hi all.

you might recall my discussing Tio, my dog with you when we first took him on and his nerves and aggression with dogs and new people.

well, since then we were working on it with him and to be honest for the most part he has dramatically improved. he will now ignore a strange dog (including ones being aggressive to him) or (and this rather stunned me!) try and play with them. he was also getting far better with strangers and was relaxing a lot.

but, as you also will probably know, i went for my bowel surgery a couple of months ago. during this time tio went back to mum and dads with me. we got home and since then his behaviour with me has gone down hill again to the extent of him snapping at a friend of mine and barking aggressively at another. this also happens if we meet strangers. but ONLY when he is with me, with liam he's fantastic.

anyway, we have an appointment with a behaviourist on sat morning (shall be posting after) to discuss things but i was wondering if

1) you had any suggestions what i might be doing wrong? i've never had a dog be like this before and he's treated as all the others. clearly though he needs something new.

could it be because i'm still not well and he's worried? i don't know.

and

2) what should i expect from and indeed require from the behaviourist? the guy spoke to my partner and mentioned it taking a year. apparently it was throw away and i assume he ment it could take up to but if not how does he know without meeting all of us?

anyway, its new territory and i would appreciate your knowledge and help

Do ensure the person you see is a member of an association such as the APBC http://www.apbc.org.uk/ or similar as then you can be sure you are on the right path :)
There are some excellent behaviourists who are not members of such an association but generally they tend to be.

It may be that he is the sort of dog who needs continual working with for some time and slips back otherwise....dogs can revert to a sort of default behaviour if stressed for example, and changes in the home, environment etc can be stressful. Could be many reasons though, even medical ones.

It may not be that you are doing anything "wrong" either, helping aggressive dogs is not easy esp. when they are nervous too :)

Good luck from me,

Lindsay
x

Poor you, it's a real worry when dogs like ours start acting up. The casual observer usually assumes it's all the fault of the 'butch' looking one, we just have to be so careful.

Maybe Tio might be being a bit protective of you at the moment if he's OK with your partner?  I would hope he will settle again now he's back with you, he was obviously doing so well before.

Hopefully the behaviourist will have some good ideas, a year sounds a long time though. Although I suppose if his methods work well it's probably something you would want to keep up indefinitely anyway.

Best of luck with Tio, will look forward to hearing about your session on Saturday.

> Maybe Tio might be being a bit protective of you at the moment if he's OK with your partner?  I would hope he will settle again now he's back with you, he was obviously doing so well before.
>

this is what i keep thinking. at the time i was about 6 weeks post op and was better but still a bit delicate. i was just so stunned as the first of my friends he was funny with he met when he was younger and he LOVED her.

and i am stunned at how fantastic he is when he's with liam, he tries to play with strange dogs and will happily speak to strangers. with me he barks and generally behaves fear aggressively.

anyway, he's coming tomorrow morning so we will see what he says.

well! that was all very encouraging :)

the behaviourist came this morning and was a lovely man.

he gave us some very helpful advice on areas of training that we need to tighten up on, he suggested better ways for visitor introduction. he is advocating having him neutered, which we were keen to have done already but didn't want to if it would effect his temp poorly.

hes also recommending a training class to keep (re)building his socialisation and brought us a DAP collar for him.

all in all he feels there is plenty to work on but nothing insurmountable.

That sounds hopeful then.  I've always found training classes good fun, the more active ones being the best for socialisation. Wonder how you will get on with the DAP collar - not something I've ever tried.

As for neutering, as long as Tio's fully grown it shouldn't affect his development adversely. Our oldest Dogue is a neutered boy and he's great. However he does grow a great woolly coat like a giant teddy! Oh and he's always hungry too :-(

Good luck, hope it all goes well :-)

Hope all goes well with Tio :-) you sound very positive and upbeat, good luck to you :-)

Astarte,

I wonder if since your surgery you smell rather different? I imagine you must be on medication and so on? It occurs to me that our smell profile is to a dog rather like a face is for human recognition. You went away and the next time your dog sees you you've got a different face.

Given that he was not confident anyhow this might have spooked him a bit around you? Dogs like this can be very sensitive to change can't they? It's as though for him he knows it's you but you've also changed and that might be scary. So it's not irrevocable but has set him back just when he was beginning to get a bit of confidence about life and his surroundings.

Just an idea.

what is a DAP collar?

> However he does grow a great woolly coat like a giant teddy!

oh, i hope not :( he's got a beautiful coat, loveliest shade of red i've ever seen on a bully, somewhere between a dogue colour and a darker red.

but he's coming up for 3 and is fully grown. he's not a terribly good eater anyway so a slightly improved appetite might relax me a bit lol

> I wonder if since your surgery you smell rather different? I imagine you must be on medication and so on? It occurs to me that our smell profile is to a dog rather like a face is for human recognition. You went away and the next time your dog sees you you've got a different face.
>
> Given that he was not confident anyhow this might have spooked him a bit around you? Dogs like this can be very sensitive to change can't they? It's as though for him he knows it's you but you've also changed and that might be scary. So it's not irrevocable but has set him back just when he was beginning to get a bit of confidence about life and his surroundings.
>
>

perhaps. he's still fine with me, still as lovey etc but is less confident of 'situations' with me. i'm hoping he is just protective because i'm post op and when i heal up completely he's be better. hopefully...

Dog Appeasing Pheremone- a bitch with pups releases a pheremone that keeps them calm and happy. its a synthesised version.

Hi,

It does sound as though it's a reaction to the op and a change in you that he is reacting to. He'll know you are slightly below par even by your movement and, of course, your smell. I would think that once you are totally healed, off medication and back to your old self, it'll all fall into place again. This is a temporary hiccup. A pain for you though after what sounds like a biggish op and just when you need life to be a bit easier and simpler.

> It does sound as though it's a reaction to the op and a change in you that he is reacting to. He'll know you are slightly below par even by your movement and, of course, your smell. I would think that once you are totally healed, off medication and back to your old self, it'll all fall into place again. This is a temporary hiccup. A pain for you though after what sounds like a biggish op and just when you need life to be a bit easier and simpler

he wasn't great before it with me (for example was always nervous when i took him on a walk) but not anywhere like now. hopefully as i improve so will he :) and we can work on everything.

thanks for the support guys! will keep you updated!