fear agression vs protection

[QUANTO]

how do I decipher if Quanto's behavior (barking at men when intoduced) is a protective response or a sign of fear aggression? Thanks for your help!!!

[gsdraven]

http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum...e-fearful.html

[Marnie]

Essentially the same thing in an untrained dog. The dog is responding to a strange person he feels is potentially harmful. His barking is an attempt to make the intruder go away. He is fearful of the unknown intruder and trying to protect himself and his territory from that person. Fearful dogs will sometimes work themselves into a frenzy and do something unpredictable.

If the intruder does go away, like the mailman or the UPS man for instance, the dog thinks his barking frightened the man away. The dog will be even more confident he can drive the next guy away. Pretty soon you have an habitual response that is hard to stop.

A well socialized dog will be quietly watchful of strangers that you invite into his territory but will accept them if his owner is not giving fearful signals. In other words, if a confident dog senses you are afraid of a stranger, he will react negatively and may bark or stand between you and the strange man. That would fit more into the category of protective but in truth, your fear can influence the dog.

[Emoore]

Unless the man you're being introduced to is threatening you in some way or you feel afraid of him, barking at a neutral stranger is fear, not protection.

[Lucy Dog]

No reasonable threat = fear

[Twyla]

GSDRaven - the link you posted is loaded with TONS of good information. It should be a sticky in the Aggression forum. Thank you.

There is so much info there I wish I had known when we got Woolf, we still would have, but would have been much more aware of what we would be working with.

Quanto, please spend the time reading it, it is well worth it.

[Castlemaid]

Twyla - love getting that kind of feedback about what is useful information. Took you suggestion to heart and that thread is now a sticky.

[Twyla]

Originally Posted by Castlemaid

Twyla - love getting that kind of feedback about what is useful information. Took you suggestion to heart and that thread is now a sticky.

Thanks!! It will give a good heads up on recognizing what is going on with pups, then the training that needs to take place quickly instead of being a goof like I was to begin with thinking that once Woolf allowed us to handle and touch him, he'd grow out of the rest of it. Hard crash course lesson that I keep learning.

[PaddyD]

Originally Posted by QUANTO

how do I decipher if Quanto's behavior (barking at men when intoduced) is a protective response or a sign of fear aggression? Thanks for your help!!!

Isn't this topic in another thread for the same OP?

[codmaster]

Originally Posted by Emoore

Unless the man you're being introduced to is threatening you in some way or you feel afraid of him, barking at a neutral stranger is fear, not protection.

It is not necessarilly fear - could simply be suspicious if the dog has never seen something that he/she is barking at - esp. if the dog quickly recovers when he realizes that it is cool. (Might depend on someones definition of fear of course)

The behaviorist that we have used with our guy says that sometimes something about somebody will just not sit right with a dog. The real question is what will the dog do when he feels that way? I.E. ok to watch carefully but not to bark and/or lunge.