Baron and his old arch enemy Burns!

[codmaster]

Got to share some real progress that my 3.5yo male, Baron, has made in his relationship with a 4yo male (Burns) that is in our Saturday GSD group, who have been meeting since Baron was about 14 wo.

For at least the last 2-2.5 years these dogs did not get along. First Burns would try to dominant and bully Baron (since he was older, Burns did this to all of the other pups in the group. Baron was about the only younger pup who wouldn't let him get away with it so we generally had to keep them pretty much apart.

And about a year or so ago they decided to get a little more serious about it and started getting louder and more aggressive to each other. Burns could be pretty aggressive with a number of other dogs in the group, both male and female and even some puppies; while Baron reserved almost all of his reactivity to Burns - and sounded and looked VERY serious when he reacted.

We tried consulting with the Obedience Director of our local obedience club and also seperately at a different time with an Dog Behaviorist. One was a positive only approach person and the other was mostly positive but would allow little leash corrections (the po person frowned very heavily on any physical correction at all).

So we worked on them over a number of months in total and made a little progress but they still could not come very close or be running anywhere almost in sight or they would react. It seemed that Burns was a little afraid or at least leery of Baron and would often give him a very heavy stare with ears up and very stiff body posture. Well those with DA dogs can guess the reaction that this almost always drew from Baron, Right?

Finally we found a new trainer to try - recommended finally by the breeder where we got both dogs. He is Training Director for the local ScH club and VERY experienced with bir aggressive dominant dogs (owns and breeds Dobies and has also trained many real K9 dogs).

He suggested that we meet at his place and to bring muzzles for each. So we finally found a good time for both. Started walking them on heel, then on a small loose lead and then finally at the end of the 6' lead. Then his appraoch was to drop the leash and keep walking and let the dogs interact. They did - once Baron ran over to Burns, started to sniff his bottom, Burns objected to it and Baron jumped on him. Trainer jumps in grabs baron (instigator!) threw him on his back (Alpha Roll?) and LAYED on him (Baron actually growled at him or maybe just in general when he first did this) and stared him right in the eye till Baron looked away and then slowly let him up gradually all the while petting him and talking calmly to him. BTW, Baron had NO reaction toward the trainer after this and was his usual very friendly self with him. Then we walked again and basically kept this up for the better part of an hour - a couple of much smaller reactions (similar) only this time I was the one handling Baron (Burns was fine and didn't start anything just reacted to Baron trying to sniff him). At the end of the lesson we had both dogs in a down stay right next to each other with no reaction!

Just finished our second such session this past Friday - very similar approach only this time with only one much smaller reaction by Baron and he was very quickly calmed down. This time we actually got the two dogs to lay down TOUCHING each other at the back and they stayed that way about 10 minutes.

I think that we are way on our way to solving this problem of long seated DA. BTW, the trainer basically said that Burns was afraid of Baron and that Baron sensed this and being a very dominat, yet a little socially lacking dog, he was acting like a Bully. (I agreed with him and vowed to address it with Baron).

I don't expect them to become buddies and will not have them off leash unmuzzled but do want and expect them to tolerate and ignore each other in the group even if they are next to each other. Got a ways to go but i am very proud of Baron for getting this far with this much progress.

My understanding now is that we needed to find the right trainer with the suitable approach for this particular dog (mine mostly!) and it seemed that we may have done so. Both of the first two folks are very good trainers, and have done extremely well with their own dogs in AKC obedience, Rally, flyball and other venues.

So one lesson to think about is that if anyone has a real DA dog, do not give up on him/her! - keep working and also looking for the proper trainer who can reach you and your dog (I got a lot of instructions as to what I was doing right and wrong also from the trainer during these sessions).