Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy1999  It may not look like a tease and merely a demonstration, but something caused the dog to react that way, and now just the slightest touch will cause it. To hear the dog growl over and over made me feel like the dog’s space wasn’t being respected. I’m not sure what can be done to retrain a dog that has reached this point, but what she is doing is reinforcing the behavior, which will make it even more difficult to eliminate. |
I agree what she is doing is re-inforcing bad behaviour!. It is exceedingly difficult to retrain a dog that has reached this point. Much time and effort, supported by a trainer that knows what they are doing is going to be needed.
Unfortunately we don't know this dog's history, but I agree the likely cause was the fault of the owner. How-ever there are in each breed, an unfortunate few pups that somehow end up mis-wired from the start.
I own a timid/fear based dog, which I have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of training dollars, to try to bring stability to her temperament. She is much better than she was at 7mths old when we got her, but I still don't trust her, and sadly I don't think I ever will. We go weeks, sometimes months without an incident, and then whamoo, she exhibits either dog aggressive behaviour, or people aggression. We have had her temperament tested by two different working dog experts, who reached similar conclusions, she is simply hard-wired this way. It is the main reason she will not be bred, and will be spayed.