to kill a) one of my cats and is about to get away from me (pulling the lead out of my hand or tying me up with it, for example), or b) is running around with a live rabbit that's screaming its head off, and not killing it.  It's purely a shock thing, gives me a chance to get him back under control, or to grab the rabbit and run!!

Seriously though, I have seen from my failed attempts to bring the same dog up with smacking as a discipline, just how wrong it can go - he was a total bumhole, very badly behaved until I stopped smacking him.  my preferred method now is a slight raise of voice at the most, and if he really pushes his luck - say, if he's trying to scrounge a bit of kebab from dad and just won't back off (the usual scenario) - he gets shut in another room for a while.  he's such a people dog that shutting him away from us is a very effective way of dealing with him - he's too in-your-face to just be ignored!

And becks, kudos on the curiosity, the world wouldn't be what it is without it!

I think I agree with Jas's ideas about this book, and the review thread she put in which I have read. In general I would be wary of any training method which is billed as 'the only way to train a dog' - different methods and mixtures of methods will work with different dogs, and at different times. I'm willing to give most things a go! :-)

Jean Donaldson is a real hands on lady though, she's been to the Uk several times with good old Ian Dunbar. She's saved countless dogs her way... that must count for something? :) I've emailed her for guidance and advice once or twice, she's not averse at all to being flexible. As a positive trainer, you can still use any amount of different ways to do things. It's good to be flexible.

Lindsay
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I don't smack my dogs for several reasons.

a) because dogs do not "understand" smacking, ie body contact can be an invitation to play and in a lot of breeds it would be pointless as their "pain" threshold is so high.
b) never needed to
c) I try never to be that out of control that I feel the need to do that.

I do, however, quite often smack myself for doing stupid things and expecting my dogs to understand things that a) I have never taught them or b) before they have been adequately trained.

I didn't smack my children despite the fact that I could reason with them and explain the so-called  "benefit" of a good whacking. So for sure I don't smack my dog who is a dog and not a human with human reasoning powers! None of us are saints and for sure, who hasn't considered a quick smack under certain circumstances? But I still maintain that smacking is mainly evidence that WE have lost control of a situation and I also think that physical aggression tends to encourage an aggressive response. As others have said, dogs don't recognise a smack as anything even vaguely dog-like behaviour. But they do feel threatened by corporal punishment from humans and a threatened dog can easily lose trust and respect.

But as I say, none of us are perfect and neither are our dogs! So this is my personal opinion only.

How do you dicipline a dog? I use the loud voice approach , yelling at the top of my lungs if i have to. Works , and they don't become shy towards me or my hands :D

Why do you need to yell at your dogs?  Dogs hear very well. :-)

I've had modest success with a distinct change of tone - "NO bite!", say, and a look that would turn a pup to stone! Yelling at the top of your voice tends, in my experience, to have the effect of the dog learning "selective" deafness all the quicker and the owner to lose their voice all the more quickly.

Speaking personally, I would be extremely peed off if, after having my dinner put in front of me, when I was hungry, it was taken away and I was given something to distract me instead !    I have never seen the necessity for this "food training" - my dogs have to sit (or stand) before they get their meal - and then they are rewarded with their food.   They feel quite secure with this - and on the odd occassion when the wrong one has been given the wrong bowl, I've just swapped them over.   To take away a "reward" once given, negates the idea of rewarding.

In my mind, the dogs should be as free and relaxed to enjoy their food as I am to enjoy mine - and in over 40 years of owning dogs, I have followed this routine - children have been specifically instructed NOT to interrupt the dogs whilst they are eating - although I must say, it hasn't stopped the dogs on various occasions leaving their meals to come & lick a small child's face (yeugh!!!!), then go back to their bowls.

Margot

Perhaps that's why I've never read many books on training dogs - I read almost everything else, but somehow - I get the feeling that we are being subject to "social engineering" of dogs, which has been used no advantage in sociology.

Margot

It's the tone of voice , duh of course they can hear very well they can also sense your anger.

This is incredibly interesting and spookily timed...
Whilst on holiday Ta-ri snapped at my son in the back seat of the car. Despite spending nearly all his journeys in the boot of the jeep I had stupidly allowed him up in the back seat as I was in a rush and it was quicker. When we stopped at the golf club to collect my OH and son, my son jumped up into the back seat and Tari just snapped at his face. They have often shared this seat before and I have no idea why he did it. I shouted at him incredibly loudly and got him out of the car and back into the boot and obviously have not allowed it since.
Now for the point... last week I was in Kwik Fit waiting for a repair when a police dog handler came in to wait while his van had a flat tyre dealt with. I took the opportunity to mention this incident to him and see what he thought. BIG MISTAKE!!!!
His exact response was... if it was mine I would have punched him  in the head...HARD.
No recognition that Ta-ri was probably resource guarding HIS back seat.
No suggestion that maybe I should ensure that this situation is not repeated.

I was shocked by his response and I am fully aware that obviously I have to always be on guard for a repeat of this situation but even I can see that to have followed his solution would have only made this awful situation worse.
Any comments

Yes, I will put my hand up :D

I have regained some faith in police dog handling and there are some truly excellent handlers in the police force -however there are obviously those who still advocate harsh handling and whose first thought is to punish. This kind of thinking is what led to police dog Acer being killed by his handler in the Essex incident.

Acer was growling at his handler, (after reading about the training he was enduring, I am not surprised!) and was if i remember rightly, helicoptered on a checkchain. He then growled and was then kicked...it was the kicking that ruptured his liver and he either died or was put to sleep, i can't remember.

There is a Lay Visitor's Animal Welfare Scheme operating since this incident, I keep meaning to look into what it entails. I believe things are improving, there are some forces such as Devon and Cornwall who use a minimum of force (they have said they use reward based methods) but there are others who are very definitely still in the dark ages. Kicking a dog is plain dangerous.

Lindsay
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This link has been very interesting and stirred up some emotive discussion.  I am a bit confused though about the growling.  Taking food from my dog is not a problem, I have always done it, not often, but when I do it's usually to add some tasty scraps from our plates so she's learnt that me taking her bowl for a few seconds is a good thing.  However, she does growl during tug games, not all the time but often.  It's never seemed a threatening growl and I have never worried about it so should I?

No, don't worry about growling then. It's just the same as children squealing when they're running around at breaktime in school.
:)

Spot om JG the growling sound during play is subtly different from the warning growling My puppy also does a grunting noise when we play tuggie :D

So, Manny, what do you yell at them for?  As in, what behaviour do you yell at them for?  How does getting angry improve things?

Hi Becks

I never smack Kiera, I can't see the point, I take the view that behaviour breeds behaviour - the same as in humans so telling her she's a bad girl in a firm voice and giving her the 'evil eye' seems to do the trick.  Sometimes we put her in the kitchen for 5 minutes if we've told her off and she still keeps misbehaving - or we either take her for a walk or feed her as I'd say 99 times out of a 100 she's being bad to get attention because she's either bored or needs the loo or is hungry.

I love her way way way too much to smack her.  I have seen my OH tap her on the nose from time to time though and she immediately starts to nip as she thinks it's a game - if someone tapped me on the nose I'd probably nip too!! ;)