Interesting Doggie Incounter

[voloclydes]

well i have recent gotten austar... and needless to say have watched ceasar millan.

i have found watching it interesting. it has given me some interesting food for thought.

today we had a friend come with his meduim dog, which has been attacked in his own work yard (owner owns a workshop and yard in an industrial area).

terror ( the doggie in question) has had bad experiences by being attacked by larger dogs so now he will start a fight first with a larger dog and ask questions later. terror is fine with the smaller ones in our pack. in the past my large dally would end up in row with terror as he mirrors the other dog. so if terror was happy leo would be happy if terror growled leo would growl and things would be a row in no time.

today given what i have seen on ceasar... i introduced terror and our jrts combined with shopie the dally. they got on like a house on fire. with the big dally inside.

then as we walked out to go i let leo our largest out and because terror had been ok'd by the others leo was busy saying hi and how are you rather than a stand off insuing.

how different is that?

now the other dog has had a good experience with a larger dog which might change his out look as he is not a nasty dog.

[webby]

Hi Voloclydes

Nice work introducing a bit dog to terror, i hope it goes a long way towards fixing him for you. we've got similar problems with one of ours but he's scared of any dog other then the ones he knew before he was attacked unfortunately a few times. our neighborhood used to have a lot of stray dogs.

[voloclydes]

terror is a friends doggie but he visits regularly in the last 18mo i have had leo ( the big dally) he has not been able to play with any of our doggies...

its a shame as terror is a lovely doggie and leo would not hurt a fly... both have similar personalities. hence terror was beaten up, he never was the sort to go in all guns blazing.

[webby]

should have read your post better before posting.

either way i hope you've helped poor terror out

[Kaz]

[alpha bet]

Voloclydes

Keep up the the dog encounters - It is great to get dogs out and about - we hold classes where the objective is to build all the dogs play skills. At times we have a dozen or so dogs of mixed breeds and sizes frolic around.

The more experienced dogs with good skills, really help some of the other dogs (Much like Ceasers idea of balance dogs). The objective is to help the dogs who have developed fear to build their confidence again. Also dogs who have profited from using aggression have to learn to back off.

It is wonderful to see dogs learn to adjust their play to fit in with the group. The majority of the work tho is helping their owners learn how to cope, when to leave things to sort themselves out and when to step in and of course, how to step in.

We get a lot of dogs who have developed so called 'dog aggression'. Most of these adjust well but it does take a lot of patience and the humans giving each other support. Often these are people who have tried the formal obedience track but become embarassed every time their dogs react and unfortunately the obedience field doesnt address the underlying issues or show them how to deal.

This is perhaps my favorite part of working with dogs and families

Play is a powerful tool for training and rehabilitation.