Problem:
Attack-related
aggression
Hallo
Shannon
During January I travelled to Cape Town with Spot, my
3 year old Dalmatian dog. One morning, while taking
him for a walk, a Rottweiler came running towards us
and was ready to attack. My dad started to hit the Rottie
with his walking stick while I sprayed both dogs with
pepper spray.
I must say, this was quite a traumatic experience for
us. I took him back home, cleaned his eyes, etc and
gave him some rescue remedy. He did not have any wounds
but was traumatized by the experience.
I have now noticed that when I take him for a walk at
the shows, he will be extremely agressive the moment
another male dog looks at him. I am now extremely tense
when I walk him at the shows and even stand at a distance
before we enter the ring.
I used to attend training with him up to the age of
12 months and thought that maybe I should go back for
some training so that he can learn to socialise again?
What do you suggest?
Once
Bitten Twice Shy
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Dear
Once Bitten Twice Shy
What
a pity that, due to someone else's irresponsibility,
you now have a problem! This is one of my personal bugbears
and in a perfect world the Rottweiler's owner would
be liable for the behavioural therapy now required to
improve your dog's behaviour.
When faced with the prospect of an imminent attack it
is very important not to overreact. In a lot of cases
the other dog will think twice about engaging in a fight
if the owner displays a calm, yet authoritative attitude.
I have even seen cases where dropping the lead (obviously
only in a safe environment) and walking away allows
the dogs to work through the situation without it escalating
to a fight. In one case I have seen a Rottweiler bitch
get loose and charge toward a Belgian Shepherd bitch.
I instructed the owner of the Belgian to drop the lead
and walk away. This was done and the two dogs sniffed
briefly and then returned to their owners.
Tensing on the lead primes your dog for reactive aggression,
which is what is happening now. It's easy for me to
tell you calm down and I know how difficult this is,
but it does have a significant effect.
Your dog needs to be desensitised to the presence of
other dogs. This can be achieved with time and patience.
He should be placed in the presence of other dogs at
a distance he feels comfortable. Walk him around and
ask for some basic behaviours to keep him busy. He can
be rewarded with treats and verbal praise, but take
care NOT to physically praise i.e. pet him. Petting
during desensitisation appears to disturb the learning
process, especially with regard to aggression related
cases. Keep these sessions short and let him succeed
- do not attempt to push his limits, as this will ultimately
backfire badly.
He may appear to take "two steps forward and then
one step back" but keep at it. This problem will
not resolve overnight. I would not recommend forcing
him into situation where he shows aggression and then
punishing the aggression. This will create mistrust
of you and reinforce his belief that other dogs are
dangerous.
Do not force your dog to socialise. So many people do
this without taking their dog's inherent desire to socialise
into account or how they may be feeling on any given
day. To put this in perspective consider this: I am
a normal person and quite enjoy the company of other
people. However, when I am out shopping I do not feel
it necessary to warmly greet every person I see! This
does not make me socially unacceptable. So, how come
we expect this of our dogs?
We should insist on socially acceptable behaviour in
the presence of other dogs and humans, but we should
not insist on abnormal extreme socialisation. So many
dogs have been pressured with this ridiculous task.
Your attitude is very important. Getting you to calm
down and project the behaviour you want is crucial to
your success. You need to visualise the behaviour you
want as opposed to visualising the behaviour you don't
want - not easy, but it changes the physical cues you
give the dog and thus enables him to learn another response
in a given situation.
TTouch can help a lot in these situations. I am not
an expert in the field of TTouch, but in my opinion
the novel physical touches almost seem to open the dog's
mind and body to the fact that he can behave differently
in a given situation. The touches also calm dogs (and
owners).
Take it slowly and allow your dog to feel that he has
a choice. Simply feeling that he can "control his
environment" may take the edge off and allow you
to systematically work through the problem. It may be
an idea to stop showing him and work on gently extending
his comfort zones in a training class through desensitisation
before putting him into the demanding show environment.
Best of luck
Shannon