Trying to understand the cause of aggression

[bengwie]

Hi all,

I have a male GSD, who just turns 3 years old. He was protection trained when I got him 5 months ago. We have been developing relationship really well. I have been bringing him to schutzhund club for about 3 months now, he is still not offleashed in schutzhund field because the trainer is still trying to convert his view of biting as fun/game instead of a threat.

I have been going to the public park right behind my house to exercise him like fetching the ball, and practicing some schutzhund stuffs and he has been doing well so far. If I don't see that many people and no kids around, I sometimes offleash him (of course with an e-collar in hand).

I always exercise him (morning and night), train him some more obedience, feed him well.

Yesterday, I trained him retrieve in the public park as usual, and there was a guy would like to pass by about 10 meters behind us. This guy knows me since he often sees me in the park training my dog, so he waives at me. My dog suddenly ran toward this guy while I told him (my dog) to stay and I pressed the continuous button on my E-collar remote (at the highest intensity level) as soon as possible and he (my dog) screamed, but he (my dog) still approached the guy slowly while he (my dog) was screaming and finally managed to take a nip a this guy's knee, then he just stood right beside this guy while he was still screaming until I ran and got him by the collar.

The guy's knee got some little scratches from my dog's teeths because he was wearing sport pants.

At this point, I become so hesitant training him in public park because now I can't trust him fully that he has to be leashed all time. What kind of training should I do to make sure this doesn't happen in the future? Any of this kind of incident ever happens to you, if yes, how do you handle this in the future? What is the cause of this aggression while everyone was not nervous at the time of incident?

[Jax08]

I can't say a thing about the aggression but if your dog was screaming then the stimulation on the e-collar was wayyy to high. Did you have a trainer help you determine how to use the e-collar?

[bengwie]

I have watched the video from Leerburg, and that's what they say, when your dog is showing aggression, always go to the highest intensity of your e-collar to avoid the dog thinks "it's okay, with this little pain, I still can do it."

Originally Posted by Jax08

I can't say a thing about the aggression but if your dog was screaming then the stimulation on the e-collar was wayyy to high. Did you have a trainer help you determine how to use the e-collar?

[onyx'girl]

Your dog has to know why he is getting the correction for it to be useful. It wasn't fair to your dog to be continuously stimmed, IMO. I would take some steps back w/ the e-collar and work on his reactivity. Regardless of his training in protection, he obviously isn't proofed on what he thinks he should react to.

Are you working in obedience at the SchH club? This would be my focus for the time being while you continue to build your bond.

[bengwie]

Obviously I didn't abuse him with my E-collar all the time, I love him and I would like to polish his behavior. I used to use prong colar and now moved to E-collar because I would like to get him off leashed. The reason why I put it on continuous mode was because I knew if I didn't do it, I can tell from his body language that he will attack that person brutally just like what he did to the agitator on the personal protection training months ago (before I move him to schutzhund).

Anyway, I am also thinking because his obedience level is not up there yet that he is still getting distracted by other people or dogs, so I am thinking I will strictly train him on obedience, that he has to do whatever I say instaneously just like in competition. Please tell me if I am going to the wrong direction here.

Originally Posted by onyx'girl

Your dog has to know why he is getting the correction for it to be useful. It wasn't fair to your dog to be continuously stimmed, IMO. I would take some steps back w/ the e-collar and work on his reactivity. Regardless of his training in protection, he obviously isn't proofed on what he thinks he should react to.

Are you working in obedience at the SchH club? This would be my focus for the time being while you continue to build your bond.

[onyx'girl]

I would definately focus on obedience, good decision~along with tracking of course! But keep it fun and not something that he feels he has to do so he isn't getting corrected. Take some steps back if you have to.
Are you in contact with the place that did the protection training? Or can a club member help you with him w/ some private lesson?
I remember another thread that you had-worried about guests coming to stay? How'd that go?

[JKlatsky]

he is still not offleashed in schutzhund field because the trainer is still trying to convert his view of biting as fun/game instead of a threat.

This that you said jumped out at me. My assumption on this quote is that your dog probably had some poor training and has had too much defense or suspicion work done and that your helper thinks the dog needs more balance. Jane is right. He doesn't know what to react to. If he is not considered safe at training, he may not be safe to have out in public.

Also in regards to the E-collar. If your dog does not understand the collar, or respect you, and is at least a little hard to the correction, you can actually create more aggression while they go ahead and do what they want anyway. The pain the dog receives from the collar can cause them to unload on the object of focus, or it can also cause them to redirect to you.

I would always have him leashed or work in an area with no other people where he can be safely contained. I would work on recall exercises and keeping him focused on you and I might consider scrapping bitework for a little while or focusing on control and mental clarity in bitework.

[Jax08]

Definitely work on obedience and your bond. He has to trust you. I wouldn't let him off leash in an area where there are other people yet.

Remember that you are undoing many years of "protection" training. Apparently, he was trained to attack without the obedience training? A personal protection dog should still have obedience and wait for a signal before attacking so I'm a bit confused on what exactly he was trained in.

My friend had a dobie that was personal protection trained. His signal was if the other person laid a hand on her and then he was trained to grab the arm..never a full out attack. The one time he did protect her he took off a potential rapist ear...wasn't hard to find him in the ER.

[bengwie]

The problem with previous training was (from the trainer we bought him from) he was challenged to be aggressive, the more aggressive the better appraise he got. The reason why I took him to schutzhund club because I spoke with the trainer there, who told me that we need to desensitize him / calm him off a little bit because he was too alerted. I did private sessions with him for about a month and the trainer welcame us to the schutzhund club afterward, but since then the training has been on and off because of some events that conflicts with the schutzhund club schedule and plus I was honestly kind of pissed off because everytime I go to schutzhund club, my dog only plays in the field for about 10 minutes and I had to pay $30 each time. I have been going to club on and off about 6-8 times, and so far it's the same kind of training over and over for 10 minutes. It makes me feel that going there is a waste of money while I can play tug o war with him myself.

What do you guys think? Did you (who did schutzhund training for the dog) think that whatever I did up there make sense or should I keep going to schutzhund club?

Originally Posted by Jax08

Definitely work on obedience and your bond. He has to trust you. I wouldn't let him off leash in an area where there are other people yet.

Remember that you are undoing many years of "protection" training. Apparently, he was trained to attack without the obedience training? A personal protection dog should still have obedience and wait for a signal before attacking so I'm a bit confused on what exactly he was trained in.

My friend had a dobie that was personal protection trained. His signal was if the other person laid a hand on her and then he was trained to grab the arm..never a full out attack. The one time he did protect her he took off a potential rapist ear...wasn't hard to find him in the ER.

[bengwie]

Thanks for the quick tips here, I should definitely work harder and take a few steps back in obedience training to repolish all the behaviors. I am currently re-watching the leerburg video again on e-collar training, and I notice there are some small mistakes that I make when using the e-collar based on Leerburg's theory.

Originally Posted by JKlatsky

This that you said jumped out at me. My assumption on this quote is that your dog probably had some poor training and has had too much defense or suspicion work done and that your helper thinks the dog needs more balance. Jane is right. He doesn't know what to react to. If he is not considered safe at training, he may not be safe to have out in public.

Also in regards to the E-collar. If your dog does not understand the collar, or respect you, and is at least a little hard to the correction, you can actually create more aggression while they go ahead and do what they want anyway. The pain the dog receives from the collar can cause them to unload on the object of focus, or it can also cause them to redirect to you.

I would always have him leashed or work in an area with no other people where he can be safely contained. I would work on recall exercises and keeping him focused on you and I might consider scrapping bitework for a little while or focusing on control and mental clarity in bitework.