What to do when being dog aggressive?
Lately Sky has been a little aggressive with other dogs, and I am not sure what to do about it. I really started noticing it about a month or so ago when a new dog moved in next door to us. Sky and Lyla both run up to the fence and growl. Sky in particular will show his teeth and snap at the other dog (and the other dog does it right back). Now, when we go to the dog park, Sky always finds at least one dog and gets very "growly" and shows his teeth and will snap. He's even started growling at the other neighbor dog that lives on the other side of us, which he's never done before.
Last night at Agility class, the trainer had her large Belgian Tervuren (beautiful dog!) out and before class started, he came up to sniff Sky, and Sky snarled and snapped at him. I asked the instructor about it and she didn't say much other than she thought it might be because of the dog next door and didn't think it was because of his age (18 months).
He isn't that way with Lyla either. In fact, between the two of them I can't really tell which one is in charge. I am in charge of them both, and neither of them seem to really be in a higher position than the other. Lyla is more apt to go take Sky's toys away from him, so maybe she is in charge; although when we go to the dog park Lyla is almost pathetically submissive, whereas Sky goes around picking fights. Could it be that Lyla is in charge at home so Sky is trying to be dominant other places? Or is it maybe that the new dog next door really has Sky defending his "territory" everywhere even when we're not at home.
I am wanting to fix this now while its still a relatively minor problem. Thanks in advance for the help! (FYI, I do not agree with the "Pack Leader" methods or alpha rollovers, so don't even suggest that because I will not do it. =) Thanks for understanding!)
Last night at Agility class, the trainer had her large Belgian Tervuren (beautiful dog!) out and before class started, he came up to sniff Sky, and Sky snarled and snapped at him. I asked the instructor about it and she didn't say much other than she thought it might be because of the dog next door and didn't think it was because of his age (18 months).
He isn't that way with Lyla either. In fact, between the two of them I can't really tell which one is in charge. I am in charge of them both, and neither of them seem to really be in a higher position than the other. Lyla is more apt to go take Sky's toys away from him, so maybe she is in charge; although when we go to the dog park Lyla is almost pathetically submissive, whereas Sky goes around picking fights. Could it be that Lyla is in charge at home so Sky is trying to be dominant other places? Or is it maybe that the new dog next door really has Sky defending his "territory" everywhere even when we're not at home.
I am wanting to fix this now while its still a relatively minor problem. Thanks in advance for the help! (FYI, I do not agree with the "Pack Leader" methods or alpha rollovers, so don't even suggest that because I will not do it. =) Thanks for understanding!)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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Our doberman is not friendly with other dogs when she is leashed. Off leash she is fine. I think she feels too vulnerable when leashed. Therefore I do not encourage people to let their dogs come up to her and if she growls or lunges I give her a leash correction, firm no and have her sit. I don't know if this helps at all but she might just be going through a stage. I do think you should be the leader.
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Permalink Reply by Sky and Lyla on
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Oddly, Sky does go to a doggy day care. He has ever since he was a young pup. We frequent the dog park as well. I did a lot of work to socialize him young just to avoid these kinds of problems, lol. The day care has never mentioned him acting like this, but I've made a mental note to ask next time we go in.
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Permalink Reply by Sunni A. on
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Assuming your corgi only snaps and snarls and never attacks, just like my Eddy, I've been dealing with this simply by showering the other dogs with affection, and I (think!) he is starting to think, "When I snarl at other dogs, my master loves up on THEM. So I should ignore that dog, and she will not love them." Truly! It's getting better! I pet the dog, and Eddy is like "GRRR RAWL RAR arf arf snap snap!" but is all talk and no action, so the dog just looks at him and I continue petting the dog. He has really stopped, and his snapping fests are numbered. If he starts to snap, I approach, and he runs away so I won't pet the dog!!!
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Permalink Reply by Stephanie on
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I do not agree with the alpha rollover stuff or "pack leader" - but I do agree with the calm assertive state required in having dogs. I spend more time watching Victoria Stillwell than I spend with Cesar Milan and I love the way she works with animals. (It's Me or the Dog is her show) you might want to check out some of her stuff - it's definitely more positive and would work better with Corgis I think.
http://www.victoriastilwell.com/
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I agree! I think I phrased my little sidenote a bit confusingly. I totally believe in being in charge of my dogs. As far as "pack leaders" go, I am definitely the alpha around here. There is no question about that and if either of my dogs tries to test me they get put in their place, I just don't agree with the validity of Cesar's methods, at least on your average dog. I too really like Victoria Stillwell and also, more recently, Tamar Gellar. Both ladies absolutely put dogs on their places without having to use fearful tactics. That's all I meant was that I'm not into the intimidation methods. =)
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Hmmm. From your description, it almost sounds as if Sky might be feeling a little insecure/ unsure. The new dog in the neighborhood has upset the status quo, and maybe he's no longer so sure of his own place? Or he might just be feeling a little edgy. He's also at the age where his mature behavior will start to materialize (as you know).
Neither of mine is aggressive. Jack is almost stupidly good-natured with dogs, though I was shocked to see him air snap at a very, very rude pit bull/ lab mix older puppy (around 6 months) the other day. This pup was running over the top of everyone, and I was just about to say Jack tolerates almost anything when he turned around and gave a good gruff bark/air snap when rude pup literally ran across Jack's back. Happily enough, the owner was like "she deserves that!" which was true enough. (Interestingly, Maddie tried to warn off pup three times with little effect; Jack gave him one warning and pup managed to avoid running over Jack after that).
Madison is much more likely to air-snap, and seems to have a very low threshold for what she will tolerate from strange dogs, especially big ones. She will bark or air-snap if they get into her space so I am careful to keep her around stable dogs. In her case it seems to be more of an insecurity issue than a dominance one, and she is much nicer if the other dog is lying quietly and is also good if they are all playing and chasing balls or frisbees, but during greeting rituals she is not so tolerant. I will correct her gently if she snarks for no real reason, and I combine that with praise for calm and relaxed greeting behaviors. It's not the exuberant praise I use when training, but more a calm, cheerful "Oh, good girl."
I think they don't always know what we want from them in regards to other dogs. Maybe now that Sky is trying to posture with the new neighbor dog, he thinks maybe that's how he's meant to behave with other dogs, and if he's not naturally dominant he will probably express uncertainty over the whole thing, hence the slight unpredictability of when he'll do it.
Just my thoughts of what could be happening. You know your dogs better than anyone, of course, it's just what you've told us of Sky hasn't made him sound particularly dominant and often those random snapping/grumbling behaviors at other dogs for no obvious reason seem to arise from a dog who is a bit unsure of his place at the moment.
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I was thinking the exact same thing! I was wondering if he's not starting to feel really insecure as to his place and is trying to (stupidly) assert dominance now in other situations too. Any ideas on how to make him feel a little more confident and a little less like he needs to prove himself?
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Well, would it be possible for you to resolve the situation with the neighbor dog? Fence-fighting is very problematic in that the adrenaline goes up but there is never the opportunity for release. Imagine if you had an ongoing tension with someone you worked with, or a family member you saw every day. If you could not resolve it, I will bet it would start to spill into your other relationships.
If it were me, ideally I would want to try to have the dogs meet on neutral ground. Well, probably not even meet first but it would be great if you could all walk together while the dogs ignore each other, then slowly let them meet.
If that is not possible, then could you make it clear to Sky and Lyla that the other dog is to be ignored and not have them bark at each other at opposite sides of the fence?
We don't have a fenced yard so we don't have this particular issue, but we try to either meet every dog we will see regularly, or ignore them completely if they are not to be met (say they are not dog-friendly). If they are not to be friends, they shall be ignored. There is a woman we know near us who does rescue and currently has 6 of her own. Four are dog friendly, two are not, and Jack (after initially being terrified of her Aussie-mix so much that he would not go near the woman even if the Aussie was not with her) has learned to carefully do meet-and-greets with the friendly ones while pretending the others don't exist. No eye contact, no sniffing. Maddie, as I say, is a work in progress but I believe it's because of her rehoming; she left behind both her human and dog pack and is still feeling out her new place in the world.
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Permalink Reply by Laura Jones on
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Is Sky your aussie? My aussie Levi has started acting similar towards my male corgi. He is about 18 months old and is constantly growling and snarling at Taz, who has always been low man on the totem pole, KC is def at the top and Levi next.
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Permalink Reply by Dom, Casey, Zeke & Dexter on
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Is the neighbor dog by chance female? Zeke, our oldest (9 months) was perfectly fine with my parents' golden retriever until my cousin brought his [female] boxer puppy over, who was in heat, and Zeke completely lost all sense of his happy-go-lucky-around-any-dog personality, and began snapping at any dog that was bigger than him (basically every dog we ever see...) Prior to that day, he had gotten along perfectly well with the boxer puppy and the golden retriever. To this day, Zeke growls, snarls, snaps (but never attacks) any big dog he encounters. He has since been neutered but the aggression toward larger dogs has lingered.
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I do believe it is a female, although I'm not 100% sure. Sky is neutered though, so I don't know if he's being all macho in that way. I did try walking him up and down the fence on a leash yesterday though, and noticed that even when I could get Sky's attention on me, the neighbor dog was barking and growing and going crazy. I think it is a learned behavior from this new dog since he's never done it before. I hate that he picked this up and its going to be SO hard to fix it now!!
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