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

[x0emiroxy0x]

My dog has bitten two people in the past day.

Background for those who haven't read previous threads on Rocky. He is from a backyard breeder, approaching a year and 4 months. He has never shown aggression towards me or anyone else in the past. He has never shown the slightest aggression towards other dogs. He does not bark at other dogs- period.

Rocky is very fearful of new people. He was abused my my boyfriend's ex roommate for a long period until I discovered it and does not let strangers pet him. Other than that, perfect dog!

--------------------------------
Until recently, when approached by strangers outside of my home, such as petsmart or on the sidewalk during walks, he never barked at anyone. He would just stand by me and move away if the stranger tried to pet him.

In home (he considers my apartment and my boyfriends parent's home his two homes), when a stranger knocks on the door, he runs to the door barking and growling. I just take him upstairs to his kennel before someone shows up if I know they are coming to avoid this. At my apartment and boyfriends, when people come over and he is in the living area, he will run up to them and bark with his hackles up. However, the second they walk in he would just run into a different room. Within about 30 seconds he would sniff them with his head extended as far as possible, ready to run. Once he sniffed them, he would ignore them the rest of the time, and if they tried to pet, he would duck his head to avoid it. Once they got a toy and tossed it a few times, he would play with them and have a great time but still not let them pet him until they had met him about 5-6 times.


We are at my boyfriends for christmas and he has been displaying completely different behavior. We walk twice a day for about 45 minutes, and train in a field behind the house. He is being more obedient than ever with his commands and settles down when I tell him to....

However, in the past day, we have had two friends that Rocky has bitten.

Friend #1--- He wanted to meet Rocky and there were guests downstairs so I brought him in the bedroom where Rocky was kenneled. I have done this tons of times for people to meet Rocky, and he growls when they first walk in but after that is just scared to sniff them at first then ignores them. However, this time when I let him out of the kennel he growled at the friend with his hackles up (which is normal for strangers IN house) and I told the friend to sit on the bed. So Rocky got up when I told him to and was just sniffing the friend, who was talking in a sweet voice and not trying to move or pet him. The friend stood up to get a treat and Rocky went at his back and bit him. Not a normal dog bite though. When he plays tag with people, he will run up and do a nip on their jeans where his teeth don't actually close all the way then run away to make them chase him. But when he did this same thing to my friend, he wasn't playing. He was growling. He jumped off the bed and did the same thing on his jeans, twice. My friend actually laughed because it was "kinda pathetic defense" but I wasn't laughing. I was super upset! Then Rocky acted like nothing had happened and ignored the guy and came up for me to pet him

Friend #2
Took Rocky in the backyard to potty and my friend was outside on the phone, not even looking at Rocky. ((he just got back from marines and hadn't met Rocky since he was a puppy)) Rocky started barking and growling and ran up to him and did the same thing to his jeans that he did to my other friends. This friend laughed too and Rocky just ran away, picked up a toy, then brought it back to the guy!


I don't know what to do or why this happened! All I know is that Rocky was scared to death of the guys. He wasn't protecting his house or me...he was really scared of them! I don't get why he did his "play nip" with these guys....He acted like he was attacking them. Everytime he would do a nip he would glance at them. Is this some kind of dominance thing? Or a "Hey I'm warning you don't mess with me?"

What can I do to stop this behavior (it just started yesterday) and should I be worried that Rocky would actually go from nip to bite?

I am laid off at the moment and TG I bought 6 months of dog food and heart worm with my birthday money in November. My boyfriend is there to help with any medical bills Rocky could possibly have. So the only advice that won't help me is "go to a trainer". Rocky's previous trainer who helped us for free is at the triple crown dog academy and wont be back for awhile.

So does anyone have any thoughts as to WHY this behavior happened and HOW I can stop it?

PS:Rocky got neutered at 5 weeks old, not by me, and my vet said his development, mentally, will be slower than other dogs. He is the smartest dog I ever met, but could it be that as Rocky has matured he decided that running away wasn't how to handle fear? Or is he just testing these guys?

SO confused and so upset.

PS: My friends all said they would help me train him after I posted on here, so if you have solutions that require other people to help with the training, I have them!

[x0emiroxy0x]

TO try and illustrate Rocky's nip, I drew this terrible picture on paint



To describe it more, he opens his mouth the tiniest he can and doesn't really get any material between his teeth...he more so just presses his open mouth against them really quick then pulls back.

[msvette2u]

I am not sure why you keep pressuring this dog to meet new people when he's clearly terrified but that's got to stop.
I'm sure others will have good advice for working through this such as learning the dog's fear threshold and working under it.

What was the nature of the abuse? Hitting?

[x0emiroxy0x]

It was hitting on his head, also I found out this was happening because he didn't know I was home and walked in the the apartment and threw a backpack of textbooks on the sleeping puppy when he was 8 weeks old.

The reason I keep introducing him to new people is because aside from the initial five minutes where he is scared, he ignores them and has no problem with them.

When I first introduced him to new people as a puppy, he would sit in my lap and refuse to go to them. This progressed to looking at them, then eventually sniffing them, and now he will play with other people over the past year. His backyard breeder never socialized the pups or introduced them to any people. They lived on a porch.

He never meets new people when we are at our home. He is fine with the "usual" crowd. However, I am staying with my boyfriends family until the 20 of January and his friends that don't usually get to see him are home from college/the army and since they will be here every other day until I go home, I needed to introduce them. I can't keep him in the kennel all day long.

I'm not worried about introducing him to people. I can easily fix that by bringing him outside on the leash and having them walk up to us and then walk in the house with us. That skips the barking and fear. The issue is that he nipped two people. One was in my room, actually being introduced. The other was standing in the backyard minding his own business not even looking at us.

I am mainly worried about this behavior because when my boyfriends mom or dad come home from work, Rocky will bark when the door opens, but when he sees it is them, he wags his tail and wants to be petted. I am nervous that he is getting too wired/scared and could mistake the people he loves as strangers and nip them. I might be over imagining a little but I would rather prepare for the worst then say "oh he just barely nipped two people then played with them after".

[msvette2u]

Exposing him to new people isn't a bad thing, it's how you are doing it.
If he's feeling so scared and vulnerable he is biting, he's not having good, positive experiences. You have passed his threshold and are working over it and he's learning nothing. Please understand that he's learning nothing except how to be more fearful and act out. He's giving fearful bites but it won't be long before he gains confidence to give a full-on bite. You cannot teach a dog anything when he's over his fear threshold.

Please look for, and read a book called "Help for your Fearful Dog".

Amazon.com: Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears (9780966772678): Nicole Wilde: Books

Amazon.com: Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears (9780966772678): Nicole Wilde: Books

Fearful Dogs | Positive help for fearful, shy & anxious dogs
This is a good blog as well.

[Lucy Dog]

One bite is one too many. Once that first bite happens, you really need to go into management mode. To keep it simple, you sound like you have no idea what you're doing with this dog and need someone with experience here. You need to get a trainer or behaviorist in for some help.

If the first 5 minutes make the dog uncomfortable, you need to find a way to manage those 5 minutes. You need to find a way to keep rocky comfortable while managing the situation so no one gets bit.

You have to get someone in there or it's probably just going to get worse.

[x0emiroxy0x]

Thank you for the posts. I am going to see if that book is available on my kindle and if not, order it. I am contacting my trainer to see when exactly he gets home and if not by the time I go back, I will be contacting someone else.

Until then, there is a nice training facility in arlington that does boarding as well. I board Rocky there when I visit and we go out of town from here. I will be calling her tomorrow.

[debbiebrown]

definitely a fear biter. from what you have described he usually bits when someones back is turned and or a fear biter will most of the time bit low, rather than full on upper body. he has now practiced bitting so its a learned behavior to get rid of the threat. he needs to be leashed in the presence of others and not be making his own decisions. and it does sound like you need professional guidence at this point, it is costly but well worth it since the dog is on his way to serious consequences. any situation you know he has practiced fearful behavior i would keep him out of until you can work on conditioning him to these situations. repeating negative situations is making things worse.

[kitmcd]

I have a boxer/pit mix that sounds very similar to Rocky. We adopted him at 10 weeks after he was removed from an abusive situation by police dept. He has always been very nervous and fearful.

His "safe" place is under the kitchen table. When doorbell rings he attacks the window. Before I let people in, he is sent to his "place" and will stay there, but is growling for the first few minutes.

When he was younger, I kept him on a leash when people were in. Now (8 years old), he will stay away from strangers and as long as he can be near me, he is fine.

As a puppy we tried a lot of socialization, my d even took him to work. D went to college when he was about a year and his behavior worsened. I'm sorry to say that I probably didn't do the right thing....I just helped him to avoid stressful situations.

Trainer is great idea. Good luck.

[debbiebrown]

your dealing with several things here., weak nerves, not a stable dog, (genetics), possibley abused, and lacking the knowledge on how to deal with a dog like this. not your fault. Most people do not know how to deal with a dog in this situation, thinking socializing is a good thing and trying to expose and get them used to things. this is a whole different ball game picking up the pieces and trying to understand where the dog is coming from and how to manage it, especially when the dog has already practiced negative behaviors and gone beyond threshold of tolerance. you need to back way up to the beginning as if he were a pup, slow exposure, and only short positive encounters, this takes time, patience and in this situation professional help.........lots of work, but it can get to a better place..........if your willing to work with it.