suzeanna Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 We'll have had our lurcher Dylan three years next month (how time flies!) When we first got him, he was very excitable and noisy when near other dogs, and the behaviourist we saw diagnosed fear aggression. She said he was confused..he wanted to play, but when dogs got too near, he was afraid they would go for him, so he started acting up to scare them away. With a lot of patience, he is now much much better, he practically ignores them unless they growl or bark at him...until we started walking our puppy cav with him. Now if another dog comes any where near, he goes absolutely berserk, growling and lunging. Rosie meantime is happily wagging her tail at the stranger and wanting to say hello! I would imagine he thinks he must protect her...even from dogs which are putting out their best friendly signals. Short of never walking them together, which isn't really practical, how do we convince him he doesn't have to do this? I don't want him making her think that other dogs are to be shouted at/attacked/feared, as at the moment she has the usual "I love the world and everything in it" cavalier temperament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puppylove Posted February 25, 2008 Report Share Posted February 25, 2008 I had something very similar with my old collie cross for a while when our new pup arrived. She's never been one for allowing other dogs to come near her unless she gets to approach them first. We over came the problem to a small extent by asking people we knew with dogs to let us pass them a couple of times before coming over to say hello. Their dog(s) would sit and wait and we would walk past in one direction at one side of them and then turn and do the same thing on the other side of them. We did this several times until alot of the stress/excitement had gone from my dog and then we went over to say hello. It helped ease the tension in me as well as take away some of the defense from the dog cos she'd 'been there done that' already. Not sure if it will help, but just an idea. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
summersun Posted May 26, 2008 Report Share Posted May 26, 2008 Hi, having worked through his fear aggression it sounds like there is also underlying resource aggression. you have added resource of "his girl" into the mix - he naturally wants to protect her. you need to be a stronger pack manager and communicate to him that you are in charge and he dont need to be a silly sausage i would sort this first and then work on adding in other dogs - if you were happy with them go back to your original behaviourist and fill them in as they'll have the advantage of knowing the history etc... good luck if you get it right now as your girl grows past a year she could well become pack leader and when she does reduce his anxiety even mroe and help you manage him Claire x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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