Zena's intermittent aggression update

If you've read my other thread, you'll know what I'm on about!

I've been grabbing her collar now, or putting her onlead if I have the time when any dog approaches us, OR, I just keep her with me and tell her to leave it and she ignores it, she's not bothered about other dogs anyway.

Well, I've had nothing but GOOD meetings of late. Yesterday lunchtime, this little terrier came hurfing across the green to us, so I held Zena on her collar, and told the guy I had some issues with her about this, and I didn't want to let her play. He said his dog had just come back from her holiday and was being very norty and running off all the time. All was well. This morning I walked with 2 friends one with a young flatcoat and one with a retriever, and Zena had her ball, I gave the flatcoat a ball coz he's doing gundog training, but of course, he always wants the one Zena's got in her gob At one point they were playing tuggy together as this other dog got hold of the rope, and Zena just let him have it She was quite happy to go and get the one he should have had. Then the retriever took that, so Zena had nothing, but she didn't mind at all, so it's NOT the ball! We walked for a whole hour and everybody got on fine.

Then just now, I went up on the green for a bit of training and ball play, and as I bent down to pick up a poo, out of nowhere, comes this little terrier from yesterday with it's jogging mum! It ran straight at Zena, and quite honestly, I was terrified, BUT, it laid on the ground upside down, Zena sniffed it's belly, tail wagging, that mid-height swaying from side to side, and the next minute they were running around together the best of friends, and the lady had to stop her little terrier coz it was running too fast to keep up with Zena! FANTASTIC!!

Now, the thing is, I've had words with a good trainer, and she said, I will NEVER change this no matter how much I try, I'm just going to have to be very aware, and always keep her with me, onlead, whatever, when other dogs approach. She said the reason is, that my dog commands a certain amount of respect, in that she's a very "proud" dog, and if she isn't getting it, then it's in her personality to tell the dog in no uncertain terms that she demands some respect!

So, looks like I'm stuck with it then. How on earth can you change a dog's personality when it's born with it?!

I'm still going to keep on doing what I am doing now, keeping HER safe and all the other dogs that want to come and say hello, that's about all I can do, until Zena learns that not all dogs are going to pick a fight with her and she might just calm down about it in her own time, but until then, I'm in charge!

Kismet is exactly the same, so I understand your situation... I only walk her onlead now with a double ended lead, one to her collar for control and the other to the harness for security. She has a muzzle which I put on her if I see a small dog approach.

She is a dominant stroppy player... If a playful dog approaches she will play bow and go into a game of huggy wrestle, the rules of which seem to be who can keep their foot on the other dogs shoulder the longest.. She's happy to lose the game as long as the other dog isn't taking it too seriously either, but as soon as the other dog stiffens up at all or a hackle raises, the game can get serious and dominant quickly. I have become adept at reading this and can stop the game as soon as things look serious... But little dogs on the other hand, she just doesn't understand...

A little dog that approaches respectfully as you describe is likely to be stared at fearfully, sniffed and possibly paw batted... We have had a few occassions of nice play with little dogs, a beagle and cocker spaniel being the smallst I have allowed her to play muzzled with (smaller than that I'm scared she may squish them) But a little dog that approaches with 'little bigman syndrome' She just goes mental, she wants to grab it and take it down.

She has been attacked on more than one occasion by little dogs and nothing I can do to try to get her to stay calm and walk by will convince her that these little monsters won't attack, because they do. She's right! We were attacked most recently on Sunday while walking on a pathway alongside a road, her on her collar and harness by two Jack Russels who ran out the front of their house and over the road to get to us, they clearly sensed her fear and could see that I had her under control and muzzled and just ran in and bit at her tummy and legs, one barking at her face while the other went underneath her! The owner stood in his dressing gown in his doorway just shouting the name of his dogs which was having no effect. In the end I scooped Kis up (Quite a sight I'm sure, I'm only 5ft1 picking up a husky) put her over my shoulder and walked off with the two little dogs yapping at my heels...

This seems to happen to us about once every couple of weeks, either on the field or can be just anywhere, like Kismet gives off some kind of aggressive little dog attracting scent. For some reason the owners of these little dogs either find it funny, or just seem bemused at their little dogs behaviour, but poor Kismet is in absolute terror screaming frothing and trying to attack them back.

I wish there was anything I could do, but it's just not in her nature (as it is in Selkie's) to ignore these little monsters, she cant understand why I wont let her deal with this insolence and attack them. So she is the one that has to be controlled and muzzled to protect the evil little dogs...

I used to like little dogs, I used to have a little dog, but now I scan every street and field for them and will leave the field if there is a stroppy little charger anywhere on it...

I can only apologise to all other dog owners everywhere for the times I allowed my little dog Jackjack to approach them in his little charging way... Having not owned a dog reactive dog before I just had no idea what it was like...

Shepherds, eh??? I can't add much helpful as you already seem to be doing everything you can and have spoken with a good trainer. They just seem to have these certain behavioural traits, they are smart, powerful and proud dogs. Cain went past around 50 people the other day, rode on a packed bus and everything, I was so proud of him. Then some idiot pushed past us on a narrow tow path when there was already me, my BF, Cain and two cyclists next to each other. No space. I didn't see him coming, Cain didn't see him coming. Cain got the fright of his life and lunged and barked to warn him off. Me and BF had a falling out over this as I said it was the man's fault for being an idiot and pushing by, Cain was just being a natural guard dog. BF said it was unacceoptable (he's not really a doggy person!)

Anyay, I disgress, this is about Zena. I know what it's like to have that little flash of panic when you see another dog. I know how it feels to be full of pride when they behave but always reserve that little bit because you never know when they just might react. I just wanted to say that I know, a little bit, how your feeling and it takes the fun out of walks a bit. Good luck, I hope she does manage to settle down soon. But if she doesn't well at least she's in capable hands Good luck!

Thanks for all that info, it's all very interesting coz I'm trying to compare here!!

Zena's play isn't with paws at all, her play is "chase me" then I'll chase you, and when the other dog is alongside Zena, she slows right up, curves her body, looking cheekily at her new found friend, so that the other dog has room to run right alongside her, it's all very gentle play with mine thank goodness. Strangley enough, it's the little dogs that she loves to play with rather than the bigger ones yet these are the very ones that have always launched themselves at her (and she's gone on the defensive with all the noise and scrabbling at it!) though, which I find kinda strange Why does she prefer those I wonder?

The little terrier this morning (the very same one who charged over to her yesterday )was only 11 months old. I wonder if she actually had the time yesterday, to tell it to be more respectful and that's the reason it immediately lay down upside down in front of her this time? I'm getting the feeling that she feels more safe with these younger, smaller dogs, knowing perhaps they won't attack her maybe? Even the choccy lab we invited into our garden the other day is only 11 months old, and they played beautifully together, even though he got a bit rough, Zena never told him off, she just put up with him, so again, a younger dog. I originally thought it was "males" but I can't say that now, it could be either that she takes this sudden dislike to. Hers is ONLY on initial greeting though, never during play or after that initial greet, that's how it's so easy for me to do what I'm doing. If anything happens DURING play, i.e. the other dog gets a bit too rough for her, she legs it back to me and avoid it like the plague, they pester her some of them, but she never turns nasty with them, she just tries to get away from them, sometimes letting out a very soft growl if they're getting in her face a bit too much, but thankfully, the other owners have usually (I say usually one day we had this awful lab wanting to stay with us pestering the life out of Zena and it had no recall whatsoever, so I just walked on!!!! It still followed!!! ).

From reading your post magpye, I'm actually wondering now, whether owners with small dogs, no matter if they actually KNOW they can be a bit on the a*sy side, just let them approach us because they're so used to it and think, oh my dog can't do that great big dog much harm??? Whereas, us with the bigger dogs, feel it's more of a case of HAVING to have our dogs, not only pleasant with good manners, but under control and not let them approach other dogs for fear of scaring them or getting in a ruck and the damage they could do?? Maybe we are in fact, more responsible then, than a lot of owners with little dogs who THEY feel can't do any or much damage to ours?? In turn, they don't bother to put in the work and effort to try and turn them around and teach them some manners maybe? I dunno, it's just baffling me Of course, I'm only referring to SOME owners here with SOME small dogs, coz they're the ones I seem to be having most problems with! As yet, the only dog on the larger side that's made a bee-line for us and leapt on Zena aggresively was that one collie!

I've got the very same here!! Hubby used to maon about old Georgie zooming off to say hello to another dog if I hadn't spotted it first and didn't have time to tell him to "leave it" (which he KNOWS, but chooses to ignore if I don't see it first!). He used to moan about her jumping up, and yet he saw how much effort I was putting into stopping all that, which of course I have totally now even on his arrival home. Then he moaned when she barked at our visitors The trouble there is, we don't have enough of them, and yet this week-end he came home with a mate, I told him to take the slipper and shove it in Zena's mouth on entry to the kitchen, which he did, all was fine, Zena didn't bark at him once, she just greeted him enthusiastically, and yet all I got out of Dave when the guy had left was a "yeah, she was pretty good when we came in wasn't she" all sort of nonchalently, not in the slightest aware of just HOW hard I've been working over the past year to control all of that!!! Grrrr hey!!!! HOWEVER, having said that, when we had the bust up with the spaniel the other Sunday and O/H was with me, his reply was "it obviously said the wrong thing didn't it" and the fact that it's owner had apologised to ME and hugged me, must have made him realise it's not always Zena, coz he's seen one other ruck when that ball landed between the back legs of a collie, Zena went to get it, dog turned and snapped, rest is history!

It's not back to the drawing board, it's just going to have to be worked on and see how far we get, a bit of this, a bit of that, might end up curing it forever, I really hope so, coz I do like to have nice, trustworthy, friendly doglets to take out, and at the moment, I've got one who is a bit of a hooligan on occasions!

I was really interested reading your posts about the difficulties in pinpointing the triggers for reactions to other dogs. Naturally you've all looked at gender, size, confidence, breed, speed of approach etc etc, but there doesn't appear (to us) that there's any consistency in your dogs' reactions.

Perhaps we're all "guilty" of assuming that the differences in reactions stem from things that we mere humans notice? What about if it's things like olfactory signals that other dogs give off? Or subtle body language that we don't notice (the mere shift of focus in the eye, or a slight raise of an eyebrow, or a very quick lip lick etc etc).

Also reactions can stem from the dog's particular mood at a particular time, in a particular set of circumstances. Perhaps towards the end of an exercise period a dog's blood sugar levels can be lower, leading to irritable aggression through tiredness? Or maybe the flight/fight neurotransmitters are still flooding the body after a bit of a scare? It always surprises me how long it takes for me to feel back to normal after a fright, & canine physiology is no different.

The upshot is we can analyse/compare/rethink forever but may not come up with the answers. None of us know exactly what's going on inside the dog's head. So the answer may be as simple as be vigilant & take each encounter as it comes. But the more positive/happy/fun encounters a dog has, the more likely future encounters will be positive. And the opposite will be true too. So avoiding negative encounters & encouraging positive encounters will probably do the job in the long run.

A friend of mine was despairing that her dog would ever be able to meet strange dogs without kicking off ~ although she'd managed to introduce him to all our dogs without any fuss. This was about 3 years ago. Over time I've noticed that the dog has gradually got better & better & whilst his owner usually recalls him & puts his lead on, she's now nowhere near as anxious about these meetings. Last weekend we went for a long walk, her dog ran off through the woods & came back playing with 3 huge Spinones, then met a couple of springers & had a play with them as well. His owner was delighted but had to be reminded of the huge progress her dog has made in the last couple of years & we tend to forget how bad it was, until "suddenly" it's so much better.

From the sound of it you are all doing really well & being really reponsible with your dogs ~ so I'm sure you'll be rewarded with sociable dogs shortly

brilliant post

the sort of stuff that's going round in my post Operant Conditioning head these days, but explained far more eloquently!

I agree, that's a brilliant post there Wilbar, but then you know what you're talking about don't you, being a behaviourist (be it with cats!).

Now, this morning I just went up on the green so that my old boy could have a little potter, and a friend of mine was up there with her border and she's now got another border terrier, and haven't seen her for ages, so Zena doesn't even know her other dog, let alone this new one, so I explained to her about my problems, put Zena on her lead, and she brought the pair of hers over to us. At first Zena went to growl at the new male, I just did my loud "ay" and "leave it", they met and greeted each other, they seemed fine, so I let her off, and although they didn't play together we walked together and everything was fine. When I told her about how this all started with that little black mutt that goes up there, she replied that it was a horrible little dog, it had gone for both of hers too and the bloke had hit it with a golf club She said she was horrified and had a right go at him but he replied that it didn't hurt, so she asked him to hand her the golf club, she would then smack him around the head with it and he could tell her if it hurt or not!!!!! This woman I know with these borders, is seeing a behaviourist/trainer atm because she's doing obedience and agility with it. She now carried a spray to zap it with if it ever comes hurfing over to her two dogs again. I was really, really pleased to hear that the horrible little black mutt had shown its true colours, and Zena must be a good judge of character the way she flew for it when it attacked her twice!!

We're going to be on 2 wheels a lot now coz I've bought another mountain bike, but the places I will be going I'm very unlikely to even meet another dog, but I will do the same as I have been doing, i.e. put Zena onlead until it's gone past or greeted her if it comes up to us, and I'll make sure I'm off said bike ready for action lol!

Yes I agree ~ sometimes our dogs are far better judges of canine character than we are. Perhaps we should trust their instincts a bit more?

Best of luck with the mountain biking ~ have fun!