Sheesh! They would use it as punishment? And these guys are “experts?”
Aggression in any dog needs to be dealt with and fast. I’ve been reading Cesar Millan’s book The Dog Whisperer and I heartily recommend it. Milllan specializes in rehabilitating aggressive dogs. But don’t rely on a book alone. You MUST seek professional dog training help from a qualified professional, before someone gets injured. And neuter that boy! It really does help.
Millan puts forth that most dogs need more exercise and recommends at least 2 hours a day – 2 1 hour walks for high energy dogs such as yours. He also recommends giving the dog a “job” such as carrying a backpack on his walks – he can carry his own water bottles, for instance.
It sounds like your Rottie mix believes he is the alpha in the pack. He needs to be shown that he is not – not by alpha rolling (a REALLY bad idea) – but by every day showing through your body language, your attitude, your consistent and positive behavior, that YOU are in charge. YOU own the door he wants to bolt from by going through first and blocking his path until you give permission. In all likelihood, he’s not telling the stranger he has dominance over them – he’s telling them that he’s the boss of this joint, and he’s protecting his peeps (that would be you) and he’ll tear them a new one if anyone gets out of line.
Anyway, please get the dog professional help. The trainer (they don’t really train the dog, they train YOU to train the dog) can help you work on the aggression. And pick up a copy of the book. I’ve had dogs all my life (including the one currently snoozing and farting at my feet, who happens to be part Pit Bull and part Lab) and Millan’s book put a bunch of things in perspective for me. It’s not gospel on dogs, but it is insightful.
As everyone has suggested neutering him will probably help some. Getting good, professional help from an intelligent behaviourist will help a lot and should be your first port of call.
But what might help as well is trying to think things through from your dog’s point of view. Rather than characterising your dog as wanting power over the people he’s going after, I’d wonder if your dog is either afraid or confused.
He’s in a new environment, with lots of new people and things and he doesn’t really understand how it all works. If he’s part Rottweiler he’s likely got a fairly high pack drive, which means might naturally be territorial and suspicious of strangers. And now he’s in an environment where he’s got strangers coming and going on his territory.
Keeping him chained probably won’t help, chaining a dog can tend to increase any aggressive tendencies. A better soloution would be a secure pen or fencing which keeps him away from other people.
Your dog might be an alpha dog who is trying to make head of the pack, but he might just as well be a young dog, confused by a new environment who doesn’t have clear boundaries for his behaviour. I’ve owned a few dogs in my time, and in my experience the truly dominant dog is actually pretty rare. What people characterise as dominance is more often a result of confusion and the lack of coherent leadership.
Patricia McConnell’s “The Other End of the Leash” is a good book for people who want to understand dogs better, and she’s a behaviourist who works with aggressive dogs. http://www.dogsbestfriendtraining.com/consults.php
Do a search on the web for the "Nothing in Life is Free (NILF) program for dogs, it’s basically behaviour modification for dogs: http://www.dogsbestfriendtraining.com/consults.php
And really, on reflection, what **porcupine ** said.
I agree it’s ridiculous, but they’re also the ones who popularized it, and I believe that’s what most dog people think of when they hear “alpha roll.” The woman who teaches the classes I go to, and also writes the behavior column for the AKC Gazette, and has Master’s in psychology, does not like their methods at all.
Re: Casar Milan - he gets a few things right (dog should get more exercise, treat the dog like a dog, not a person), but his methods of dealing with fearful dogs by flooding the dog with whatever scares them are irresponsible and do not fix the problem, but are in fact likely to make the problem worse.
Also I agree with blackhobyah’s point - the dog may be fear-agressive, not dominance-aggressive. Only an in-person (in-dog?) evaluation is going to be able to pin down the problem.
Yeah. Neutering makes a big difference. But if it doesn’t improve the situation to the degree you’d like it to, I’d get rid of him. And by that, I think I’d probably have him put down. It’s not like you can give an aggressive dog away to someone. He probably won’t take to them, and you’re passing off a problem that could turn deadly. It’s not something I’d want to have on my conscience. Sorry. It’s a bad situation.
Just getting some basic obedience training would probably help this dog. If he’s decided he’s alpha, that’s usually because he perceives a leadership vacuum from his humans. So he steps up to fill the void.
Get back in charge. Take him to classes. Have him neutered. Make him work (sit, lie down, anything) for any food or treats.
Right now, he’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. You don’t want him ever to bite anyone.
The book by the Monks of New Skete is wonderful.
But I personally wouldn’t keep the dog, unless I had a TON of free time to train him properly.
And DEFINITELY don’t take him to the dog park …
He is too big and too strong and would be impossible to control if he attacked someone. Would YOU be able to pull him off and make him stop?
Honestly, and I am a dog lover, I wouldn’t keep a dangerous animal. I also wouldn’t be comfortable visiting someone with a dog like yours.
Just MHO.
Wow thanks. There are a lot of really good replies here. I will try to address as many as I can.
Being bored could have a lot to do with it. Before our move a few months ago, he was around other dogs and was free to roam wherever he wanted. Now that we have moved, he can’t roam free because of traffic, and roads and livestock near us that he likes to “play” with. Now that he is chained up, he isn’t getting nearly the amount of exercise he once was.
I will definately look into a local dog expert, but since I am from a really small town (5000 people) I doubt there is something here, but I am sure there’s something in our are a few towns away that we can look into.
He is kind of hit and miss when other animals have strayed in our area. He will bark and bark until they get close, and then he is fine with them and wants to smell them. To my knowledge the only time he has ever fought with another animal is when one was “messing around” with his sister several months ago. Once again though, I don’t think we have any dog parks in our are.
We are prepared to do this because the alternative is really only putting him to sleep so we understand that he needs it.
That’s really good advice that we plan to implement.
We will be getting him neutered. Nobody, except maybe a random bitch in heat :D, would want to breed with him anyway since he’s a mut. And we have no intentions of purposedly breeding him.
I am working on convincing people of this. There are just a lot of little wrong messages we have been sending him. For instance, he always sits next to us on the furniture or bed when we are there. This, of course, elevates his status. Also things we thought were perfectly harmless and cute like when he comes in every night we wrestle with himnor play tug with a rope or teddy bear. We won’t be doing this anymore.
I will be personally seeing to it that he gets plenty of exercise at the park from now on. I think this could be a large contributor to his recent misbehavior. Putting myself in his shoes, if I was locked up all day I would have to find something to do to entertain myself. This is really his only avenue.
He is the only animal we have here so he doesn’t really guard food now. When he was a real young pup around his brothers and sisters he used to though. For intance, if there was one bowl down he would lay in the middle of it so no one else could get any and then he would eat. Or he would hurry and eat his as fast as he could and then try to run and steal his sister’s food since she was a slow eater. We would move him out of the feeding area and not allow him to do it, but he would try if he thought he could get away with it.
We won’t be doing an alpha-roll or anything like that.
All of that sounds very likely. He wasn’t nearly this aggressive and misbehaved prior to the new move. Now he’s in a completely new environment, completely different lifestyle, and surrounded by many people he doesn’t recognize. Especially considering that he has been as good as gold to everyone in our immediate family whom he is surrounded by everyday. It’s the strangers that he doesn’t see on a daily basis that get him riled up.
So in short, we are going to get him neutered, look around for obedience training in our area, and reinforce the fact that we are in control and not him. We are going to do this by not allowing him to sit on the same level as us on beds and furniture. We will be leading him around when we are walking him. We will go out of doors before him. When he starts barking at people, we are going to lay him down on his side (not alpha-roll) and firmly tell him no. When he wants food or a treat, he has to get down for it: either by sitting or laying down. He will be getting plenty of exercise.
We are going to try this for a few weeks and if we don’t see any improvement, we will have to let him go and learn what we can from this. He is a lawsuit waiting to happen if we continue to let him act this way. Another poster mentioned whether we could pull him off or not if he did actually attack, I firmly believe that my brothers and me could, but I don’t know about my mom. And no one should be put in that situation anyways where anyone would have to.
Thanks for all the help and please excuse all of the typos I am sure I made.
You are obviously very committed to this dog, which I admire.
I would suggest one other thing - a muzzle whenever he is out in public - even when he’s on a leash.
Your phrase “a lawsuit waiting to happen” worries me.
I would urge you to take every single precaution you can think of to make sure this dog is never out of control. Weigh the sadness your family would feel if you put him down, against the heartbreak this dog could cause for other families.
Good luck.
I also wanted to recommend the book “Surviving Your Dog’s Adolescence” by Carol Lea Benjamin. She discusses a lot of non-confrontational ways to teach your dog that you’re the leader. I don’t agree with everything she says, but there’s a lot of good stuff in this book. It’s also written with a sense of humor, and has very cute drawings. 
I know I am going to get a lot of shit for this, and I know there are exceptions, but when I worked as a vet tech, Rottweilers were our most problematic dogs. We almost never had problems with pit bulls (total sweethearts, usually) or any other “aggressive” breeds (and this was in an area where there were tons of pits, many of who’s owners were irresponsible morons), but about 75% of our Rottie patients were a PITA, even those with excellent, responsible owners who’s other dogs were not aggressive. Just sayin’. They do tend to be dominant.
nmbnmbnm: I really think it is a problem leaving this (or any other dog, for that matter) chained up outdoors. You should not do this. Ever. Even when you get him neutered (very good idea, btw), it is going to take a while for those hormones to get out of his system. Probably months. I would much rather see you crate train him, if you don’t trust him indoors, than just leave him out there as a public hazard. It is dangerous to both him and to other members of your community. If he is in a crate in the house (only when he can’t be directly supervised, of course) he is going to be much better socialized and more a member of the family than otherwise. Also you know he can’t eat your neighbors.
It does sound like you are committed to this dog, and I really do think that is great. But know that this isn’t a minor problem, and he really could kill someone. I would not leave him unsupervised outdoors for a single minute in his current state, and probably never.
I agree. Even if your dog was as gentle as a pussycat, I wouldn’t recommend it. Dogs slip their chains all the time. (One of my childhood dogs was hit by a car because of this.) What if another dog finds its way into your yard and attacks him, or some neighborhood shithead decides that’d it’d be a real hoot to torment him?* What if he manages to catch and eat a diseased critter? What if he gets tangled and chokes? What if he dumps his water bowl and overheats?
Renee is right: get him a good, strong crate and keep him locked up indoors until you can trust him to be free indoors. (And if you need them, we can all give you pointers on effective crate training.)
- Or steal him. My area has a huge problem with dogs being stolen for dog fighting. A Rottie would be a real prize for them, but even little dogs are stolen to be used for “training.”
Also, there’s some evidence that chaining dogs up outside INCREASES aggression.
Doesn’t keeping dogs chained also make them more aggressive compared to dogs who are merely in fenced in?
To me it sounds like the problem here is not the dog but the way his behavior is not being controlled. It sounds like he needs stronger boundaries and more firm leadership. Also, if he is “going nuts” around strangers that could mean he feels threatened–strong leadership from a human may make him feel more secure and protected. Letting him be in the vicinity of strangers without his owner there to be in control is probably a mistake at this point.
(I’m a volunteer for Guide Dogs for the Blind and one thing their trainers emphasize is that all interactions with strangers need to be on your terms, not the dog’s. With my guide-dog-in-training puppy I had him sit at my side–even when he was on leash–before allowing people or other dogs to approach him. My puppy had some of the problems that your dog does when he had been allowed unsupervised interactions with strangers passing by our house.)
I agree with the suggestion of a halti when you take him for walks–if you have more control of his head he will be less able to hurt someone (if that’s what you’re worried about.)
Unneutered dogs have the largest risk of biting, so hopefully you can get that taken care of soon. Also, as others have suggested, if you can get a professional involved that will help you learn how to encourage the correct behavior. When I was raising my puppy it really helped me to have a professional trainer observing everything I was doing [wrong] and giving me advice.
One more “guide dog training” trick which would be useful for any challenging dog is this: Make sure that you are in control of the dog’s playtime. For example, if you are playing tug-of-war, make sure the dog is under your control before bringing out the toy (have him sit, for example). When you’re done playing, tell the dog “That’s enough” and take the toy away. Just like with food, the dog should get what he wants after he does what you ask him to do (“sit” or “lie down,” etc.)
Another important thing is to make sure you’re not giving him signals which make him nervous. Dogs are intensely attuned to body language. If you tense up when you see a stranger coming, afraid of what the dog is going to do, he will take note of it and can interpret it as you being afraid of the stranger and act to “protect” you. Make a concerted effort to remain calm and relaxed when a stranger approaches. Praise the dog continutally while he’s not barking, and give big smiles. Make your voice light and playful. Greet the stranger causually and walk on as if you don’t have a care in the world.
This unconcious sending of messages is often why dog owners think their dogs don’t like certain groups of people or individuals. The owner has most likely at one point been tense around them, which made the dog start the behavior and then the owner is bervous the next time they come in contact with a member of that group that the dog will act the same way. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Carry with you a bottle of water* with a spray nozzle attatched. If the dog does start barking depite your efforts to show them that this is not a “dangerous” situation, spray the dog in the face. Likely, it will startle him into momentary silence. Praise him and give him a chewy treat which will take a moment to consume. Tell him what a nice dog he is while he’s eating it. The next time a stranger walks by, pre-emptively give him a treat before he has a chance to start barking. After a while, he’ll get the idea that seeing a stranger is a Good Thing which leads to praise and rewards as long as he’s quiet.
Once you feel you can trust him more, have friends of yours that he hasn’t met meet you in the park to give him treats. It reinforces the idea of meeting strangers as being a positive experience. Greet the “stranger” with exaggerated friendliness, and show that you’re very happy to have them around.
*Plain tap water. DO NOT add anything to the water which may sting the dog’s eyes.
Thanks for all of the advice. I think most of his problems is really our own ignorance. We thought if we just loved him and treated him nice everything would be okay. We simply didn’t set up enough boundaries for him.