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
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
