Fear Aggression/Territorial Behaviour

Hi, I've been putting off starting this thread - don't ask me why, 'cos I don't know!
Dan, our 4 1/2 year old rescued stray (18 months when rescued) has a few problems. I will try to make this as logical as I can, but it may ramble a bit...

His barking at random men. There seems to be no correlation between the men he chooses to have a go at, except that they are men. He runs up to them, hackles up, but tail wagging, weight on his back legs and barks, showing his teeth and sometimes tries to nip. He is worse on lead, than off. It doesn't seem to matter what they do in return, he doesn't stop. They can ignore him and keep walking or they can kick at him, shouting and swearing, it seems to make no difference. I have tried everything I can think of to help him from noise aversion and water pistols to treats, distractions and running in the opposite direction (which doesn't look good to the person being barked at). Running away seems to be the only thing that will bring him away, but as soon as I stop and praise him for coming to me, he turns around and runs back to them, barking again. He is worse if he has been "wound up" already by seeing a cat or bike (which he also chases). I am keeping him on lead at the moment, but that is making things worse. His recall is excellent under any other circumstance. The funny (odd, not haha) thing is that he seems to be enjoying himself. Something which may help to make sense of it to someone out there is that if we are out walking and there is a man walking a dog, he won't bark. Only if the man is dogless. If I am walking with a man, he acts submissively, walking perfectly to heel, non-reactive to bikes etc (which is also how he acted when I had a male behaviourist out for him!).
I really hope someone can help with this as all the behviourists I contact need a veterinary referral. We have checked out the possibility of a medical issue being behind the behaviour, but he has had a clean bill of health on numerous occasions.
He is fine at Agility training and at shows, this only really happens at the park. This is what makes me think that he is being territorial as we walk there daily and he is territorial at home, so perhaps he sees the park and path to it as his territory too...

There are lots of behavioural experts on here who, I'm sure, will come up with some answers to your concerns very soon. Sadly, I'm not one of them but wish you all the best with your boy x

Hi there. Unfortunately I don't think anyone will be able to give you definitive advice on here.

Interestingly I suspect that my new rescue could be developing a similar behaviour. She came to us very nervous of people (well nervous of everything really). Now that she's comfortable with us and the places we walk for our everyday walks I think she is gaining in confidence and has very recently decided to let strangers know that she doesn't like them where she doesn't think they should be.

It's not helping me that because it is a quiet area, we don't come across people as often as I would like to be able to "practice". However, what I've been doing over the past couple of days is - as soon as I see someone I call her back and put her on the lead. I then walk up to the people and start talking to them (easier for me than some, since where we live people don't think you're mad if you walk up and start talking to a stranger!).

This seems to be working for her, though still very early days in both the behaviour and my efforts to stop it. I think providing I don't push her past her comfort zone (a lesson learnt re the electricity man incident), she does accept my guidance and I'm hoping that she will soon understand that it isn't her place to decide who to challenge.

My other rescue Hoki also went through a similar phase, though she was definitely all mouth and wouldn't have got within 10 yards of the person she was barking at, so much less of a worry. For her I could leave her off the lead and when anyone came towards us I'd just say in a bright voice 'who's this then' and then call hello to the person, explaining as we got closer what I was doing. Yes, I did feel a bit of a prat at first, but it worked for her...she now only barks if she gets a sudden fright (e.g. someone appearing suddenly out of the dark).

However, for either of these actions to work, the dog must accept that it is your place and not his to challenge people and from what you say, it doesn't sound like this is the case with your dog.

With Hoki, imposing discipline at home ('working' for all treats, leaving food until I say she could have it, not being allowed on furniture etc) coupled with fun training and constructive games where she had to follow my instructions, definitely helped our relationship.

However, I'm not a behaviourist nor a trainer and have no idea whether these things would work for you and your dog. I do therefore think it would be a good idea for you to find an expert who can see the problems first hand and give you proper advice.

Good luck x

When we first rescued Missy she was scared of people too.
We did go to a behaviourist, but we went off our own bat, no referral needed. ( Though I am sure my vet would have supplied one, if asked)

We did take our some fresh turkey on walks with us, and when we saw someone, we asked Missy to sit and rewarded her for sitting and then for staying calm as the person passed.

Only once she was comfortable with this did we progress to stopping the approaching person and asking them to feed her the treat once Missy had "sat" for them.

All of this happened on lead, until she could be trusted not to react badly with anyone. I didn't want to set her up to fail, by letting her do her own thing off lead, you see.

Took a few months but now nobody scares her, and she is incredibly friendly with people.


The caveat is, that's my dog, she was seen by a behaviourist and the prescribed modification worked for her.

In your case, I would speak to your vet and get that referral - surely they wouldn't refuse, and then get a programme for your dog.

Hi,

Out of curiousity, at agility does he back away from men?

Hi- I see you have tried lots of approaches, including a behaviourist (I don`t think the gender of the behaviourist had anything to do with it, incidentally). My dog was much worse, and I also tried everything - until I happened on a trainer who specialises in this problem.
This is what worked for us:
Go back to basics. Put the dog (on lead) in a sit. If there is any chance he will snap at you muzzle him. He must sit behind the line of your leg, straight and not putting his paw across your foot. He won`t like it as he has previously been in control of who comes in his space. Be calm, don`t speak, put the dog back in the sit. When he is there, reward or praise (not hugely - all he`s done is sit down!) Don`t attempt to have people approach yet. Continue till he starts to look to you for direction when someone approaches. This took us 4 months. You are not taking the dog for walkies - you are doing a training session. Don`t accept any behaviour you don`t want - don`t give him the chance to lunge at or bark at people. You are the leader, you must train him. I suspect the behaviourist had clear, calm body language and the dog accepted his leadership. I also taught the watch-me command for use when walking past peope, and used the `drunken walk` method to get good heelwork. And I muzzled my dog when necessary. Daisy is now calm round people, and looks to me for guidance.
Where are you based? I can PM the name of the people who helped us.

Yes he does, especially if they lean over to stroke him. He has been known to run barking at the Judge. It took him ages to get used to the male trainer, but is very submissive to him now. He tends to be a lot more focussed on me at agility though.
He had a period when he stopped barking at men, about 5 months, but started again recently.

I've got my own thoughts on this but wouldn't like to advise as I'm not qualified to do so... it does seem, however that he is very wary of men and perhaps his previous owner was a man and used harsh methods for punishing unwanted behaviour... this would explain why he appears so submissive around men who are with you and 'attacks' men he doesn't know.

I don't want to go into it too much but I would say firstly - water pistols and noise aversion should be out the window straight away. They carry severe side effects and could easily make matters far worse.

You need to counter condition the dog's response to the stimuli - and by going back to basics and managing his experiences with men in the meantime is probably the best way to go about it.

Can I ask you, have you tried using a clicker? I've had great success with Takara's fear of large dogs using a clicker and today we managed to walk just behind a postie without a single bark so it is definitely possible!

HI
whats the drunken walk technique?

When you keep chopping and changing direction making the dog focus on you. Walk off, he follows, as soon as he catches up you change direction and so on. I call it my wandering drunk act as I must look off my head as I walk across the field, but it works really well.