Recently, I adopted a 4 1/2 year old, female Doberman from a Doberman Rescue group. Although I’m not entirely certain of her past, I do know that she was not at all socialized as a pup. She was initially very frightened of me as well as my small dog but is now the sweetest girl to me in addition to anyone with whom she has since become familiarized. Whenever we go on walks and happen to pass another dog, however, she becomes so frightened that her hackles raise, her teeth are shown, and her bark is most definitely heard. Off lead, although somewhat skittish, she is no where near this aggressive.
Upon the consent of those at the dog park, I’ve released her into the park with the other dogs and she seems almost like any of the other dogs. I say almost because I can still detect a sign of fright when another dog attempts to chase her. With each trip to the dog park she’s becoming less and less frightened. On lead, however, I only see minor improvements.
I’ve read about leash aggression and have come upon a couple of ideas:
Reward her with a treat whenever we even see a dog in the distance and then another as we are passing the dog.
Teach her to keep eye contact with me as we pass any other dog. Reward her with praise whenever she successfully completes this objective.
Has anyone here ever had experience in this area? I’m working a little with the treat idea but that’s not going so smoothly. I’m going to sign her up for an obedience class in January but until then, I’d love to get her moving in a positive direction. Your ideas are extremely welcomed.
I don’t have any experience with leash-aggression, although I saw a show where one behaviourist would put the dog in a down/stay when other dogs would pass by, keep eye contact, then reward.
Are you a member of Doberworld? I cannot recommend it highly enough and urge you to check it out if you are not already a member. The list is chock full of breeders, rescuers and trainers that could offer you some great Dobie-related advice. [sub]Although I’m sure you will get good advice here too![/sub]
Oh a dobie, I’m so jealous. Give her many scritches for me.
First of all, if you have read about leash aggression then you know how important it is for you remain calm and not give off signals that help trigger this behavior in your dog. I think that’s the hardest thing to accomplish because we so often don’t notice little things we do that our dogs pick up on. And of course you have to be patient as well - sometimes these things can take awhile to resolve.
How is your other dog while on walks? If he/she is calm when other dogs approach, it may be worthwhile to take that dog along to set an example of the kind of behavior you want. We have a dog that used to be very afraid of other dogs and it was actually our older dog, who was very good socially, who taught the fearful one how to act.
You can take both dogs and teach them to look at you when another dog passes, and reward them for the appropriate behavior. Dobes are pretty smart dogs, and if yours is food-motivated in addition, she’ll figure out the program pretty quick if your other dog does what you want and gets fussed over and rewarded and she gets ignored for not behaving properly.
If that’s not a possibility, you could try a Gentle Leader. I haven’t used one myself but several folks I know have had good success with those.
My dogs consider themselves to be “working” when they are on leash. They are much more serious and wary of other people and dogs. They are protecting me and the kids, and they take that quite seriously. Off leash, they are “off duty” and can play and drool at their leisure.
It’s not a bad thing, but it can be difficult to deal with (ours are Newfoundlands).
Check with a breeder or trainer for some practical advice.
It’s not terribly uncommon (as I’m sure you’ve heard) for a dog to be highly defensive or aggressive when restrained or on-leash, but to have plenty of manners off-leash.
The best thing I can reccommend is to find a competant trainer in your area, of course, but barring that there are two groups I can recommend, one is the Bandog Banter–don’t be put off by the personal protection/sport dog photos at the top of the board, there are several very highly regarded trainers that post regularly on this site. The discussion is mainly geared towards bandog and protection breeds, thus the people involved have mucho experience with every possible type of behavioral aggression. There’s quite a bit of bickering on the board, though, so be ready to sort out the information from the various camps. Also recommended is the Bridge and Target email group at YahooGroups. Bridge and Target training is the method that is used to train marine mammals, and has been utilized with all species from dogs, cats, and horses, to pigs, zoo animals, and more. It is truly amazing the communication that can be developed between you and your pet with this method. I’m talking about recognition of body parts, complex behaviors, acceptance of medical care, relaxation during stressful situations, etc. It is extremely easy to learn and implement, dogs can often learn the first steps (“targeting” your hand) within minutes. It works a little like clicker training, but with an additional step or two that allows you to communicate your desires to your dog, rather than the dog having to cast about and offer behaviors.
Here is a partial explanation given by Kacye Cover, one of the developers and major proponents of Bridge and Target training:
Some of the dogs on the list have working vocabularies of, literally, hundreds of words, phrases, and concepts.
I can’t reccommend this training method more.
I hope some of that helps
Gulo gulo, thanks so much for the doberworld site. Although I grew up around German Shepherds, I’m new to the world of the Dobie. So far I’m very impressed with the breed. Beyond her leash aggression problem, she is the sweetest dog. We went for a short three-mile run today and she did very well passing all the people. The one dog she passed she lunged at as usual. As we approached the dog I kept telling her, “Good girl, good girl,” and then gave her a treat. However, just as we side by side to this new dog, she lunged. Although I kept the leash slack up until that point, I did pull back when she lunged…could this be part of the problem? Romansperson, I see what you mean when you say that I could be part of the problem. I’ll pay attention in the future for any little things I could be doing to set off her behavior.
As far as my little one is concerned…well…NOW he barks too. He’s not at all aggressive to other dogs. In fact, he loves all dogs. But…even before Lyric came along he would bark on occasion. Since he now starts barking sometimes before her I’m not quite sure who the instigator is. That’s a good idea to reward whichever dog is doing the correct behavior. Hopefully, the one who’s barking will learn from the one who’s not. It’s much more difficult when they are both going at it.
Romansperson, I do use the Gentle Leader; she took to it very quickly. That helps with pulling on our walks but not so much when she lunges. I think her fear over-rides the correction of the leash.
EJsGirl, how long did it take your Newfoundlands to get over their leash aggression. Granted, all dogs are different but I am curious to know approximately how long something like this will take to correct.
MixieArmadillo, Bridge and Target sounds very interesting. I’ll definitely have to check that out. Both of my dogs learn very quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if they take to this sort of training.
Well, it isn’t really leash aggression, so they’ve never “gotten over it.” They just think they are “working” if they are on leash, meaning they take their surroundings much more seriously than when they are off leash or at the dog park.
It’s not a bad thing (at least, the way they do it) so I have never tried to break them of the habit. For example, they will put themselves between me and any stranger or strange dog, and will not “stand down” until I say it’s ok. They will also vocalize more to let other dogs know that they are not accepting unsolicited contact with their people. They are much more nervous when on leash, whereas if they are loose, they know it is playtime and they are free to roam and meet people. They also have no problem with other dogs at the dog park, or with new dogs coming to check me out.
