Hi everyone! I'm brand new to this board. My name is Angie and I have a 4.5 yr old female GSD named Chloe. We adopted Chloe from our local Humane Society on April 1st of this year, after losing both our female GSD's last year to DM. I also have 2 daughters, ages 2 & 3.
We initially adopted Chloe and her brother, but had to rehome her brother when they began fighting with each other 2 days after adoption. Chloe was the instigator 100%. Chloe has a history of fighting with other animals, but (as far as we know) has never exhibited aggression towards humans.
Everything was going fine until last month. All of a sudden, she began growling at my kids whenever she was in a room alone with my hubby or I. Now it has escalated to growling and barking at them whenever they come anywhere near her.
Our 2 GSD's that we had for 10 years never had behavior problems like this (and they were well trained by us), so I'm at a loss as to what to do. I'm thinking that part of it is her not used to being around small children at her eye-level and part is her challenging her place in the hierarchy of our family.
My question is, what training methods would you all recommend us implementing because we don't want to give her up. I want to try to train this behavior out of her. Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!
We initially adopted Chloe and her brother, but had to rehome her brother when they began fighting with each other 2 days after adoption. Chloe was the instigator 100%. Chloe has a history of fighting with other animals, but (as far as we know) has never exhibited aggression towards humans.
Everything was going fine until last month. All of a sudden, she began growling at my kids whenever she was in a room alone with my hubby or I. Now it has escalated to growling and barking at them whenever they come anywhere near her.
Our 2 GSD's that we had for 10 years never had behavior problems like this (and they were well trained by us), so I'm at a loss as to what to do. I'm thinking that part of it is her not used to being around small children at her eye-level and part is her challenging her place in the hierarchy of our family.
My question is, what training methods would you all recommend us implementing because we don't want to give her up. I want to try to train this behavior out of her. Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!