 Aggressive towards other dogs
Well, first, I'm new both to owning a Yorkie and to this forum. I've searched through the forum for threads on this topic but couldn't find what I was looking for. If I'm posting a question that's been answered a thousand times I apologize.
My wife and I just got Maddie on Saturday. She is a little over three months old and has been great. She's pretty quiet, only barking or whimpering when we leave. She's also getting braver by the day and since we're in a new house is being exposed to lots of new things and noises.
Its still far too early for us to be worried about any aspect of her training but we are concerned with one thing. When she see's other dogs she gets fairly aggressive. She'll bark and growl and partially charge the dog though usually she will end up standing near my wife or I, presumably scared.
On two occasions this was with larger dogs in our house or on our decks (only a day or two after introducing her to us and the house). One of the dogs was a larger golden retriever puppy who was very curious but not at all agressive over the course of a day she worked up the nerve to get withing 5 feet of the golden but never closer and never without barking.
A third occasion was in Petsmart where she reacted the same way towards a Chihuahua who was also just curious and not at all aggressive.
We are trying hard to raise her as a confident dog rather than a scared coddled pup. I'm hoping this aggressive reaction is fear based rather than some some deeper aggression. Has anyone else had this problem? How can I help her socialize?
Tom |