Help with agressive/dominant yorkie

[sarajane]

I don't have the money right now for training classes so I thought I'd seek help here while waiting till I had enough to get my little man classes.
I have two shelties both girls and my boy yorkie. My little man isn't fixed yet but he will be soon I just don't have the money right now.(He's never let outside without being on a leash). I know that once he's fixed it'll help a lot of the problems I am having.
He is trying very hard to be dominant with my shelties and has fixated on the biggest one to attack constantly without any reason to. She basically ignores him until he goes to far and then she puts him in his place by baring her teeth and standing over him till he rolls on his back and bares his belly. He pretty much gets along with the other one and even plays with her like a puppy his age should (he's about 7.5 months old).
My biggest problem is he bites my husband and children. When my kids run through the house playing and they can get pretty loud my yorkie bites them and will not just get feet, but jump in the air and gets hands to. He isn't playing, he's trying to be dominant in my opinion.
I've never had this problem before with a dog and am not sure how to stop it.
I will NOT get rid of him as he is a permanent part of our family, but I absolutely need to find a solution to this problem until I can get him fixed.
Any help is appreciated. *he has never bit me*

[Ladymom]

You need to get him neutered asap. Look into spay/neuter clinics and vouchers through your local shelters.

I would also start the Nothing in Life is Free program.

Basic Training Techniques | The Humane Society of the United States

[YorkieMother]

Nothing in life is free is a great start and I work on fear based aggression. I be far less worried he is dominance but rather scared out of his minded and acting out of a get you first before you get me thing and needs help fast.

Fear is the biting thing with the kids for sure and needs to be treated by a professional sooner then later.

JL

[Marilize]

I had a lot of dominance problems with my yorkie when he was younger. Try reading up on establishing a pack leader and hierarchy. For example, have your kids and husband feed him, always have him work - do a sit or something - before he gets his food, never free-feed him, but leave his food for 15 minutes and if he doesn't eat it, take it away until the next meal.

I have had many problems with my yorkie coz he is a dominant, assertive little guy who doesn't know his size. I had him socialized and trained and although this helped, he still 'attacks' our other dogs (we visit my parents regularly and they have two staffies).
My sister's labrador has been living with us for a year and although they were used to each other, there was a dominance thing coz they are both boys. What I did is always feed the labrador first - he is older - to establish him as the leader.
When the yorkie bites, yelp like a puppy would do - this helps for me.

Sorry for the long post, I know what you are going through and hope my advice helps you and your family.

[YorkieMother]

Why is it that a dog does not know it's size. In reality they do very much know they are smaller and a target and could very easily get hurt and or killed.
Therefore that is why they ar fear aggressive or just plain protecting them selves. Scare the heck out of the other dog before it gets me. Because many large dogs are not soicalized to small dogs a small dog does scare them and because many small dogs are not socialized to large dogs they get scared.

Dogs are not wolves, wolves are not dogs. Dogs are not pack animals in the wild they are social beings that float in and out of relationships depending on the resorouse available. There is not the resources in the wild for dogs to pack they form one or two dog partnerships. What is seen at a garbage dump is these small bands coming to a resouces and fighting for limited supplies with other dogs. Once they leave that supply source they break off into ones and twos again.. Therefore not a structured pack.
Therefore treating them as a pack animal makes as much sense as us treating our human kids as pack animals.

Wolves and dogs split a long time ago. You take a wolf and try to raise it as a pet you have to pull it from its mother at 14 DAYS old. You have to be hands on all its life and you can never trust it. It will bite you if you hit it. It is not tame it will be wild for life.

Dogs know we are human and the problems we have with our dogs is not understand what is actually their body language is and they read us far better then we will ever read them.

There is a saying that goes watching a wolf to learn to raise a dog is as good as; oh I watched a guerrilla today I can be a good human mother now.

Dogs are dogs more like a fur covered human kid then a wolf.
Only thing is they do not talk and their body language and what they find rude is far different then a humans.
90% of all aggression is fear and most of that is caused by lack of socialization at the right time...... right from birth.

JL

[Marilize]

I once read somewhere that you should treat your dog (your yorkie) as you would treat a person.

This cannot be true. Dogs are not HUMAN and dogs are not wolves. They are domesticated descendants from wolves. They were not bred from humans, they were bred from domesticated wolves. It is as simple as this.

Their body language does not correspond with ours. We don't lift our lips to bare our teeth when we are scared! But guess what, wolves and dogs and other ANIMALS do.
Dogs are the domesticated descendants of wolves and share certain traits. No dog is happy alone and wolves always live in packs - they are social animals. Dogs are very much like wolves and wolves are very much like dogs. No one said they WERE wolves, they just are LIKE wolves in certain ways (except the wild thing).
Dogs should never be treated as people. The way they sometimes mimic us - like my yorkie resting his head on my pillow - is incredibly adorable and endearing, but it does not make them our fellow human.
If it did, we would never be able to justify neutering or spaying them!
Our dogs are our dogs, and I hope - and pray - to God that it stays like that.

[YorkieMother]

Originally Posted by Marilize

I once read somewhere that you should treat your dog (your yorkie) as you would treat a person.

.

I think the recommend to treat your dog as you would a person comes from the point that if you do not beat a human to get them to do as you wish you should not do so with your dog.

There is no reason to get rough to train anything using the principles of learning theory as it is cross speises and so being a wolf, dog, human , whale bird or giraffe it all learned the same way. So you look at the dog in front of you and not that it a wolf from long a ago.

You bet they have a language and it is also shared cross species. Some are in use by cats and other animals as well not just wolves.

Dogs read us far better then any other species of animals as they have learned to by adapting to us to make a better chance to live in our homes.
Treating them totally as a human and not a dog does not honour them for what they are an amazing creature that is so well able to fit our needs, to learn to do what we demand of them and to love us in in the face of our inability to always understand them.

I would not want them human nor do I want them a wolf. I want them as they are Dog in their every changing shapes and sizes.

JL

[Jeri Cunningham]

it normally works to yell loudly OUCH everytime the dog bites. It teaches them this is not acceptable.