I'm very frightened by Rocky's recent biting strangers.

[GSDElsa]

Fear aggressive dogs are the hardest to deal with. YOu are doing a good job of being proactive now...keep it up. As dismaying as the situation is, you will come out that much better of a dog owner and handler in the end.

[lrodptl]

Originally Posted by Emoore

Hey, the rescue sent me this info:
The canine center for behavior in sw Austin has a scholarship fund for just such situations, an they work a lot with Gsd rescue. Their phone # is 512-721-8496. Go ahead and tell them you had a referral from a Austin GSD Rescue volunteer.

Awesome.

[debbiebrown]

and yes, fearful dogs will take off on how your reacting in a situation, they are paranoid anyway, then they sense the owner getting scared, nervous, excited in a situation and they will react accordingly. you need to handle situations calmly, taking leadership and handling things..........

[Emoore]

Roxy, I'm sending you a PM about another behaviorist who works with the rescue on cases like this. She'd like you to go ahead and call her today or tomorrow so you can discuss the situation and she can give you some advice about what to do between now and when you can get back to town to set up an evaluation. She's expecting your call.

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted by x0emiroxy0x

Is this some kind of dominance thing? Or a "Hey I'm warning you don't mess with me?"

No. A dominant dog is a confident dog, and his behavior is clearly that of a fearful dog - the fact that these were sneak attacks from behind shows that.

You want to be very careful of the kind of trainer you work with or you could make this worse rather than better. Follow up with the information Emoore gave you.

[debbiebrown]

totally agree with Debbie, not all trainers/behaviorists are alike. there are alot of new training tecniques now days that these trainers are tweaking around with, some would not be good for a fearful dog. i think good ole traditional counter conditioning moving slowly working with the dogs tresholds is the best idea. and a good trainer Will be honest and point out things that the owner needs to work on as far as anything they are passing to the dog that are not helping in situations.