More fear aggression discussion

When I posted about fear aggression in dogs, specifically as observed in Mr. Skeeter, the post quickly emerged as one of the most popular ones on my blog. Currently it holds the number three spot in the most viewed ranking count for Yak Attack.

The Spirit Dog stopped by recently to share his two cents about fear aggression in dogs. Most of his post from his blog he reprinted in the comments section of Yak Attack. It took me few readings to absorb his meaning, but I definitely think the Spirit Dog made a few note-worthy points.

Dogs by nature are fearful, when anybody gets a new puppy or dog the common advice is to socialize, socialize, socialize. That’s all well and good, except most people don’t have the luxury of time nor the inclination to spend vasts amounts of time socializing their dog.

Very, very true. Socializing a dog takes an abundance of time, hard work and sometimes a few tears. You need to introduce positive behaviors to your dog, reinforce them in a positive manner that your dog understands and respects, be consistent and honest with your dog and make sure people approach your dog in the most appropriate way that makes your dog comfortable. Just like people, every dog is unique. Besides all the breed specific tendencies, the history of a dog is important. If you don’t know your dog’s history—- we don’t know anything about Mr. Skeeter’s past except that he was found wandering in an urban, industrial area with a chain around his neck and a broken tail healed over—- you must be overtly diligent in observing your dogs behaviors, discovering every minute nuance and respect his individual personality that emerges.

People can change, and some dogs can too. It’s not easy, however, and if you expect your dog’s negative behavior to magically change and go away, you are not respecting your dog’s individuality. It’ll take hard work, repetition, much time and an abundance of love to help your dog let go of negative behavior. In addition, you will need to take extra steps to protect your dog, to remove him from stressful situations that aggravate his negative behavior.

Let me use Mr. Skeeter as an illustration. He is highly suspicious of strangers. It is one of his breed’s characteristics; Australian Cattle Dogs can be suspicious of people they don’t know, and if their socialization doesn’t include helping them recognize friendly people who exhibit normal, friendly people behavior, reactions from these dogs can be aggressive. They need to be taught how to recognize people friendliness, so they don’t have to lean toward aggression when faced with a stranger. Since we do not know Mr. Skeeter’s history, we do not know why he reacts so strongly to strangers. When greeted by a stranger, Mr. Skeeter will react negatively immediately, barking first and then moving on to a snap if his bark isn’t heeded. We do know now, after much observation and working with our Mr. Skeeter, that if strangers do not react to him at all, do not acknowledge him, but let him approach first, let him do tenative sniff-downs with no acknowledgment and no reaction, Mr. Skeeter warms up to the person faster.

Unfortunately, that means we must rely on other people to respect us enough to obey our instruction to not pet him nor acknowledge him. There are those egotistical few who feel strongly that they channel the Dog Whisperer himself and will “break” our dog from his aggression toward strangers because they are so good with dogs. If you reading this post and are one of these people, I implore you to get off your high horse and respect a dog’s person when he tells you to leave his dog alone. It is for the sake of the dog first, and you second. If you are such a lover of canines you will listen and honor the request, for the dog’s sake.

I digress for another paragraph to further illustrate my point. Lew has a good friend, Jay, who is one of the people I describe above. As we’ve gotten to know Mr. Skeeter and see how he is different when he’s in control of interacting with a stranger, we both have asked Jay to not pay any attention to Mr. Skeeter. Don’t look at him, don’t pet him— plain and simple, ignore the hell out of him. What’s the first thing Jay does when he comes over to our home? He gives our repeated requests the proverbial kick to the curb and tries to talk and/or pet poor Skeeter. When Jay was over a few days ago, Skeeter to let Jay know he’s done with him —- his reaction was a snap first in response to Jay’s attempt to pet him, striking Jay’s wedding band with his teeth. This is serious—- even though Jay’s skin wasn’t broken and no blood was shed, we cannot allow Skeeter to be around Jay at all, for both of their sakes. Skeeter could hurt Jay, and obviously we cannot protect Jay from being a disrespectful idiot. He insists on placing Skeeter in a precarious spot at the beginning of each visit because of his own ego. Lew and I decided Mr. Skeeter must be put into another room, door shut, when Jay visits our home again.

If we cannot get a friend to listen to us, how can we expect complete strangers to listen and heed us? Thankfully, so far most strangers have. We’ve only had problems with friends and acquaintances who are like Jay. It can be stressful to take Skeeter with us, to take the time to work on socialization, to stand up for Skeeter. It’s our responsibility, however, so we must take the time to do so.

A related problem to this is, there are a lot of dogs that it doesn’t matter how much you socialize them. If we don’t know how to relax them in those situations, we will see very little to no progress with that dogs fear aggression issues.

I began in the above paragraphs to address this particular point The Spirit Dog brought up. If we don’t take the time to get to know our dog, to learn what will relax our dog during situations that stress him, our goal of socialization will go unfulfilled. The unfortunate crux in socializing a dog is that it takes years to get to know your dog; he is not stagnant, he will continue to evolve, mature and learn. You may never uncover all of his nuances. You also must come to grips with the potential of never fully socializing your dog. We will do all we can for Mr. Skeeter, but we realize he probably will never completely trustworthy regarding strangers, that he may not ever become comfortable in his own skin to not react when greeted by someone new.

Mr. Skeeter does give us hope. We know he remembers people. He remembered Zander, Zander’s girl friend, Em, and Rosie after lengthy absences. He accepted them quickly back into the fold (and they, now even Zander, respect Skeeter’s wariness and let him control contact upon initial greeting). He’s accepted some close family friends into his fold, like Deadhead Girl and her kids.

If you bring into your family a canine companion, I implore you to do so with your eyes wide open rather than on impulse. Research breeds and find one that fits your personal, familial style and household. Consider strongly adoption, either through the local pound or breed specific fostering communities. Know that there will be challenges, even with the best of the best. Be willing to do some hard work and learning on your part, to grow and mature along with your dog.

Also what will exasperate the problem is the ability or more accurately the inability for a lot of trainers to successfully deal with these problems.

Be committed to doing what is best for your dog at all times, rather than doing what’s easiest. Some people groan and scream when they read about a person returning an adopted animal to the adopting agency. People make mistakes, they realize they don’t have the skill to rear a particular dog. Returning them to the adopting agency isn’t the easy way out most of the time. It’s extremely difficult to give up a dog you love very much. It’s difficult to think about what’s in your pet’s best interest. It’s hard to lose face in front of other people, which is what happens in our mind when we bring a dog back. Unfortunately, people who take the easy way out doom a dog to death, like the unfeeling bastards that dump dogs. “Releasing” a dog “to the wild” is the ultimate betrayal to your dog. Don’t be a cruel, horrible person. Be a man, face your own humility strongly and do the best thing for your dog. If you have a dog like Mr. Skeeter and can’t get a grasp on how to help him, if you try and try and nothing works, or you decide you don’t have it in you to do the work to try and help him deal with his fear, please don’t dump him. You are not doing anyone but yourself a favor.

Until you’ve tried to help a dog live comfortably within his own skin, please do not condemn someone who’s had to put her dog down because he’s too far gone to help. Euthanasia should be a last resort attempt, to be sure. I personally struggle with it as a choice, because I wouldn’t want to have my dog put down for behavioral problems. But I haven’t been where that other person has been, and I certainly do not condemn her for making one of the most difficult decisions she’s ever had to make. Someday, I may face the same set of circumstances and may arrive at the same conclusion. I hope not, but never say never.

I am ever thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to know and befriend the dogs in my life. Thank you, Mr. Skeeter and Miss Virginia for your love and your trust.