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Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  There are no quick fixes to a dog with the history of attack and problem you describe. You can rehabilitate him to accept the presence of other dogs by helping him not to be afraid or hyper-excited by their presence but it will take some intensive work on your part and a great deal of persistent, short training sessions. If you really are interested in rehabbing your dog, I could give you some things that I would do if he were my dog but I wouldn't use an E-collar, alpha rolling or anything of an aversive form of training as Cesar Millan does on some of his shows. That kind of thing can shut a really fearful toy dog down altogether or possibly even cause him to mistrust you and there are other ways of rehab training that are not as scary for the dog. |
Toby is nine years old in October,and having had him these past almost seven years I have had more scrapes with other owners, them even threatening me, but nothing would make me part with my wonderful highly intelligent little Yorkie, seriously I would die for him. He is without doubt the most intelligent dog I have ever had and I am 64 years old and have had dogs all my life and my late father before me. This Yorkie is unique, seriously if you had him for a week or so you would see what I mean. I love him to distraction and it is for a very good reason, the rapport we have shines through loads of people have told me this, but still he attacks other dogs on or off the lead and he means it, always goes for the throat [Yorkies were ratters] fierce little dogs and so he is with other dogs, fierce and belligerent and he is not bothered how big the dog is.
Sometime ago whilst walking him on the lead two Alsatians both off the lead attracted his attention, at first he wanted to be out of the way but, seeing this Alsatian come at him off the lead, it was trying to get hold of him, maybe only playing I don't know, but he launched himself at it and caught it underneath its eye holding on for grim life causing a lot of blood, this Alsatian could not shake him, hence the owner blamed Toby. It all happened very quickly I could do nothing about it, and this owner of these two Alsatians blamed me, excuse me I said, he is on a lead, your dog came at him, did it matter, not one iota, I suffered a tirade of abuse was told to get him effing put down and so it goes on, but I will not get him euthanased for something he is not to blame for.
I really wish I could turn the clock back but I cannot ,hence one unfortunate outing where he was first attacked by this English Bull Terrier almost murdered by it, this little Yorkie is now more or less condemned to a life on a lead, even then he attacks other dogs. I have tried everything with him, I mean at nearly nine years old it takes him under a week to learn new things, but I can make no progress with re- socialising him, getting him just to accept other dogs seems as far away now as it was following that fateful day way back when. He probably detects my anxieties to, as I do not trust other dogs either, and shudder if I see a large dog off a lead coming towards us, but then that attack on my little dog all those years ago has probably left an indelible mark not only on Toby, but on me too.. .