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Sweet Shepherd Holds Delivery Man at Bay

2K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  KarmaPuppy 
#1 ·
Our 4 yo, female, AKC GSD is highly socialized and interacts with people of all ages without incident. She generally trots up to visitors sniffs around, then carries on with her own interests (chasing frisbee, etc), and otherwise acts aloof. So, yesterday she and I were coming in from the backyard towards the house when we both saw the UPS delivery man walking down the entryway steps after dropping off a package at the door. She raced ahead (despite my commands to her to do otherwise) and approached the delivery man who smartly didn't panic, but instead stood still and made the back of his hand available to her as a gesture of greeting. She took up a position about 4 feet from him, remained on all fours, and barked as if alerting on him and letting him know that he did not have her permission to leave. She did not jump or lunge, show her teeth or growl. Her tail was up in the air wagging, back and forth like a happy / excited wag but she wasn't budging and neither was he. I'm sure I didn't handle this correctly as I gave her a lot of loud, stiff "No's" (to no avail). It wasn't until I caught up to the two of them (standing on the terrace) that I was able to apologize to the driver, and engage her directly and re-direct her to relax and continue our game of frisbee.

So what did I observe? Is this normal? Is it aggression? Why in this circumstance and not in response to other delivery drivers?, postal jeep in driveway. etc; as in these cases she generally trots out to see the person, allows a little engagement and carries on with her (other) interests. The only thing I can figure is that in this case the person was at our door, so in a sense he had "possession" of her house, as opposed to her coming out of her (our) house to meet him.

Thoughts, comments and feedback welcome.
 
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#2 ·
Yea I agree that maybe it seemed like he was claiming the "territory" of the house, since he was between her and the house.
Or maybe she felt that it was "not right" because it was unusual, not the way things usually are.

I dunno, it seems like normal Shepherdy behavior to me! They tend to be alert, and protective of their home.

( When we had our roof assessed, there were insurance guys outside climbing up ladders. My shep/husky mix stood at the window growling and barking at them...he REALLY did not like that, and felt that this was "not right" and threatening and unusual. I agreed with him - who wants to see a guy on a ladder outside their window! Maybe your dog was feeling something like that...I think it's good that they assess things and know when something is out of the ordinary.)

As far as Training...if it happens a lot (but it sounds like it doesn't) you might want to think about something besides "No". Maybe call your dog to you and clip on a leash? I'm sure the UPS guy felt a bit nervous. A lot of postal workers and UPS guys carry HALT dog repellent spray...dogs give them a lot of grief, I think!!
 
#3 ·
I thin you dodged a bullet. Could be literally. Up the training. Until your dog follows voice commands with distractions, the dog should not be off lead with free access to visitors and delivery men.
 
#8 ·
Where i agree to this to a point, if you are in your own yard, and not expecting someone to show up, how does one prevent something like this?

We have a clicker that i keep with me and use from time to time. Karma responds fairly well to voice commands (she's almost 8 months now), but one thing that ALWAYS gets her attention is the double click on that clicker. Maybe something to check out?

I must have an odd ball GSD then. We have a fenced in back yard (chain link), and outside of a few neighbor's dogs i haven't heard Karma bark one bit. Even when we have had family friends come over to let the dogs out to go the bathroom, we have never had a problem with her being protective to this point?

We are still getting used to having a 'protective' breed ourselves. We have two english bulldogs, whom at one point, broke out of our backyard and ran along with our mailman to deliver mail to a couple houses before he brought them back to our house lol.
 
#7 ·
I'd get her into classes and talk to a trainer saying you want to practice having her work through distractions. Other owners with dogs are often great distractions. Until that situation becomes normal, then you may have to set up some other distractions.

Training the Come, Leave It, No, SIT Wait, and Stay, have life-saving possibilities. Often times, we can use one of those to tell the dog what TO do, before we have to try to tell the dog what NOT TO do. For example, if you are approaching another person waking toward you, your dog goes in front and jumps up on the lady. You would need to tell your dog, "No, OFF!" and get the dog off the woman. That's a lot harder than seeing the lady approaching, and saying to your dog SIT, and the dog is no longer thinking about jumping on the woman he is thinking about the SIT Command and is doing it. It takes the question out of the what the dog should do. Should he attack or should he be friendly. But no, you said SIT, now he knows that what he should be doing is sitting. And he is good at sitting.

Distractions should be trained like everything else. Begin with something in the distance and Sit your dog, and praise your dog for sitting. Give your dog distance/space and time. I mean, you do not tell your dog to SIT and then walk 20 feet away, and turn and face it, and then wait a minute. No, you tell the dog to stay and you pivot in front, and then you pivot back and praise. With distractions, of course, you start with distance, and over time, remove the distance.
 
#5 ·
I think it's a good thing that delivery man had some sense, because who knows what could have happened if he had taken off towards his truck or something. Not all delivery people will do the same thing, so I think you should be careful now that she has exhibited that behavior, especially if she hasn't done it before.
 
#6 ·
Did he make eye contact? My very sweet but reserved female went crazy on a man who came in to give us an estimate on some work. I couldn’t figure out why she was acting so hostile until he said he made full eye contact. She was crated so I wasn’t too worried. Just make sure your dog doesn’t come in contact with strangers on your property anymore. I purposely keep the entry to the backyard blocked to through traffic so we don’t have any unexpected encounters.
 
#10 ·
Thanks! This is very helpful and on point. I have already started to introduce the command, “stop” in our morning and evening frisbee games . I’m starting with very close distances, and heavily rewarding her (remarkable) ability to over-ride her urge to tear off after the frisbee. I’m also pairing “sit” and “wait” with this command. We will be practicing daily. She has an invisible boundary fence on our 4 acre property, and she is kenneled in a 12 x 12 enclosure when I’m not outside with her. She sleeps in our house with us at night. Normally, when she is out on the property with me she hardly gives delivery drivers, grass cutting guys, visitors anything more than a trot up, tail wagging, “hello” and then moves on.There was something about this particular situation that triggered her and revealed to me that we need to do more work; I know it could happen again and I have to be able to get her under control before she engages the visitor.
 
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