Dealing with fear aggression

I got a new dog about three weeks ago. He's an Akbash X Maremma, about a year and a half old.

He really bonded to me and I think it might be fueling his aggression, cause he feels he needs to protect me. I have him off the property for the first time today, apart from once to the vet. He's in my parents' backyard, and when he's out there alone he's totally calm. When I'm out there with him, he lies right on my feet and jumps up and barks every time he hears anything going on at any of the neighbours.

I introduced him to a friend yesterday and he seemed totally fine to begin with. He sniffed around, got petted a bit, then seemed to lose interest and went and lay back down. But then every once in a while he'd jump up, hackles up, and come bark at my friend. They'd get acquainted again, he'd lie down, then it would happen again. Despite my instructions, my friend started reaching for the dog to let him before he'd calm down and the dog ended up snapping at him.

I gather he was totally fine at the vet, one he'd never been to before. Because of covid, you don't go in with your dog right now. After watching him today, I think he was okay at the vet because I wasn't with him.

Sooooo... Any suggestions on how to work on a problem that's worse when I'm there?

I've never dealt with this problem in a dog before since I've usually had dogs from puppy hood.

I got my 2 year old extremely fear aggressive Aussie mix girl about 2.5 months ago. She barks at every moving or noisy object. She is even scared of my ceiling fan cause she was kept as a backyard dog for her entire life with no exposure to dogs or other humans. She fought my older mixed dog twice already. Most working dog breeds have serious fear aggression. They were bred to use their fear aggression to herd cattle. They will bark and bite until the cattle submit or they will keep biting. But working dogs are also bred to follow VERY strict commands/orders. But you have to be the BOSS of your flock. You have to let your dog know you are the BOSS and you are the protector of your entire flock.

I do not allow my dogs to stare at each other any more. They can look at each other, but they have to move on or I will yell at them. They have never ever had another fight again.

Start with leash control. Fear aggressive dogs are also out of control on leash. You have to punish/correct your dog if your dog keep pulling the leash. Leash is the STARTING point of your leadership. Of course, building trust is critical if you have a newly adopted dog. Reinforce your dog positively if he/she follows your command, punish/correct your dog if he/she doesn't not follow your command. A simple harsh verbal punishment or a yank of the leash is good enough. My Aussie girl was not potty trained. She has defecated and urinated on my carpets several times. I have to let her out to potty every 6 or sometimes even 4 hours. I willSge  put her into the bathroom if she doesn't potty because she keeps looking at the traffic (my property is in-between a highway and a road). She is getting better but she is inconsistent. You need to be very consistent. My Aussie girl is super stubborn. On a good day, she will not pull on the leash. On a bad day, she will keep pulling until I yank her many times. But you have to be consistent. She will learn eventually.

There are many good youtube trainers' channels out there. Here are some of the best (I don't believe in 100% positive reinforcement. It doesn't work on humans and it doesn't work on dogs):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuOmWJkaAAgP2gMgiLvRSIg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQSwgUU0RR4Wajfp6aIqYg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-TFajjG5CMAmUrJG1ONtKQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCortXxJdZYbHCrOa3nddr6g

BTW, I don't believe in treats. I love my dogs and I share my food with them. I am building trust and leadership. And I am the very mean boss of my family/flock. LOL

Oh yeah, I'm good with dog training in general, and I know just working with him will help overall. I'm kind of hoping someone has suggestions on dealing specifically with the issue of me seeming to be a catalyst. It would be nice if I could address that specifically instead of waiting for it to work itself out along the way as everything else improves.

I really don't like using treats, either, and that seems to be the common thing suggested for fearful dogs. I feel like obedience and trust aren't genuine if they're given for food.

My guy's pretty good on the leash, for the most part. Luckily he doesn't seem to be aggressive with other dogs at all so far.  My grouchy 15 year old bassett hound bosses him around, as does my parents' maltipoo. A couple random dogs we met wandering around alone at the river one day made it quite clear they didn't want to play with him and he backed right off.

I'll see if I can check out the links you provided at some point, but I can't watch videos while I'm at home so it might be a while.

Thanks!

Counter conditioning is the most successful strategy for this IMO. You arent using treats to make the dog obedient, but to change how the dog views things.

Sounds like there were two things going on: a likely poorly socialized dog in a new location, still unsettled from the stress of rehoming, and dealing with a new person. Trigger stacking. I would probably work on both separately.

Currently the most commonly recommended protocol is the following:

https://grishastewart.com/bat-overview/

Basically, It relies on introducing dogs to their triggers at 'safe' distances where the dog isn't reacting, and then rewarding them for their non-reaction by moving further away from the trigger. It's a stress-relief cycle, no treats required.  It works really well, but sometimes you don't have the option to watch things from 100 or 200 m away or whatever the non reaction distance is.  

My suggestion would be probably more counter conditioning.  Put the dog on leash, maybe tied to a post. Obviously, make sure the dog is comfortable being tied out before you bring in a friend.  Go, chat with the person, both of you sitting on chairs a bit away, at a distance the dog isn't reacting to you. Toss a treat or walk over and toss a treat, not even looking at the dog. Have your friend stand, toss another treat. Both of you walk away, giving a bit of distance. For treats - think a piece of left over dinner meat or cheese.  Something really good to get past the dog's nerves.  Really quickly the strange human standing up should have a positive emotional reaction, not a negative emotional reaction. You want to reward the dog BEFORE it reacts negatively. If your friend standing is still too big of a trigger - maybe move further away, or have your friend just pretend to prepare to stand, shifting their legs, raising their arms, whatever.  I would probably chose a friend who listens to your instructions more reliably to start this training :)

The idea is to change the emotional response from 'people are scary' to 'wow, people make food rain down from the sky!' so the dog stops thinking every small movement is a cause for concern.

Similarly if you have issues with him barking at neighbours, have him on leash, right when you see the neighbour, have him look at you and give the treat BEFORE he reacts.  You are changing the default response from 'omg threat!' to 'oh good, a person, let me check in with my human'.

As the fear fades, you can move closer, fade out the rewards etc.

Keep in mind you are working against breed traits though. It's pretty normal for a LGD to bark at anything 'weird' when guarding their 'flock' even if the flock is a human who wishes they wouldn't.  My goal for being in the backyard around neighbours would be one alert bark and done, instead of hysterical continued barking.

Moving from pure counter conditioning to training,  another common recommendation is the Look at That game, which teaches your dog to observe a distraction, ignore it, then look at you for direction.  It can be started in your kitchen.  Here's a service dog trainer showing how it works.



Some people would suggest extinguishing the behaviour (applying a negative stimulus/punishment, for example, using a pinch or choke collar to correct the dog until dog stops doing it) but that wouldn't be my suggestion because of the risk of backlash for a fear based behaviour. It's pretty easy to end up with a dog who is still afraid of the trigger, but has also learned not to communicate the fear, and that's where you start to risk no warning bites if someone with bad dog-reading skills approaches the dog suddenly thinking quiet dog = friendly dog.  Or, depending on the level of the fear, redirection up the leash at the handler.

I've found Tobias Olynek and Larry Krohn to be excellent dog handlers.

Tobias has an online course and Larry has authored a great book on e-collars.

Both are excellent and well respected in their work.

My dog is part Chow and both have helped.

Good luck!

Ian Dunbar is top-notch.

LGD in general seem to be pretty non-reactive in places other than "their" territory.  Mine is fine in permies, at the vet, stores, wherever, but if she is in my truck or on our land, she is territorial.  I would try to find out if he reacts that way to people everywhere, or only certain places he regards as his.   Try with a friend that ignores the dog entirely, doesn't make eye contact, doesn't reach for the dog, acts like the dog doesn't exist.  As Catie said, reward for ignoring the person.  I don't bother with trying to get my dogs to like people, I want them to be indifferent, so I reward indifference.  Catie is right on about a LGD's job as well.  I see your dog's reaction as a great thing, but understand you don't want too much of it.

I trained dogs in the past, and I believed in dominance and correction.  We have come a long way from that time, and dominance theory has been shown time and again to be incorrect, Caesar Millan or not.  I would urge you to read current research and trainers.  Punishment only teaches a dogs what it can't do when you are watching, and erodes trust and bonding.

Thanks, guys. I'll check out those suggestions as well.

I haven't been punishing him for any of this stuff; I could tell right away that would be a bad idea. I have been doing the treat when faced with stressful situation thing, but he's really not very food motivated to begin with. No matter what I give him, he needs to sniff it in my hand for a bit, lick his lips a couple times, then take the treat, set it down somewhere, sniff it a bit more, maybe lick it, then eat it.  If he's the slightest bit distracted, even by a non stressful thing, he has no interest in food. He's a super cuddly goof, more interested in getting love, so I've been trying to work with that.

His barking in my parents' yard is pretty minimal. I have no problem with what he's doing there, but the difference between when I was outside with him and when he was alone was noticeable.

After being at my parents', I took him to a different friend's house and he did the make friends, then bark, make friends, then bark thing with him, too. This time I had treats on hand for both of us to give him. He'd take the treat from my friend, be cool for a bit, then start barking at him again with no apparent trigger. So he doesn't do it just on his territory.

I'd be quite happy for him to stay just the way he is, but he really wants to play with other dogs. Dogs come with humans attached, so he'd need to be trustworthy with them. I also feel guilty handing an unpredictable dog over to the vet.

It sounds like he's practically a different dog than he was before I got him. He'd been passed around to a few different people who all had issues with him and brought him back to the SPCA. When I went in last week to finalize the adoption, the women in the office kept looking at each other and shaking their heads when I'd tell them about what he'd been up to. I don't think he was ever allowed to roam free around an acreage, chasing deer, and digging for gophers or just following his human around outside all day - practically dog heaven! That's got to be helping.

I'm not against discipline, Arthur. I think there's a balance between no discipline and all discipline, though.  

I've been doing leash work with him. He pulled a bit when I first got him, but he was just testing me. I use a slip collar, so a few corrections via pops of the leash and he pretty much stopped. Now I'm just working on consistency in different situations.

I've got a few different growls I use with my dogs to communicate various things. He understands immediately and responds appropriately. He's not out of control, but he's definitely stubborn. Not as bad as my basset hound, though. His recall in some situations needs work. That's important. I can tell that he's learned that when he gets excited or starts running he gets tied up, so he doesn't want to come when he's having fun. I don't think he's ever had much freedom to play or run before. I'm working on that with off leash walks where he learns that coming to me while he's enjoying himself doesn't mean the end of enjoyment.

He definitely knows I'm his protector.  He took off after a weird, aggressive coyote that had been hanging around for a few days. Quick scuffle and he was racing back to me with the coyote chasing him. I roared, grabbed a stick, and ran it off. Since then, he's stuck close to me when we're walking the property.

My dogs have all been long lived, so I haven't had many as an adult. But I grew up with dogs and my grandma bred and trained German shepherds.  I'm comfortable and confident with them and my grandma complimented me on my results. She was an extremely smart and competent woman who did not dole out compliments. I trust her judgement 🙂

This dog has snapped at one person and done the barking thing with two people over the last three days. I've only had him about three weeks, so I don't think I need to panic about his behaviour yet. I'm just getting started.

I'll look at everyone's recommendations as I have time. Really appreciate all the suggestions!

I think you nailed it when you mentioned the dog is very bonded to you and is feeling a need to protect you; if so, the key is to break the need to protect you by asserting your leadership, and letting the dog know it is YOUR job to protect IT.

I do this by teaching them I am in charge and that it is MY job, not theirs, to decide what is a threat and what is not. At first, you must teach them to look to you for direction, make and maintain eye contact, on command. This gets them constantly looking to you for direction, and putting you in the "top dog" position (not to be confused with the "Alpha" I will beat you/force you connotation of past). I am teaching them that I am capable and the one in charge of ascertaining danger or appropriate response required in each situation. I want the dog to seek guidance from my reaction, attitude and demeanor.  

I start at home, around the house/property, teaching them to make eye contact when given the "watch me" command, pointing to my eyes, using a reward, if necessary, in the beginning, to get them to "look" at my eyes. The initial reward can be food or toy. I want them to maintain eye contact with me, and follow my "non reactive" attitude. This is done multiple times, in calm situations, around the house, ideally several times an hour.

As they progress, a sit, stay is added to the "watch me" command, as soon as possible, and by placing myself BETWEEN the dog and perceived threat. Usually, the focus and sit/stay are introduced within a day or so of the "watch" command.

As they progress, which is generally very quickly, they will look to you on their own, seeking your guidance in HOW you "feel" about a situation, and will follow your lead.

The biggest key to this is you, how you react. By that I mean you must be able to maintain a calm, assertive, in control demeanor, at all times; if you are an easily excited person (you don't seem as if you are) then changing THAT will be the hardest part.

The mix of breeds you have will likely be somewhat challenging as both breeds are protective of "their" humans, and naturally wary of strangers. Once the "watch me" is working, you may need to work on conditioning the dog to have less distrust of strangers/strange situations, by having others engage with calmness and, quite possibly rewards in the form of food or toys/play so the dog learns to have positive associations with these reactive situations. I am not a fan of "paying" dogs for proper behavior, but it can be a useful tool, initially, so long as it does not become "expected" or demanded by the dog.

Best of luck, I hope my experience helps.

Ah! I like this, Lorinne! He's actually very observant of my reactions to new situations already, so this will be an easy thing to build on. I was trying to take advantage of this habit of his in my parents' backyard, but I hadn't thought to attach a command to it. I think this will be helpful, thank you!