[jarn]

so....teagan is becoming territorial in our new house. she can see outside for the first time and watch our yard.

i've been working with her inside, getting her to refocus, and it's actually going quite well.

the problem is her dog aggression. i've mentioned elsewhere, she will act calm around a dog acting out (barking, being snotty, etc), and then as soon as she gets within an optimum distance, she will turn and attack. she will never vocalize in this sitaution. she has also stared down offleash dogs from 30M away, dogs that were showing confident body language, will adopt submissive body language and move off of the sidewalk into the middle of the road, further away from her. i've noticed the only time she vocalizes w/other dogs is when i have her close (she's on a traffic lead) and she can't get anywhere near them....if she thinks there's a possibility of interaction, she stays silent.

we have a staffy (cutest and nicest dog ever) as a next door neighbour, who shares a fence with the backyard. they haven't met yet, as the people who had this house before (i know them) let their dogs back there and never picked up the pooh, so i'm waiting til the snow melts, cleaning the pooh, then letting it rain a few times before i let MY dogs back there....so unhygenic!

we use the side yard as our potty place, prior to going out on walks. yesterday after work, we were outside when another staffy (i think....maybe a staffy mix? it wasn't muzzled (BSL) so i could be totally wrong or this guy could just be choosing not to muzzle, i don't know) who i've seen before (can i tell you how much i love the staffys in the neighbourhood!!! it's great!) came running up offleash. usually offleash dogs approach aggressively, and i'll be honest, i take them out. i'm not having luc be frightened or teagan getting a chance to attack.

this dog was friendly though. luc did choose to stand behind me

he's my big wimp, i love him, and teagan chose to try to attack....i love her too, but wish she wouldn't. i've been trying to keep positive body language to send down to teagan when there is another dog nearby, but this one was so close and uncontrolled, i really just focused on controlling my dogs. teagan was aggressive, and tried to get the dog, so the dog - who seemed pretty calm - did move towards her (but not actually close enough to get at her) and gave her a 'oh YEAH' bark, which just pissed teagan off more. teagan is generally fine with dogs that act submissive, but not fine with dogs that don't immediately acknowledge her as above them

anyways, the owner was coming, yelling 'my dog is friendly', and i said 'yeah, but my female isn't!' he called his dog back, apologized, i apologized as well (even though the dog came onto my property) and said that teagan needs work w/strange dogs.

even though the dog was now across the street, teagan was still trying to get it. previously, i'd more been trying to keep luc behind me and teagan from not getting the other dog, i was correcting, but she wasn't really noticing it. now that the dog was across the street, i really focused on the correction, and made her sit and stay calm, i took her inside and she calmed down after a few seconds. though outside she kept rearing up and b/c i blocked her, a few minutes later i looked down and though 'great! she made a run in my running tights there were she scratched me!' and then i realized 'oh, no....that's a blood stain' i had a big scratch which bled quite a bit (i'm trimming a few of teagan's nails at a time, obviously i did a couple more last night). luc kept licking my pants where the blood was

so. i am going to get an ecollar for teagan, i do have the issue that if she gets into drive, i can't always correct her hard enough on the prong, and believe me, i'm not weak.

in the meantime....any suggestions? i'm really working on the refocusing inside. usually i am just disgusted at the other dogs that come near us, this was one of the first times i felt bad my dog wasn't a more friendly dog, but - she is as she is, and i did have her controlled, so nothing happened. anyways, any thoughts would be great.

 

[jarn]

one other thought....i could muzzle her outside, as she is 'muzzle-wise' - if she's wearing it around small animals, for instance, she is generally calmer, i presume b/c she knows she can't get them (she's no dummy). she stays calmer around strange dogs except once we had someone take their dog next to her, i was like 'what are you doing! she's muzzled for a reason!' and she did become aggressive but was obviously stopped by the muzzle. anyways, in most situations, muzzling lowers her aggression, but - generally it is not necessary around our neighbourhood, as on walks i just make sure that we don't go past other dogs.

 

[big_dog7777]

I think the situation was handled well, and that Teagan acted normally considering she was on leash and in her territory. Not many dominant dogs will take kindly to a strange dog running up to them on their property, especially if they are on leash and the stranger is not.

 

[jarn]

oh...thanks

i guess my other thought is - i've worked w/teagan to the point that she now recognizes me as the leader....the one exception/we're still working on it is w/other dogs. she, to me, has a real problem being beta when there is another dog (not luc) around - it's like she needs to be in control, she needs to be disciplining, it's all on HER. i guess i need to keep working so that she recognizes me as the leader in all situations.