We’re having a little problem with my dog Raven. Shes usually a little sweety. She was raised by a biker who sold her to us because she: “Wasn’t mean enough”. She had no problem hanging out with Tika, the bikers other dog (a pitbull). She has had no problem with a friends dog Lady (laborador). Reciently we had friends over with 3 pugs. She couldn’t stand them. She just kept barking and biting at them. Now we have to care for another friends dog that has heart condition. Jeriko, the dog, is a golden retriever. We have to keep her for 10 days. Raven hates her. I’m wondering if its a color thing. But thats just me. Anyway, does anyone have advice on what to do? I have to keep Raven inside so she doesn’t go crazy on Jeriko. (although I don’t think Jeriko is being the nicest house-guest either)
Can anyone help?
Wearia
Sounds like she may be territorial and doesn’t like having other dogs in her house. You could try getting the dogs together at a park and seeing if they get along there.
A fawn or red dog may have been used as a bait dog in her fight training, (which might explain the retriever aggression) or maybe she’s responding to the small size of the pugs as part of a prey instinct. Here’s a fairly interesting website on aggression and pit bulls: www.angelfire.com/hj2/training1/agg.html
Beware, it’s an angelfire site with a sh*tload of popups, erk.
There are trainers out there who can work with your dog on the other dog aggressiveness, to a point.
For an immediate solution I would suggest getting muzzles for Jeriko and Raven, in case they manage to get together when you’re not close enough to stave off the fight frenzy before it really starts. Angry dogs that mean it can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time, and avoiding those huge vet bills and the guilt makes a $12/$24 muzzle investment and those pathetic “what? What was I doing, Mommy?” looks a small price in comparison.
A squirt gun is a popular inexpensive correction tool for whenever Raven is showing inappropriate behaviour, but it won’t (or, at least I’ve never seen a squirtgun correction faze a lab or retriever) work on the retriever, and it’s really not all that fair to have one-sided correction going on…not fair to expect your dog to back down first, because it just isn’t in her genes to back down from a challenge. But, then again life isn’t fair.
But isn’t that why we have pets, so unbridled coddling can go on without fear that the apple of your eye will end up on a clock tower somewhere?
Check out the Monks of New Skete’s dog training books; they rock.
Thanks for the tips. I’m going to get a squirt bottle right now. Unfortunately they already had a bit of a rumble and Jeriko was left with a cut right under her eye. I have Raven inside now and Jeriko is just laying on the porch. I keep getting sad eyes from Raven and I’m trying not to give in. Why do dogs have to be so damn cute? 
Wearia
I thought this post was about people…and as long as you seem happy with suggested solutions to your problem, let me hijack the post a bit:
I used to live in a house that had a new German Shepard dog, only a year old but abused by its previous owner (a Caucasian older man) and from the information we received, it had no prior contact with any other races.
In the house, it was all white guys, and this dog was a little scary no matter who came in the house, but after a minute, all was well and the dog would be your friend for life
EXCEPT any person of color!
This dog would go balistic if a black delivery guy, or a Hispanic friend or Asian neighbor would walk by.
It was both embarrassing and dangerous and we really didn’t know what caused it, or what to do about it. Nobody in the house was racist to any degree whatsoever, and we were at a loss what to do.
We tried everything, bringing (brave) friends of color over to the house and doing everything we could think of.
That dog was a “racist” until it died years later. The only thing that changed was that it wouldn’t go lunging at the person, but man would that dog growl and look mean, no matter how long that person was in the room, or how often they came over to visit.
I would never have thought such a thing was possible, but unless someone has an explaination, I believe that dog was somehow inherently racist!
By the way, I have had, and known, many other German Shepards that did not have this problem.
The Monks of New Skete talk about this in their books (they raise GSDs), I’ve also seen it mentioned in other puppy training books. Some breeds in particular really need to be socialised to accept different types of people and animals, for example: people in uniform, people of different races, children, babies (some dogs need to learn that though it smells like food and is small and helpless it is a creature to be respected) tall wo/men, short wo/men, whatever, dogs need to be socialised to understand that their owner is just an example of the species, not the only member while all other humans are lesser beings…
We tried to socialise our whippet to be used to children, but we didn’t really know any so we had to just do make do with the children we found roving wild, au pairs in tow, on the streets. But since all of them ignored the “soft, soft, gentle, gentle, scratch chest first then top of head” instructions and went straight to whap, whap, thwapping our dog on the top of his head, we now have a dog who wants at least fifteen feet between himself and any kids. Thankfully, he isn’t a fear biter.
Anyway, much of this socialisation I’ve been yapping about happens anyway, without needing to seek it out, just by the dog being part of your life. Some dogs only need extra work because of their breeding…bad habits bred in like so many medical conditions.
one of my friends is a professional dog trainer. one evening she tried to explain the philosophy behind the method of training that her organization uses. it’s based on positive reinforcement and negative punishment. according to this protocol, one must take-away something that the dog wants immediately after the dog performs an inappropriate action. she says that active methods of punishing the dog (water-spraying, spanking, et cetera) usually confuse the animal due to the short attention span and memory that most dogs have. then again, this is so outside-the-realm of anything that i much understand (i am so not a dog person).
in other news, i had a somewhat-racist 1/2 german shepard once. we’d raised her from puppyhood and had never behaved in a racist or otherwise-confrontational manner with people-of-colour in front of her. somehow she just got extremely defensive and protective every time a dark-complexioned person came near the house. she was such a friendly dog as a general rule that we never felt concerned that she’d actually harm anyone…but it was very embarassing to hear her growl in those situations.
When my dog was a pup, he was very suspicious/scared of a nearby Downs Syndrome child as well as a young autistic boy: he saw these kids regularly because our elementary school was a magnet for learning-disabled children. These children didn’t act quite as predictably as average kids and my dog, who did eventually calm down quite a bit and allowed petting,etc, was always a bit perplexed and worried by their behaviour. Never any trouble with people of any color, though.
When I was a kid, we had a dachsund that was a bit of a racist.
My brother was in boy scouts, and we would pick up one of the members of his troop for meetings. The young man was black.
When it was dark, Dixie (the dog) wouldn’t react to his presense, at least in any ways that were unusual.
When it was light out, he would freak out, start barking, etc.
Kind of embarrassing.
I think the racist dachsunds we had were picking up vibes from my dad/grampa. They also didn’t like men with long hair. :rolleyes: This obviously is not the case with all dogs, but it IS true that dogs pick up vibes from their owners as to what is a “threat” or a “friend”.
Keep in mind people. The dog is racist against light colored dogs. Not people. NOT PEOPLE. Geez. Ok I’m done. As for an update. Raven seems to be leaving Jeriko alone. We pull Raven inside and say “Bad!” if she ever goes after after Jerkio. Oh, and to make things more complicated, turns out Jeriko is deaf. So she can’t even tell Raven is coming after her. Oh well, Raven seems to be calming down. In the next few days she should adjust to the other dog. Thanks for the help.
Wearia
My dog was a perpetrator of incest (with her own son), and attempted bestiality(sp?) on a cat.
Originally posted by Wearia:
“Keep in mind people. The dog is racist against light colored dogs. Not people. NOT PEOPLE. Geez.”
I know, and I am really sorry about my hijack. However, your thread title seemed to speak to my dilema and you had seemed happy with your info…I apologize and probably should have posted a new question, except the “new” question would have had to be phrased exactly as you wrote it!
Sorry!
Our dog is a luddite. Can’t stand technology. Also doesn’t like her picture taken either.