Marble Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 Hey- I was wondering about this whole dog agression thing. How do your dogs act when they see/meet/etc another dog and does the gender affect their reaction? I was thinking about what you said in that thread about my pictures and wonder if this is what your dogs are like........ With Dresden this is how it goes: We're out walking, she's doing decently well. She sees another dog. Immediately her hackles go up, literally from head to tail sometimes. She starts growling and barking, and it's not her excited play bark it's her alert defensive bark usually. She starts straining at the leash like crazy, somtimes, well often, so hard she's standing on her back legs with her front in the air ( and I am trying to correct her this whole time.......) Meanwhile, the other owner is looking at her like she's the killer dog from heck and at me like I"m the worst dog owner they've ever seen. Then, if she gets to meet the dog her hackles usually stay up for a minute and as soon as they get the bum smelling over with she does her most ridiculous play language to try to get them to play with her. The problem is that she is hard to read, I always wonder if she's going to attack them or if she's just really really excited to meet them, I honestly can't tell sometimes........She's such a spazz that sometimes we walk out the front door and her hackles on her neck go up immediately and I never see what's causing her to do that, or we'll be walking in the woods and she'll do it too........ Any input/advice? Thanks..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon_C Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 [color=darkred]Hi Marble. I think most of us have the same problem with our dogs when we walk them. I do with Charlie (Bullmastiff) but not the other two....they couldn't careless!! Charlie is 9 stone heavy in weight.....pure muscle so you can immagine what its like trying to hold him back when he see's another dog or person. He doesn't raise his hackles though, he just gets excited and wants to play but the owner of the dog looks at him as if he's going to eat there dog...and we get funny looks!! He is walked on a halter, which is supposed to prevent pulling.....not Charlie lol...he will pull and pull regardless of the halter rising up his face! The lead is attached to his collar, a precaution should it unclip the halter!![/color] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malamum Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 Marble and Shannon I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'll describe Indy's behaviour patters around other dogs. 1. If he is at home either inside or outside he is not one to bark or carry on as other dogs go past outside. He will go to the window or screen door or gate to try to look at them and maybe give a small woo woo - nothing significant though. 2. When we are walking I dread seeing other dogs. Sometimes his hackles go up but he always jumps around yep standing on back paws, front paws in the air, barking, growling and generally just going ballistic. You would think from the carry on that he wants to kill the other dog. When he does this, I make him sit and I pretty much have to physically put him in that position and try to make him look and focus on me and not the other dog. Again I physically have to put my hand under his muzzle and tilt his head up to start with then I wait till the other dog has gone and he is just calmly sitting and looking at me (of his own accord) before we move on. Shannon - I use a halter on Indy too and it really does help - on a flat collar he would just pull me off my feet. On the halter although he still goes crazy I can control him much better. He is coming up on 50kg so there is only about 10kg between us and boy is he strong. Most other people walking their dogs look at me like I have a crazy beast, I even got a head shake and a tsk tsk the other day :oops: I have had some people that say lets let them say hello we do so carefully and then Indy is fine he just wants to do the sniffing saying hello thing. Though he is very dominant - he will never submit to another dog so I have to be very careful. If the other dog submits then Indy just loves to play however if the other dog gets annoyed at his dominance (head on top of theirs, putting his paw on them) and snaps at him then it would be on for young and old. So I don't take him to the dog park any more. 3. At dog training. When we first get there he gets very excited pulls, jumps around and woo woo's a lot. Not really growling and barking like he does when we are walking - maybe he knows he gets to socialise at training :niewiem: I try to get there early so we are one of the first there and then pick a spot to stand with him till the classes are ready to start - it's too hard walking him into the area if it is already packed with dogs. The 10 minutes before classes start are considered general socialisation time. I normally just stand in one spot, tell Indy to sit and try to keep his focus on me (by bribing him with food). When people come up with their dogs to say hello the dogs do their sniffing etc... though I keep a very close eye on the other dogs to see how they are going to react to his dominance and then take Indy away before they get annoyed if they are not obviously submissive. Once classed start he is usually very good focuses on me, does what he is told and forgets about the other dogs. HOWEVER last week was a nightmare... it was raining so we were all wet and cold and I guess the rain hyped him up a bit and he just would not concentrate. He just kept wanting the bug the other dogs - he got so bad I ended up taking him out of the class and we just watched for the last 10 minutes. I was so annoyed at him. :x Oops sorry for the long post; kind of got carried away. But I wanted to outline his behaviour because if anyone has any tips on how I can better react when he is going berserk then I am all ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malamum Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 [quote]behaviour patters [/quote] that was supposed to be patterns :oops: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon_C Posted May 17, 2003 Share Posted May 17, 2003 [quote name='Malamum'] Shannon - I use a halter on Indy too and it really does help - on a flat collar he would just pull me off my feet. On the halter although he still goes crazy I can control him much better. He is coming up on 50kg so there is only about 10kg between us and boy is he strong. [/quote] [color=darkred]I don't know whether Im right or wrong here, but I honestly think that halters are designed for dogs with longish faces than the shortish ones. Whenever Charlie pulls it rides up his face...he can be very strong at (he weighs 9 stone, just a stone lighter than myself) :o times when he sees a dog or person and won't give in untill they pass us! Its lose enough to put three fingers through the strap...any tighter than that it rubs his face[/color] :-? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marble Posted May 19, 2003 Author Share Posted May 19, 2003 well my brother came this weekend with his female 70 pound red dobie who is also somewhat borderline with other dogs and what do you know but she and dresden have had no problems whatsoever ! good grief, dog's are so umpredictable sometimes, this time it was at least a very pleasand suprise :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon_C Posted May 19, 2003 Share Posted May 19, 2003 [quote name='Marble']well my brother came this weekend with his female 70 pound red dobie who is also somewhat borderline with other dogs and what do you know but she and dresden have had no problems whatsoever ! good grief, dog's are so umpredictable sometimes, this time it was at least a very pleasand suprise :)[/quote] [color=darkred]Its lovely when dogs get on. So happy to hear dobie and Dresdan have both got on so well :D I was watching my dogs Charlie 'Bullmastiff and Penny' Border Collie mix, playing in the garden today....she got him on the floor biting his ears and pulling his cheeks.....Charlie just lay there and took it. He did get up now and again to nibble her ears and face. I think they picked it up from the neighbours two Boxers...they are forever playing in the garden.....you can hear them both growling lol I have taken some photos of my dogs playing with each other. I will link them here soon, so everyone can see how silly they are[/color] :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abker17 Posted May 19, 2003 Share Posted May 19, 2003 That is soooo wild. My BC mix does EXACTLY, I mean exactly what U described your dog doing. I don't think Abby's is gender related though. Abby is very dominant, so maybe it's a dominance thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abker17 Posted May 19, 2003 Share Posted May 19, 2003 Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that Abby does exactly what Marble's dog does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bk_blue Posted May 19, 2003 Share Posted May 19, 2003 BK is not aggressive with other dogs, which I am ever thankful for (except when another, bigger dog challenges him, then he won't back away from a fight and actually seems to relish all the growling and posturing :roll: not that I encourage it!!!). He however is very dominant and will not submit- there was only one dog at the dog park (an English Pointer called Snoopy) who he submitted to while playing, it was the clash of the titans as all the other dogs had given up playing and left it to our two :lol: . I tried using a halti on him and it worked for a while but I tried it the other week and it did nothing, he is only 25kg at his heaviest but god he is strong, I feel better off with the choke chain. If we see another dog while we're walking he'll whinge and pull a little. If the dog is smaller than him he'll sniff and be friendly but that's it; bigger than him, it's playtime. :roll: He seems to react more to males, with females he doesn't care too much- if they want to play, great, if they don't he won't force the issue. I have seen him with dogs who have forced him into a corner, or have surrounded him, to get out of it he'll do this ninja back kick thing (in circles!!) that makes the other dogs back away. He is so unbelievably tolerant of Tomson- Tomson being an entire male dachshund, he just tries to mount BK constantly whenever we visit, not very successfully either. BK just puts up with it, no snapping, biting, or growling. If it gets too much he just runs away or puts Tomson's head in his mouth and *breathes* on him! If he wanted to he could crush Tomson's skull and it would be like eating dinner for him, but he's just not aggressive at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marble Posted May 22, 2003 Author Share Posted May 22, 2003 [quote name='bk_blue'] If it gets too much he just runs away or puts Tomson's head in his mouth and *breathes* on him! If he wanted to he could crush Tomson's skull and it would be like eating dinner for him, but he's just not aggressive at all.[/quote] wow bk, he must have some powerful breath :) :) is it his breath or the body language ??? ha ha ha. lady's breath is horrible, maybe that's why she still imtimdates dresden so badly when she gets going sometimes :) lady's so funny, she'll put up with dresden for a while but man, if dresden gets too pushy she'll tell her off really fast. the other day she had dresden (over fifty pounds and very tall) on her back and lady was standing over her doing her scary growl with her mouth over dresdens muzzle ( lady's only 29 pounds and built pretty petitely) , it was hilarious, dresden just sat there...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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