Borderdawn, he's already neutered. I understand your point re:submissive dogs becoming worse without testosterone but can't do much about that now

Thank you everyone for your stories, especially for taking the time to write out some very long in depth posts with your stories, I appreciate it. It's been fascinating and inspiring, especially reading about the GSD and GSD X's who seem to be displaying similar behaviour, especially Zane's story. It's brilliant to hear the progress you've all made and gives me hope that we will get there with Cain some day

He has good days and not so good days. But the good days are becoming more frequent, and the not so good are less. I am being very careful about keeping initial greetings with dogs short and positive to gauge his reaction. If it's positive I'll let him stay a bit longer and even play on his lead. As you've all said, I need to protect him and slowly expose him to situations that we are both comfortable with.

I have a question......Today was a good day. He met three strangers, all men, two of which were teenage boys in hoodies and he greeted them all really well. There's this Tibetan Terrier called Harvey who comes down the park. He is about 1 year old and an entire male. He appears to be a friendly but quite dominant dog. I'm a bit confused as to if I should be allowing Cain to interact with him.

He's a nice dog, seems friendly enough, never seen any aggression from him but his behaviour is dominant. He always jumps up putting his head and paws over the other dogs back or around their neck. He's also started peeing on everything, he's cocked him leg up both me and Cain at various times! However he is very friendlywith Cain despite his dominance. Cain shows submissive behaviour to him (which I haven't seen him to to any other dog), once he lay down on the floor and Harley stood literally over his back(at this point I removed Cain) and Cain had rolled over to show his belly a few times. However Cain really doesn''t seem scared. They play (Cain on lead), lots of play posturing and Cain seems very relaxed. They'll sniff each other nicely and Cain often lies down and relaxes around Harvey. Cain's never ever once put his hackles up or freaked out at all towards Harvey....he seems to like him and is happy to be totally submissive? It's one of the few times that Cain shows very clear, proper dog behaviour. I'm confused......is this a good thing? Or should I be protecting him from being dominated?

I think I`d lose the dominance idea and just watch them play. If one dog looks distressed then stop it. If they`re just interacting, fine.
I will say, though that being onlead puts a dog at a huge disadvantage because he can`t maintain a distance of his own choosing. This is why some dogs are so apparently aggressive onlead.

Yeah, I don't worry too much about the dominance thing, and I know its a phrase that gets thrown around far too much these days, but when I saw him stand right over Cain I did start to worry if I was supposed to allow that to happen. But as I said, Cain seems to really like this dog. Do wish it didn't keep peeing on us though........

I know the on lead thing is not ideal but currently he absoultely cannot be trusted offlead, he's either freak and possibly attack or he would flatten them with his jumping, paw splatting behaviour! We are working towards trying him off lead with a familiar dog a some point if possible, but finding a firnedly but calm dog and suitable enclosed space which is empty, in London, is near impossible! Luckily (as far as I can see) the lead does not seem to affect Cain's behaviour negatively, (although the odd dog has used it to their advantage when they've been off lead...)

I think I would feel like getting aggressive with the dog's owner if it peed up my leg!!

I'm so impressed with all these stories of people working through difficult problems with their dogs ~ it's really heart-warming to hear about the time, effort & patience that you've all put in to help your dogs overcome these fear aggression problems. And I think,without exception, everyone has used positive, gentle methods, realised that fear is the big problem, so they've done things calmly & quietly & avoided the worst triggers. I just wanted to say well done to you all & keep it up.

I know there will be good days & bad days, but the bad days get less frequent & less bad, & the good days start to become the norm. It sometimes helps to keep a journal, then on any bad days, you can go back & read it & then you see how far things have improved. Try setting small realistic goals & succeeding, rather than wishing for the perfect dog ~ then one day you'll suddenly realise you've got the perfect dog.

I just wanted to thank everyone again who replied to this post.

Yesterday was not a great day. We had an incident with Cain that upset me very much. He barks at the window but generally doesn't bark at the door. Normally he'll run up curious to see who is on the other side. We've managed to let all of out visitors straight through the door and Cain has greeted them nicely, although sometimes jumping up in excitement.

Yesterday I was at the back of the house dishing up Cain's dinner when the doorbell rang. I think it gave Cain a fright and he launched at the door hackled up and barking likw crazy, shooting up and down the house. It took me a few mins to get to the door and I put Cain in a sit and told him to wait to calm him down. Normally I let him up to the door and says "ooh who's this?" in a silly squeaky voice and let him greet the person. I don't know if my chance on method made a difference. I thought he'd be ok to greet the person as we had no problems before and he has met my friend once.

I opened the door and he shot past my legs, flung himself at my friend, barking and growling, jumping up at her face. I even saw he had some of her clothes in his mouth at one point which was really scary and normally he's all noise not seen him use his mouth before. Naturally my friend was scared which I'm sure Cain sensed. I calked him off and told him to get in. I then told my friend to walk in confidently and completely ignore him. He half heartedly lunged and barked at her a second time but I stopped him and after that he ignored her. He calmed down very quickly and ended up lying on her feet licking her toes!!!!

But the whole thing threw me. He's never shown this sort of aggression at the door before. I've had it on my mind all day. This blinking one step forward, two step back dance. Every single time I feel we are getting somewhere he does something like this and supasses himself in displaying reactivity.

I've been feeling awful all day. So I dug this thread up and re-Reading the stories has calmed me a bit and made me feel able to tackle him again. Some days I do wonder what we've taken on....which I know is an awful thing to think!

We have dog training class tonight so I'll tell my trainer about the incident. But thanks to you guys I feel I cam actually face training class tonight....which I didn't feel ten mins ago.

Oh Amanda, that must have been awful for you but just remember how much progress you have made with Cain already, and like you said, this was just a bad day! The change of routine may have enhanced whatever emotion he was feeling which resulted in the exaggerated reaction but I don't think you should dwell too much on this one incident when he has behaved so well for you in the past. No harm was done and in the end your friend and Cain parted on a positive note

Kia has had a few incidents in the past couple of days where she has been offlead and approached someone who then thinks its a good idea to stroke her . I know this would be fine for a 'normal' dog but you have heard my stories about Kia and I'm afraid she did either growl or bark and lunge at the people in question. Now neither of these incidents were entirely Kia's fault as I should have been watching her more vigilantly and called her back quicker but these things do happen and we can't let them dampen our spirits! They should just make us more determined to help our dogs overcome their issues

Hope you're feeling better now

S x

This is interesting coz my lurcher Jenny has fear aggression issues.
We were in The Farm and Pet Place the other day and a Sheltie came in and Jenny went beserk barking. It was like having a child having a tantrum in a shop!! She does it with all dogs that come anywhere near. She's worse now than she used to be. Problem is she sets the others off whereas if she wasn't there they're not that bothered
I too would interested in success stories. If anyone has any great tipe on how to tackle this I'd be really grateful too!!

Sorry you've had another bad day with Cain, and I've read both of your previous posts now, and I want to say something about the first post back in June before answering your latest one. The dog who is obviously a dominant type that Cain gets on with. This is the strangest thing, because last week when Zena yet again showed me up by attacking a border terrier that had come hurfing over to us when she was already having a game with two collies On that same day, when I was profusely apologising to the owner that I actually know, of said border terrier (it's her new rescue from Glasgow and I now know that Zena doesn't like these Glasgow dropouts lol!) and in fact, I really don't know why I have to apologise when Zena was with me, she was miles away when her dog came charging over, and when I pulled Zena off of it by her scruff, the bladdy thing was still hanging onto her by her throat Anyhoo, what I wanted to say was, when I was chatting to the owner, another little black terrier rascal came over to us, and she said, "that's the dog you need to watch out for, coz that IS an aggressive dog whereas mine isn't", but as I told her Zena LIKES that little terrier, she is often playing with it in the afternoons up on the green, there have never been any squabbles, she is absolutely fine with it and yet it's dominant and aggressive, just like your Cain with that one he likes!!! Maybe, at least with a dominant dog, our dogs know where they stand, so they don't have to be confused/fearful perhaps, they know exactly where they stand with it, they don't want trouble, so they are nice to it??? I don't know, I'm just like you, I'm fishing for answers, coz my dog is not usually aggressive with any dog, she greets them friendly and she sometimes plays with them if I'm standing about, which isn't often coz we are always on the move nowadays.

Your last post rings alarm bells for me I'm afraid. Just because you have good and bad days, you can never, ever, assume that Cain will be ok to greet any strangers when you open that door. That's a big no-no, UNTIL, there are never any bad days I'm afraid, it's far too much of a risk with such a big, over protective dog imo, and even when mine was a tiddly little puppy, the way she was with strangers I would never have risked her being let loose on them without me at the helm, stopping her from lungeing at them or jumping up at them.

The way I did this was to prepare myself in advance if I knew somebody was coming round and place my chicken pieces by the door. We had already taught her that jumping up was now a big no-no in this house, and the only way we could stop that (and believe me I tried just about everything!!!), was to shove a slipper or a toy in her mouth, usually the frisbee, that instantly stops her jumping up, she no longer does it at home unless her mouth is empty and daddy has come home, but she would NEVER do it out of the house, so I didn't need to carry one in my bum bag! Anyway, I'm lucky enough to have a little bootroom, between my kitchen and back door where everybody arrives, so I would go outside first, telling her to wait and shut them in the kitchen. When visitor gets into the bootroom, they are armed with chicken or cheese, and as I let Zena out, I make sure I am in front of her, she is NOT allowed to come past me, I'm in charge of the situation, although she thinks she's got to be in charge, you have to keep them behind you, so that they know you are more than capable of handling this current situation. She is then made to sit and wait, she gets a titbit, then I let her past and the visitor asks her to sit and she gets another titbit, meanwhile Georgie's butted in, he wants his share and all hell breaks loose No, all is fine, and once she's had the titbit, the first one they have to throw on the floor (I would never trust the first one by hand, until I know she's ok with them not that she's people aggressive God forbid). It all has to be done slooooowly and oh so calmly, that's the only way to do it. You can never just go for it and do as you did yesterday, never mind that Cain has met this person before, it doesn't matter, his initial instinct is to be on the defensive, he's a protector it doesn't matter who's behind that door, they are the enemy until he calms down and realises it's somebody he knows. My best friend who dogsits her when we go away, gets the Zena treatment everytime she appears unless I step in first and do the ritual, and how well does she know her!!!! The only person who can get away with it is your o/h, and even then, sometimes, ALL of my 8 gsd's have one time or another gone to fly at them entering the house, because they just didn't realise who it was, so never, assume with your Cain until you can say, hand on heart, that he would never go for a stranger! I have only, ever done that with Georgie, and that's only because he's far too old and couldn't be a*sed anyway! I remember I had two paramedics come round here at 11.30 pm one night and he was lying right up against the back door, we let them in, they stepped over him, and the only effort he put in was to turn his head around to look at their feet lol! I could never have done that with ANY of my dogs I have had other than him, and I'm talking 12, 14, 15, 16 years here with each of them all, not a matter of months like you with Cain!

Why don't you take each step at a time, concentrate on one bad habit he has and work, work, work on it until it's under control, and I would start with the jumping up, then at least that way you have put one thing to bed before tackling the next, because in all honestly, you've got far too much going on all at once here, you need to get it all in some sort of order before you're going to achieve the results you want I feel?! Believe me, I do know how you're struggling, coz when Zena was 6 months old, I had the lungeing at men, the barking at men indoors and out, the lungeing at visitors, the sudden barking at them out of the blue indoors when they'd been here an hour nightmare it was! So do like I did, calm yourself down, don't get depressed about it, it can be sorted, but one step at a time and keep at it constantly you'll win! When I think back to how we had about 6 months of my poor husband being told what to do at the back door when he got home, he was tired, he just wanted to come in, but no, I had other ideas, I needed to sort Zena out, so he obliged and it worked, now anybody can enter my house and feel completely safe, just because of all the work I put in, and I know what works for her now!

Even so, now that I've got everything I want from her regarding her manners and obedience, it's still ongoing with her sudden dislike to strange dogs charging up at us, but I'm now working on that Hopefully, when she's two years old I will get a bit of resbite, but with these dogs, who knows!!!

Hi Helena, I haven't managed to read all of your post yet (I'm surfing on my phone) will read it properly when I get home. Just wanted to clarify about the door. Be isn't allowed to greet strangers. no reason for this other than I see no reason they need to meet. If it's the post man/gas man/pizza man, whoever, he gets shut in the living room. We only let him greet people that we both know. I knew my friend was calling and I knew it was her at the door and she and Cain have met before. We have never ever had aggression at the door before so I had no reason to think it would be a problem. Equally he's never been that worked up before I opened the door either....which is my own fault. I should have read that and shut him away. I honestly had no reason to think he would do that otherwise there is no way I'd have let him greet her! Hope that makes it a bit clearer. I will read your post fully tonight

Sarah, thanks for your kind words, sorry to hear you also had a few bad days with Kia. it doesn't matter how much I try to control every situation I put Cain into, unpredictable situations always seem to rear their ugly heads at times.