corvus

Sorry- but I cannot see how being charged at by an aggro dog and pulling your dog out the way makes you distrust chain collars????? Is it because she froze? Was she freezing prior to attacking? Or? She didn't freeze because she was wearing a check chain. She froze because she was terrified. Would you be comfortable having a dog hanging all four feet off the ground by a check chain? I distrust them because you can't "turn it off" when you don't want it to tighten. And I don't trust them because I don't trust myself with them. There is such a strong compulsion to flick that wrist whenever you don't like something, and sometimes you realise belatedly that your dog knew something you didn't. I like to listen to my dogs, but give me the tools to ignore them and focus on what I want and I'll do just that in spite of myself. Not saying that's what everyone does, I just know it's what I do.

Well, I have to say I deeply distrust check chains after my experience with them. We had this stupid dog next door that would charge Penny and try to... I don't really know as he never got the chance, but let's just say he bruised my mum's arm quite badly trying to get at Penny one day. I was walking past the front of the house and unexpectedly met him coming the other way. He was coming like a freight train, roaring at us on the way. Penny froze and I pulled her out of his path at the last minute with the leash. It all happened fast and all four of her feet were off the ground as I pulled her out of the way. The second time that happened (different dog) I decided to stop using the check chain. Penny hated it anyway. I imagine that if I'd been using head collars it would have been even worse. As a result of this, my dogs are walked on harnesses. They both have Ruff Wear Web Master harnesses that are all but impossible to wriggle out of and also have a handle. It is way safer than any kind of collar. Collars are for carrying ID tags and flashing lights when it's dark and that's all. The best thing about the handle is that it's positioned so it doesn't matter what your dog is doing, you can grab that handle with ease and lift the dog safely and comfortably off the ground if you have to. Kivi is over 20kg and I have used that handle to pluck him out of the air and set him down well clear of a pile of broken glass he was about to land in. Broke a nail in the process, though. Anyway, that's why I don't like check chains OR head collars. If I had a chronic puller the tree method hadn't worked on I'd get an anti-pull harness, but I'd far rather avoid the whole sorry affair and just teach good leash manners from an early age. You can't accidentally tighten a normal walking harness. Last time Kivi's car harness broke and I had to walk him on a flat collar he was skittish and anxious because he wasn't used to feeling pressure on his neck. I felt like he was going to pull out of that collar any moment and end up on the road. He didn't, but I bought another harness that day!

Kivi Tarro is significantly more responsive when I walk him on his own as well. But he's just less distracted by what everyone else is doing because it's just him and me. Penny was always the opposite and was better behaved when she was with other dogs. She has always used it as an opportunity to be an angel and get all the praise and love and so forth. I remember walking Penny and my mum's two dogs on my own and I always found it stressful and frustrating. The dogs weren't used to the way I did things and they were scatty. I watched my mother walk the three of them and she had them all sorted out. It turned out most of the problems I was having was just me upsetting the routine. If you don't have a routine with Misha and Daisy, maybe that's half your problem? I haven't used leash corrections on Kivi and he's generally very good. I was forced to hang Penny on a check chain a couple of times when we got charged by other dogs and she froze. The only way to get her clear of the charging dog was haul her bodily out of the way using the leash, which hapened to be attached to the check chain, of course. I stopped using them after the second time because I thought they were dangerous and it's one of the best things I've ever done. I like the passive approach. It suits me far better and it's a hell of a lot more difficult for me to mess up. These days I'm a classical conditioning with verbal cues/be a tree kinda gal. The treats come out when I need something to be rock solid and reliable. Haven't needed leash corrections yet.

My mum has 2 cats and got her Sheltie at nearly 4 months old. She hasn't had any problems with the cats.

My mother got a Sheltie last year. That dog barks incessantly. She barks when she's happy, she barks when she's nervous, she barks when she's scared, she barks when the cats go out in their run, she barks when one of the other dogs looks at her, she barks whenever she sets eyes on my Penny, who doesn't like her, and I'm pretty sure she barks just to check in periodically. In case there's something to bark at that she hasn't identified yet. Now, she gets a 60 minute walk every day and has two other dogs to play with in a large yard. My mother also has a vocal Vallhund she has taught to stop barking when told. I always thought he was a very barky dog all the same until I met Shani the Sheltie. My mum says she is getting better with training, but it is hard going and taking a long time. I tell her there is hope. We have an older Sheltie next door who still barks a lot, but doesn't go on and on like Shani tends to. She barks and then stops. It upsets the neighbours, though. The ones behind us apparently tried to make our neighbours give their Sheltie up because she was too loud. On the plus side, Shani is DEAD easy to train and extremely responsive.

How do they cope with the kinds of hot and cold extremes we get in Australia?

This is great. I've been dreaming of sighthounds for years, and Salukis have always been very high on the list, but I've been thinking I don't have the room or time to exercise one. Do they have an off switch when it comes to prey drive? Like, is there a time when they wouldn't launch after a rabbit if you did coursing or something like that with them where there was a definite time for the prey drive to be on... Does that make any sense?

So.... they are physical and a bit wild while playing but prefer people to be gentle around them? Are they rough players with lots of shouldering and wrestling, or do they just run at high speed? I've heard it said that Salukis don't make great jogging companions because their pace is too quick. Is that something invented by crazy people or is there truth in it?

Don't really understand what you're getting at here. If I understand Anita correctly, she's talking about the rubbish you get from some people who don't want to admit that a particular method works in the majority of cases because it's not what they like to do. And that goes equally for correction based and positive training. Everyone believes their method is the best one, but I think what Anita is getting at is that something that works for normal pet dogs is something that works for the vast majority of dogs and if it doesn't work for hardcore dogs, then who cares, because those dogs are best left to professionals anyway. My sentiments exactly. I like talking about hardcore cases because I think of those sorts of dogs as wild animals and that's where my expertise lies, but you could say "this method doesn't work on this kind of dog" for every method there is. It seems sensible to me to concentrate on typical pet dogs in these generalised discussions of methods, rather than the ones it might not work with. Incidentally, I'll just repeat that I did have a marker word with Penny when I was sin-binning her and I think that she knew what the consequences would be, she just couldn't control herself. I've seen her trying her darndest not to bark when I've told her to be quiet and it's pretty funny. She does everything but bark, but if time stretches and her excitement/frustration is building and building, eventually she will bark even when she knows I'm going to put her in a sit and we'll wait a painfully long time (3 seconds) of quiet before we start moving again. Some behaviour is just hard for a particular dog to regulate, and in those cases I think that sin-binning probably won't work. Kivi doesn't get sin-binned, but sometimes he gets shut out of the room he wants to be in and he's very good at figuring out what he needs to do to stay in the fun room. I think that it would work for him. Unless I was trying to teach him not to whine. I think he'd have trouble controlling that.

I used to sin-bin Penny when she would snap at Kivi. It actually made it worse. She would come out even more fractious. Eventually, she started cowering every time I came towards her after she had snapped at Kivi. Either it wasn't instant enough a punishment despite a marker, or she couldn't control the impulse anyway, or the sin-bin wasn't as big a punishment as the snapping was a reward. Whatever the case, sin-binning just made her more aggro and I stopped doing it. The guys at Kivi's daycare use it with great success. They tell me dogs that start things soon stop doing that after a sin-bin. They said it usually only takes one stint in the time out room to convince them to behave. In a situation where there's a lot of other dogs and lots of fun and play going on, I imagine it would be more effective.

To me, it's a mixture of two things: your pup learning how to understand you, and your pup growing up enough to control some of his impulses. It does take time, but being very consistent helps. I spent a long time with Kivi teaching him what things meant, like what "good boy" means and what "ah-ah" means and what happens when he bites me and what happens when he jumps on me and what happens when he gets to the end of his leash and those kinds of things. The more consistent you are the faster they learn and once they get it they will start responding to you and it will be less crazy, chaotic running around doing whatever they please and you'll start to see them making decisions to do one thing over another and so forth. When that starts to happen you can expect that they are a little better at impulse control and I guess that's when you start to see their real personality come out. Kivi was 10 months when he woke up one morning a mature dog instead of a crazy puppy. He had several reversions to crazy puppy. His impulse control was happening at around 6 or 7 months. It's a gradual thing, and it's different for every dog. Kivi grew up pretty fast for his size. Depending on the dog, normally 12 months to 2 years is where you can expect to see them settle down. Some of the large breeds are still youngsters at 3 years. They can be right monsters at around 9 months, and will give you the finger at every opportunity and run off to discover the world on their own. With Kivi, we just kept him on leash, kept him away from the things he isn't meant to do, and he forgot about those things after a while.

Lee Charles Kelley was quite active on another forum I'm on for a while (until he got tired of getting hammered by the residents). He doesn't post there much anymore, but we had some good discussions. I've been playing around with the pushing exercise since I got Kivi. He's getting really into it with toys but won't offer it in any other circumstance. LCK's Psychology Today blog is well worth looking at. I've actually posted some of his articles on here before and had it waved off as new age twaddle because he is fiercely against the dominance hierachy thing. More fiercely than I am! Neil Satin, who writes the Natural Dog Training Blog is a proponent of using E-collars in his training, which LCK doesn't hold with as far as I could make out. One of the things people on the other forum struggled with was the idea that a dog can see a person as predator or prey. The best explanation I've seen of it is when wild canids hunt big game. When the animal runs, they chase. When the animal stops and faces them, they stop and back off. I think that this dance of space and weight shift is what they are talking about. I know it well from wild animals. LCK totally understood what I was getting at with hare and bird examples and I could actually have a real discussion about it without having to point out the differences all the time. It was ace! I miss his presence on the other forum. All the stirrers and shakers are gone and it's dull over there, now.

I met a 4 year old Berner today that was never taught to walk on leash properly and still thinks it's okay to grab the leash and tug on it. Obviously a problem for the current owner (who was not the one that let him grow up thinking the leash was a tug toy). And this is why I used to carry tug toys. At least then they are tugging on the right thing (in Kivi's case, not my leg rather than not the leash) and provided you don't establish a habit of playing tug on walks, eventually you can phase out the tug toy. Although I seriously did establish a habit of playing tug on walks and Kivi still managed to grow out of it. Kivi is not wild about tug, though. But it depends on what you like. I like playing tug with puppies on walks and I have no problem dealing with possible consequences later on (God forbid my dog should think of walks as a time to play tug with me - I would love that!). They are just babies, though, and every puppy surely goes through a tug phase and until I met this Berner today, I thought they all grew out of it on their own. He's possibly got other problems from neglect, though.

Ha. There are a lot of parallels there between Poppy and my Penny. Penny has been a bossy boots and the fun police most of her life. I tried all those things that you mention and the problem never really went away. I've had the most success with her in the last year since we've had Kivi by actually giving her more attention, special time with me, time on the couch with us, bringing her in with us when Kivi is out... It is growing on me that perhaps her overly bossy behaviour had a bit to do with her wanting more time with us. She's a pretty clingy, devoted kinda girl and while she has always been good about being left alone and that kind of thing, when people are in the house she seems to get anxious when she's not with them. That leads to snappyness, and as long as the dog(s) she's living with puts up with the snaps, it's a perfectly suitable outlet for her anxiety/frustration as far as she's concerned. She would hold off if I told her to, like Poppy does with you, but it never made her feel less of a need to be bossy. The only thing that's made her feel less of a need to be bossy has been taking away the source of the initial tension, which appears to have been separation for her. Subtle, as she shows very little anxiety and much more snarkiness. And tricky, because she would take as much special time with me as I cared to offer and if I then had to take it away for some reason I reckon she might feel it even more keenly. Wish I'd figured it out years ago so I could think of some way to tackle it. All bets are off for Pen, now, as she's going senile and does a lot of bizarre and random stuff, and she can't hear me when I tell her to leave off anyway. For Penny, I have managed this her whole life and it hasn't been a major deal until now when she is 13 and not acting herself anymore. There have been lots of times when I've wished I knew how to get her to quit bossing the other dogs around. I have to say, though, timeouts were the least effective. They just made her worse and eventually she took to cowering every time I came towards her after she'd been snappy. She knew what the routine was and just got more frustrated, therefore more snappy. Back when she was younger I used to walk away and say "If you can't be nice I don't want to talk to you." She'd go and sulk under the house. It was more important to her to express herself than be seperated from me, even though she was expressing herself over her desire to be with me. It's been manageable, but a right pain. Hope you have better success than I did.

In all honesty, I never made the slightest effort to break my pup of this habit and he grew out of it fairly quickly. I just made sure I didn't particularly encourage him to do it. I'd rather he was hanging off the leash than my shoe, and with pups they find it hard to walk very far without turning it into a game. They grow out of that, too. For a while I made sure I had a tug toy on me when we walked and if Kivi felt the tugging urge at least he could go tug on something appropriate. He grew out of needing that at around 6 months, I think.

Here's a video of Kivi's recall at the beach a few weeks ago. I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming along. There wasn't much in the way of distractions at the beach that day, but he was pretty worked up and keen to find some dogs to jump all over. I think we are slowly overcoming the "Wait, should I?" problem OH caused him to develop. We practised this morning at the dog park and there was no hesitation. I think it's about time to try it with more distractions.

That's a good point, but to play devil's advocate, just because a dog knows he's gonna get beaten up if he tries to get that bone doesn't mean he no longer wants it. He'll look at it sideways and nonchalantly hang around and wait for the other dog to be finished with it so he can get his chance. I would imagine that some such situations result in no dominant signals at all even so mild as a stare, but I find it difficult to believe that most would go that way. IME, there will either be submissive or dominant signals at some point from someone. Usually it'd be as mild as eye contact or looking away, but that did fall within their dominant and submissive categories. I think that dominance hierarchies is over-analysing dogs. Kelpie-i not only summed up dogs in that one paragraph, but every other social vertebrate on the planet and quite a lot not considered social. Except maybe advanced primates and some particularly clever birds.... But even then, that's the bare bones of it. But what would I know? I think hares and dogs have things in common. Why can't we focus on creating predictable environments for our animals rather than controlling their behaviour? It's the same outcome, and the same approach, but the spirit of it is worlds apart. In my predictable environment, all my animals have a pretty good idea what I'm going to do next and they can do what they please about it. Rules don't have to be about controlling undesirable behaviour or what you want versus what your dog wants to get the results you want. They just need to be "If they do that, then this will happen next." OMG, no need for dominance hierarchies, vehement training method debates, or accusations about letting your dog "get away with things". Life would be so dreary!

It's obvious this is aimed at one person in particular however they might avoid naming him, but I think the revolt against the dominance theory is just as much about all his predecessors. Okay, maybe not "just as much". His fame seems to really irk some people! ETA I think you'll find there's no 'h', Erny.

I would love to read the full article. The thing that annoys me about these studies is that they are always out to prove a point and so seem to pick the most blindingly obvious things like "Oh, hitting at or shouting a dog makes them afraid of you" or "Pinning a dog is dangerous".... Uh huh. Come on guys, catch up. I bet they use that stuff because it's about the only thing they can get a uniform response from the dogs with. Nonetheless, this one sure makes me feel smug! As someone who doesn't see social hierarchies in dogs, and doesn't think anyone needs to worry much about dominance as such, I have to say I'm not very interested in "debunking" dominance. Whatever words I may see as more accurate, dominant and submissive behaviours exist in any social animal and are very important in keeping the peace. However, the attachment of all these emotions to "dominance" is a problem, I think. You only have to look at how keen certain people on this board are to discredit the study to see that. It happens on both sides, folks. I'd be happier if we did start to use different words if that was likely to flick the emotional connotations. Yes, there are clearly problems with their selection of dogs to use in the study, but the thing is, you are NEVER going to get a sample that accurately represents all of dogdom. There is way too much variation. However, if I were looking for dominance in dogs, I would start looking in shelters on the assumption that dominant dogs are problematic to their human caretakers and might be more likely to find themselves in a shelter. I'd want to include old breeds, breeds bred to run in large groups, and guard breeds at the least. I don't think you necessarily need to know a history of the dog's experiences to be able to nut out what they are doing and why. As I haven't read the full article, I can't really comment on the methods other than to say that you don't need to know a dog's history to be able to say how he is behaving right now with dogs he has a known history with and think about what in that known history might be influencing the observed behaviour. With wild animals you almost never get the luxury of knowing their full history. You take the behaviour as a snapshot and concentrate on what you see over and over within your sample of the population. I assume you are talking about things like NILIF? I personally think that stuff works brilliantly because it does introduce structure and predictable outcomes for the dog. Structure and dominance are two unrelated things as far as I'm concerned. They are not inherently linked. Structure, expectations and boundaries are things dogs like because they create a predictable environment. ANY animal likes predictable environments. I agree with you, Erny, in that it is a lot of semantics, but the thing is, there are connotations attached to the notion of "dominance" in dogs, and that is thanks to a barrage of trainers over the years that have advocated aggressive methods in order to show that dog who is boss. Personally, I still cringe a little whenever a trainer starts spouting stuff about dominance because I don't know when they might suddenly tell me I should be doing something heinous to my dog so that they don't think they are boss. So what if they think they are boss? As long as they know when I mean something I bloody well mean it and I will harangue them until they do it then they can think whatever the hell they like. Whenever I see this come up it's the same old dance. Apparently either you're a softy that gives your dog no structure or boundaries and end up with a dog with problems or you are an over-bearing control freak that beats your dog into submission and thus also end up with a dog with problems. You know, a lot of people don't do either and don't end up with dogs with problems.... I don't think dominance is a bad word, but the way that it is bandied about in dog training circles is wrong and creates these emotional connotations, which in turn creates this "us versus them" rubbish that doesn't need to exist. The dogs would be better off without that, and so would people. I'm reasonably happy for everyone to emulate CM if they feel the need to emulate someone because at least then the dogs will have exercise, discipline and affection and that's near enough good enough for me. At least it creates some predictability for the poor pups.

And that is your experience. Mine is I haven't met a single one at an off leash park or beach in 13 years. Experiences, by their nature, can't be wrong.

Everyone assesses risk differently. I don't think snakes are a big risk in my garden, either, but some folks kill them on sight. Then again, I think feeding kibble is a big risk and won't do it. Other folks see no real risk in that. It's hard to judge someone else's risk assessment. You don't know everything they do about the situation. You don't have their experiences to help you make that assessment. Obviously (I hope) I wouldn't take high risks with my dogs, their safety, and their mental wellbeing. I love them too much for that. I have judged the risk of aggressive postures leading to serious aggression based on my experiences over the last 13 years or so. I have certainly added the experiences of others to my risk assessment. I have judged the risk of aggressive actions leading to long-term fear-related behavioural problems and added that into the mix. If I had found a dog park or beach where aggression happened at a higher rate than it does everywhere else, I wouldn't go. If I had a dog that I felt was more likely to react badly to the environment at the dog parks I go to I wouldn't take them. It's a no-brainer. But I don't see a need to propagate fear about aggressive dogs and dog parks. I do see a lot of value in socialisation. I don't care if you choose not to socialise at a dog park. I did and it all worked out perfectly fine. I don't care if you choose to neutralise - I won't unless I really want to squash something out of my dog from the word go. But none of that changes the benefits that SOME dog parks and beaches offer and the bnefits that socialisation can offer. Nothing is right for every dog, but socialisation and dog parks are not, IMO, wrong for every dog. ETA I lived with a dog that launched attacks with very little warning and no bite inhibition for several years. She was not normal and her behaviour was far from usual. It was horrifying and dangerous. I got damn good at diving in milliseconds before she errupted, but if I wasn't close enough I couldn't stop her. I have no defence against a dog like that and I don't know anyone who does. She's the only one I've met. She was an angel most of the time and played well with other dogs most of the time. A dog like that could turn up anywhere, anytime. I doubt Penny would see it coming and she wouldn't be able to stop it anyway. Is the small chance of meeting a dog like that in the dog park enough to make me decide to deny Kivi the fun he has there all the time? Nope. I take the risk of meeting a dog like that every time I step out of the yard with my dogs.

We are talking about her entire life span, here. She's been through loads of different levels of confidence with other dogs, and "other dogs" is not a single entity, it's hundreds of individuals that all require an individual approach. There are dogs she will always be confident with and dogs she will never be confident with. In general, she is confident and comfortable. She likes the dog park as long as I keep her clear of the play. She is quite happy to meet and greet older dogs, but doesn't like younger dogs anymore, so I keep her close when they are around. She will never be the social butterfly Kivi is, but that's not to say she doesn't like "other dogs". I think she is fantastically social considering what she's been through. She especially likes the old dogs. She always goes over to greet them and they come and greet her if Kivi is out of the way. I think I see what you're trying to say. I say she avoids dubious dogs if she can, but confidently handles other dubious dogs if she can't? Why let her handle something she would try to avoid if she could? It's hard to answer because we're talking about heaps of individual encounters and for most of them I think I was worried when I shouldn't have been. Like I said, I don't trust MY actions around tense dogs. I don't know what I decide to do might make them decide to do. Let me make something clear. The times we have a tense dog coming up to us, I look at Penny. If Penny is in avoidance, I do everything I can to keep the dog away from mine. If Penny is confident and meeting the dog's eyes, I let her handle it. Haven't been wrong yet. The times Penny says avoid I've been able to avoid them or I've had a charging dog on my hands. I can only say hypothetically what I'd do if a dog Penny wanted to avoid was unavoidable but wasn't charging because it hasn't happened yet. Hypothetically, I would body block it and chase it away. I can't make Penny confront something she wants to avoid. She will still avoid it and you're right, she can't be confident about something she wants to avoid. Oh wait, I've just remembered this has happened once. There were two big dogs that were coming over and barking at us when we were walking on the street. Penny had her eyes away and was whining. It was all too tense for her. I don't think the dogs would have hurt her, but she didn't want to deal with them. I was with my mum and her two dogs at the time. We rushed the other dogs and they decided to bark from a distance and let us go.

Would you like to actually read some of my posts, jdavis? Again, yes, I know. It has happened to me. Would you like me to go back and quote it again? I put it in nice, short sentences with one thought per sentence. I thought it was pretty clear, but if you are still having troubles, let me know. Or maybe you just don't believe me. Or maybe I don't understand you. Seems we speak a different language. Let me try another way of saying it. I have seen Penny frozen cowering beside me because a dog is bearing down on us that has no interest in her submission and would just like to grab her and shake her. Did I just stand there and say "There you go, Pen, you can sort that out"? Hardly. This is an emergency situation and I don't have a plan beyond somehow preventing that dog from getting to mine. Perhaps you are talking about dogs that aren't charging up but dogs that have trotted or stalked up? If the dog hasn't outright charged there's always hope we can get out of it without a fight. I haven't yet seen this situation turn into a fight in the 13 years I've had Penny. And I've seen too many to count from all sorts of dubious-looking characters. What I have seen is a dog saunter up that had every intention of picking a fight regardless of what Penny is saying, which is usually "Oh god, that dog is going to kill me". This hasn't happened with a dog that hasn't been on leash, yet, so we've been safe. I watch Penny. She knows what's going to go down. If she looks scared and the dog is off leash, that's when I would try chasing the dog. I've never had to do it, though. It hasn't happened. Penny has taught me heaps. Since I started watching her I've learnt some of the more subtle hints that could help me. I wouldn't trust Kivi to sort anything out and I won't until he has proved himself, and he won't get a chance to prove himself until I get surprised, basically. He's had one chance so far and he handled it perfectly. I do actually try not to give them chances to prove their skills, but inevitably it happens. I'd far rather they had those skills for that moment when it happens than to depend on my speed. IME, these things happen with very little chance to assess. One moment everything is fine and the next you have a snarling dog just seconds away. If I have time to err on the side of caution and move away, I sure as hell do exactly that.

I'm quoting this because it kind of explains something of where I'm coming from and the contradictions people are seeing in my posts. They do seem contradictory because fear is such a complex thing and every dog is different. Here is an example: neither of my dogs were in the least bit comfortable in the lake/river as puppies. I spent a good 6 months of Penny's early life trying to coax her into the lake with me and putting her in situations where I was on one side of the shallow creek and she was on the other. Being a small corgi she didn't have to go real deep to have to swim. She was not comfortable with going through the very shallow creek to get to me and would whine. I did not let this go on for very long and would take the pressure off, but I kept exposing her to these situations until one day she got the courage to discover she could swim and now it's hard to keep her out of the water. She absolutely loves it. Kivi has always been more frightened of getting in the water than Penny ever was. I started trying to coax him in the same way I did with Penny, but he wasn't keen. After I'd got to know him pretty well, it occurred to me that I didn't need to be quite as cautious with him as I had been with Penny. He is a much steadier personality and his fear of the water was a different nature to the fear Penny had. Even so, I didn't want to push him too far. I had him stepping into the water and standing there, but sometimes he didn't even want to get his toes wet. OH decided to push him physically - into the water. Kivi dug his heels in, but once his feet hit the water and he discovered it was only 5 cm deep he happily trotted off through the shallows. I don't think that approach would have been sensible with Penny, but Kivi sometimes needs a push and copes with it fine. My thought is that you can't treat all fear the same in dogs or in any other animal. You can't say, all fear period diminishes trust, but nor can you say no fear diminishes trust. Fear is a continuum, not a static state. You can have a little fear or a lot. I challenge anyone to get through life having never seen their animal even a little afraid. It's the way you handle it that impacts on your animal's trust in you - or not. So in my mind, if my dog is afraid that's when they need me most. They need me to reassure them, to be ready to take them away if need be, to show them there's nothing to be concerned about. The one I do depends on the level of fear being displayed and how it has progressed. If it is low level fear I just hover by them and watch closely. Most of the time, it never gets beyond that. Kivi was a big cry baby as a pup, but while I haven't always been there to protect him from something that's made him cry, I've always been there to make sure he's okay afterwards and he's grown out of it, mostly, with no ill effects. Things that used to make him cry don't bother him as much because he's learnt it's not as bad as he thought it was. Experiences are important, and sometimes that includes fearful experiences. However, like PF mentioned, low level fear is a good way to teach avoidance or aggression, but not trust. So I would rather not be the source of fear. I would add, though, that flooding is sometimes very helpful in conquering a fear. Dog gets to a point where they realise the bad stuff hasn't happened yet and they are fine. What they were afraid of is not frightening after all.

Firstly, you can bet I'd be removing my dog from a charging dog before jerking it out of the way at the last minute if I had that option. Charging dogs don't often give you options. Secondly, this all has not happened through me going "Oh, let's just see if this dog trotting towards us with its hackles up and staring at my dog is actually going to attack." I never took those chances. I discovered Penny's ability to defuse (not diffuse!) a situation when there were no options to remove ourselves. I was still trying to get between them and control the situation until one day when Penny dug her heels in and I looked at her and realised she seemed to know something I didn't. So I trusted her, gave her leash some slack, and she defused what I thought was a risky situation. She did it fast, she was comfortable, she was not the least bit worried. My little eyes widened as I went "Wow, that was amazing." And from then on I paid a lot more attention to her rather than being wholly fixated on the other dog and trying to control the situation. If she can control the situation and I know her aims are to avoid conflict, then surely I'd be mad to try to come in and take care of it myself? I could be the one that triggers it to turn ugly. Me tugging on the leash, for example, creates an oppositional reflex in my dog. They stiffen to resist. How is the other dog going to interpret that? If I get in front of my dog, and the other dog just wants a clear view of this strange dog approaching their territory, can I be sure that this tense dog is not going to become more tense if it can't see my dog properly? Everything you do when you insert yourself into these tense situations can easily add to the tension. It can even be a trigger. To me, letting Penny handle it is a surer bet. She's a dog, she's brilliant at dog body language, she REALLY doesn't want to get into conflict with a strange dog and most importantly, she is confident and unafraid. She is more confident than I am. Having said all that, if there is an option to avoid the situation all together, I sure as hell would take it. I'm talking about when you're walking your dog and suddenly an off-leash dog appears out of someone's front yard. You can't always avoid it. You can try chasing the other dog, and it will probably work, but I don't want to be teaching my dogs that whenever we see a dog displaying aggressive signals we chase it off. I can't very well leave them where they are and chase the dog on my own. Inevitably it includes them. Penny doesn't like chasing aggressive-looking dogs. I listen to her. I only brought up my hare in this thread because it was instrumental in me discovering the lack of trust in my dog. You can ignore it if you like. It doesn't make any difference to the point I'm trying to make. It's just background info. We still seem to be discussing my approach to "aggressive" dogs. Can we please discuss the topic?