Dog Community

Aggression at the dog park, help!

Posted : 9/20/2006 11:08:08 AM

We have an aggression problem at the dog park [&:]
We#%92ve been taking Joey to the dog park on a regular basis (a few times a week) every since he was a little pup and vaccinated.
He absolutely LOVES to play with other dogs! There are some he could do without but he stays away from them and that#%92s fine with me. Then there are a few of the regulars at the dog park that he#%92s more than excited to see and all the do is play, play and play some more. He#%92s also a RUNNER, I mean he can run forever if I let him. There#%92s usually a little group at the park and once they get going they will run laps like crazy!

Now here#%92s my problem. Joey is food aggressive. Not towards people but towards other dogs, that was never a problem though since there is no food allowed at the park. Lately though when we are the park he will run around for a while, sniffing everything (probably the beagle in him) and if he finds a particularly good spot to sniff (could be vomit – yuck, or something else that smells good Crying

) he will “defend” it against the other dogs! It#%92s awful, he hasn#%92t bitten anyone because I keep my eye on him and quickly (and I try to be as calm as I can) snap on his leash and remove him from the situation.
This is so embarrassing because everybody LOVES Joey at the dog park, he#%92s such a friendly guy aside from this stupid thing.

Is there anything I can do???? I do not use the dog park as a place to exercise him, he gets daily walks no matter what, but since he#%92s such a “sniffer” and has pretty much NO recall off leash I cannot take him off leash anywhere else and he just loves to run so much. I would hate to take that away from him, but I am also not willing to risk any other pups safety so for now I#%92ve completely stopped taking him.

If there is a way to train him to stop this behavior I would LOVE to hear about it, Help us please!

spiritdogs

Posted : 9/20/2006 4:52:39 PM

If he doesn't do any more than show his "mean teeth" or air snap, it should be easy to teach him a "leave it" command that you can use in conjunction with "come" to get him out of the situation before it escalates. If it works for my little speckled terror, it can work for him. [

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I think my method for teaching it is somewhere in our idog archives.

jones

Posted : 9/20/2006 8:26:59 PM

I agree with spiritdogs... just work on calling him off this. I would expect that he doesn't intend to do anything more than scare other dogs off his smelly spots and has no real intention to fight. I'd even venture that disciplining him for this (rather than simply redirecting) could have the unintended consequence of escalating the behavior if he feels you're confirming that whatever he's guarding is indeed of great import. It's been my experience (with my dog's 'puppy hazing' behaviors) that embarrassment at the dog park can turn a molehill into a mountain and if it's stressing you out it's sometimes good to take a break and regroup. [

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Richard Dragin

Posted : 9/30/2006 10:24:22 PM

I'd work on off leash recall as it may save your dog's life one day.

As for the dog park, what do you do while you are there? Do you stand in one place with a group of people chatting? That behavior on your part will encourage him to feel territorial and protective. You should keep moving and if he fixates on a spot you should use body language and position yourself to let him know it is your spot, not his. You should then move on and if need be lead him away on leash. Get his body and mind moving forward to break the fixation. While at the park you should walk as the leader without looking for him, he should be looking for you. Head up shoulders back like the assertive leader a dog will follow. If you are stressing over him being aggressive it will only add to the problem, easier said than done

Ruth

Posted : 10/1/2006 2:20:42 AM

If Ace does anything I don't like at the dog park I give him a time-out. I let him know he's in trouble with an "uh uh" in an I-mean-business tone and then I put him in a down stay away from the other dogs. Usually it's not for very long -- I will count to 15 or maybe 30 (depending on the infraction and his level of excitement). Then I say OK and he can go back to playing. It seems to really work for him.

He's a ball-crazy dog so I am especially on the lookout for anything that looks remotely like it is or could turn into any possessiveness or aggression about that. If the ball is in his mouth or on the ground and I hear any growling, he gets removed from the situation and gets a time-out. In fact most anytime I hear growling that isn't 100% playful he gets a time out. I can't always figure out who was the growler, and I know sometimes I will be reacting to normal levels of dog communication, but I feel like it's better safe than sorry. I figure it will teach him that he has the responsibility to stay away from other dogs if they do not like one another or if he meets dogs who are not playing nice. He can do serious playfighting with dogs he knows well on playdates, but with strange dogs at the park I don't want to see that. We have been going to the dog park for a while and I do think he understands the rules.

When we first started going to the dog park he was not well socialized and did not always have good judgment about how to handle dogs he did not like. There was one instance where his behavior was absolutely unacceptable (nobody was hurt, but he initiated a lot of scary growling and pinned the other dog to the ground and then ignored my command to release him), and he got a strong "no" and immediately was leashed and removed from the park with a no-nonsense, no fun, you're-in-trouble-mister type of attitude. The behavior was not repeated.