my bitch puepa is an 8 month old EBT x lhasa apso. she was kennel bred and unhandeled right up to the time i got her at 6 weeks.
she has always had a strong charactor.she is very dominant toweards other dogs, always has been. she plays nicely with dogs outside but on her terrotory she has to be the boss. she has been very well socilised. i have socialised her from the day she came to me. i also have another young bitch around the same age, who i got 2 weeks after getting puepa. she is a lab x collie and i have no problems with her at all. both have been brought up the same way.
puepa is tottaly unphased by everything apart from one thing. that is strangers.

i have a 3 year old girl with cerebral palsy and puepa is brillient with her, brillient with my cats my other animals. if i have strangers into the house she will bark to begn with ., but will then settle down and we have no problems.

when we go out its a diffrent story. she goes mad at certain people. it is tottaly random.

she will be on the lead and she will clock someone and start to growl quietly. if they back off she stops and is fine again. however if they make eye contact with her she bares her teeth , growls very loudly and snaps on the end of her lead.

i ignore the behaviour and distract her with a toy. and she will walk away but if the person is still there the whole thign happens all over again. her body posture is that her head is held low and her tail is between her legs. she avoids making eye contact with the person she is growling at.

today on the way hoem a neighbour got chatting to me. i had the dogs. his grandaughter came over and went to fuss my dogs. my other bitch lupin was all waggy tail and happy. but puepa started up again. i warned the girl not to touch puepa as she did nto liek strangers. she did nto listen went to grab puepa and she lunged at the girl.

the girl ran off screaming. the grandad stood there watching the whole time and told his grandaughter that it was her fault for winding the dog up.

however it has come to a point now where i am worried this is going to get worse. puepa has never had any bad experiences with people, or strangers. as a pup i used to sit on park benches with her meeting people. and took her on the bus, into town. all the socialisation skills.
she is a very moody dog. very serious, she is stuborn and very smart.

what can i do?

my girls act similar to what you have described, (apart from the the snapping at children bit)
and they are EBT!! i
EBT x Lhasa Apso
strange combination
Who's the Daddy??

Donna :-) ( curious )

well i saw an advert in the local papers for english bull terrier cross puppies. so i went to have a look. the mother was a kC reg EBT. very nice looking. she had 2 bitches left. i chose puepa as she was a bit larger, and i preferred her colouring. the father was a lhasa apso that was boarding with thm while there owners were away. it got to the EBT bitch at the end of her season.

they did not terminate the pregnancy as they had planned to send her to a stud.

that is how i got puepa.

to be honest she is better with kids than she is with adult strangers.

today was the first time she had acted snappy with a kid. however the kid was tormenting her. and i had asked them to stop it on more than one occasion.
puepa was having a scratch and the kid crept up behind her and went to touch her. and puepa jumped up and lunged at the girl.

Hi Wolfwoman,

with the best will in the world, lunging defensively is inappropriate behaviour - I think you were very fortunate that the guardian of the child accepted it so well.  With her odd mix of breeds you may well have some very peculiar traits in her character that would not apply to a pure bred dog of either breed - it's impossible for anyone to know for sure without first hand ability to examine her and assess her temperament.

The fact that you say she is better with kids than adult strangers is not really in Puepa's favour - an adult may well be more likely to report you, even if no damage was actually done.

The thing is if she has now done this often enough to concern you, you will have no leg to stand on legally should a formal complaint be made.  For your own sake, the safety of the general public and, ultimately the dog itself, please don't let her be in the company of non-family members at all without being muzzled and seek professional opinion on her.

regards, Teri

The first thing you should do IMO is muzzle her when out or even indoors too if you have strangers / visitors of which she is wary - a dog that will almost certainly snap is a dangerous dog.

You should consider an immediate vet appraisal first to establish if there is an underlying medical cause for this behaviour and, should that be ruled out, secondly to have a referral to a professional behaviourist.

While advising how to overcome certain behaviours on the internet is often straightforward, those that include any form of aggression or are of a random nature really need professional intervention where the dog is assessed one to one.

I'm sorry that you are again having problems - but I don't think your solutions are best sought on here.

best wishes, Teri :)

Have to agree with Teri there but would also suggest that you start walking them separately and work on the nervous dog more.  They are probably totally bonded with each other and need to bond with you more.

actually. to be honest, they compete for my attention all the time. i can take one(and regularly do) out with out the other no problems.

puepa has always been very independant..

they sleep apart, do things apart. and when i do take them out and let them off there leads they tend to do things apart to.

puepa is more of a people person in general, where my other bitch prefers the company of other dogs.

I am at a loss to suggest anything else then short of seeing the behaviour for myself.  What does your behaviourist friend think about it?

she has been like it since she finished her first season. so i have been told it could be down to her hormones being all over the place.
but also another thing mentioned was that she feels she needs to protect me against strangers. her body language always looks submissive and scared when she does it.

How long has she been like this? around this age youngsters can have a second Fear Response stage (usually happens around 6 months - 11 months and may only last for a few days or weeks, or may last longer. It does happen due to hormonal changes :) ). 
As you say she was well socialised I would suggest this second fear stage is a possibility as the youngster may be afraid of things it previously was not, also of course will be likely displaying fearful bodylanguage.

If it is this, it's best to be normal and not to show worry yourself, also not allow her to be crowded by well meaning people. I'd suggest getting people to drop tasty morsels on the floor for her without any eye contact or demands on her...you may find this works quickly and you can very slowly build on it. If in any doubt though I'd be in contact with someone who  uses reward based methods to help you both as any kind of "aggression" is not something that can really be helped via the internet :)

Lindsay
x

Hello Wolfwoman

Just to say, dogs don't need to have "bad experiences" with people to start showing this kind of defensive behaviour.  It can just be that, despite our best efforts, they haven't had sufficient positive experiences to be able to take some things in some contexts in their stride.

It makes matters worse when well meaning people you meet try to "coax them out of it", rather than giving them space and time to gain confidence.  I agree with the suggestions above and in the meantime, Puepa needs you to keep her out of situations that she cannot yet handle.

Best wishes. :-)