ekimonemij
New member
I’m wondering if anyone has any advice on training a fear aggressive dog. He only behaves this way under certain circumstances, so I think there is hope. I’m going to describe the behavior I’ve seen so far to give you a good picture of what’s happening.
My roommate’s dog, a four year old male border collie/blue heeler mix, shows signs of fear, overstimulation, and/or aggression when I have friends or family over to the apartment while my roommate is out of the house. He is totally fine with visitors when my roommate is home. He might bark once when they enter, but as soon as my roommate says anything the dog stops and is very well behaved and friendly. When my roommate is out of the house, it’s a different story. With one friend, he barks a lot, didn’t want her to pet him, and tried to physically get in between us. When we tried to de-escalate the situation by going into a different room from him, he howled and barked and growled at the door for hours. He would also do air nips when she tried to pet him. With another friend he jumped up on the couch to get higher up, barked at her the whole time she was over, and later sat under the dining room table with his ears back. With my dad, his aggression has escalated at each visit. My dad is very tall, so maybe he seems like more of a threat. It started off with the dog barking aggressively at my dad, but has escalated on the most recent visit to him lunging at my dad and biting/pulling on his pant leg. After that happened, I decided not to have any visitors over for safety reasons, and my dad doesn’t feel safe coming in the apartment again.
Here are things I’ve tried with varying degrees of success:
-(most successful): having the upstairs neighbors (who he loves) dog sit in their apartment while I had a visitor over. My neighbors let the dog into the apartment about an hour into the visit to find the visitor and I sitting on the couch. This went the best by far of anything I’ve tried. The dog stayed pretty calm and did not bark. He sat down by me and growled once, but sometimes he growls when he wants attention so it’s hard to say if that was aggression or not. He gave my friend a friendly greeting and allowed her to pet him. He even stayed calm when I hugged my friend goodbye, although he did sit and watch with focused attention. I gave him lots of treats to reward his calm behavior.
-have the dog meet my friend outside in a park, then go into the apartment together through the back door since the dog hardly ever enters there. The meeting in the park went great and the dog was very happy to meet my friend. Once we were inside, he sat and barked at us until I got a cong out filled with peanut butter. That kept him busy for about fifteen minutes. When he was finished he was not aggressive but was very demanding of attention from the visitor. He jumped up on the couch where my friend was sitting, put his paws up on my friend’s chest and stayed there while my friend pet him for about 45min until he was satisfied and lay quietly on the floor.
-having my friend give him a cong every time she came over. After only a few visits he was excited to have her come in, but still barked and tried to physically get in between us the entire time she was over.
-taking him out for a walk when a visitor was over and I could see his aggression coming out. He was totally fine once we were outside, although he showed more aggression to a passing dog than is normal for him. We came back in through the front door and as soon as we had passed the threshold of the apartment he turned on the visitor and started barking and lunging aggressively.
Moving forward, I’m wondering what elements are essential to a successful visit. For the one visit that went well, was it because he could hear the visitor for a good hour before coming back into the apartment, or was it because she was already in the apartment when he entered it, or both? Is there hope that with repeated positive visits he will learn that visitors are safe? Why is he so good about visitors when my roommate is home but not when it’s just me? Is there something I should be doing differently? How do I do this training process safely? He is not crate trained. He has never bitten anyone but my roommate says he has never behaved this way before. Prior to my roommate and I moving into this apartment, the dog had lived most of his life in a house. I was thinking I could start visits with him on a leash, and then let him off if things are going well.
Thank you so much for any thoughts/advice! If I can trouble shoot this, I won’t have to move out and that would be wonderful!
My roommate’s dog, a four year old male border collie/blue heeler mix, shows signs of fear, overstimulation, and/or aggression when I have friends or family over to the apartment while my roommate is out of the house. He is totally fine with visitors when my roommate is home. He might bark once when they enter, but as soon as my roommate says anything the dog stops and is very well behaved and friendly. When my roommate is out of the house, it’s a different story. With one friend, he barks a lot, didn’t want her to pet him, and tried to physically get in between us. When we tried to de-escalate the situation by going into a different room from him, he howled and barked and growled at the door for hours. He would also do air nips when she tried to pet him. With another friend he jumped up on the couch to get higher up, barked at her the whole time she was over, and later sat under the dining room table with his ears back. With my dad, his aggression has escalated at each visit. My dad is very tall, so maybe he seems like more of a threat. It started off with the dog barking aggressively at my dad, but has escalated on the most recent visit to him lunging at my dad and biting/pulling on his pant leg. After that happened, I decided not to have any visitors over for safety reasons, and my dad doesn’t feel safe coming in the apartment again.
Here are things I’ve tried with varying degrees of success:
-(most successful): having the upstairs neighbors (who he loves) dog sit in their apartment while I had a visitor over. My neighbors let the dog into the apartment about an hour into the visit to find the visitor and I sitting on the couch. This went the best by far of anything I’ve tried. The dog stayed pretty calm and did not bark. He sat down by me and growled once, but sometimes he growls when he wants attention so it’s hard to say if that was aggression or not. He gave my friend a friendly greeting and allowed her to pet him. He even stayed calm when I hugged my friend goodbye, although he did sit and watch with focused attention. I gave him lots of treats to reward his calm behavior.
-have the dog meet my friend outside in a park, then go into the apartment together through the back door since the dog hardly ever enters there. The meeting in the park went great and the dog was very happy to meet my friend. Once we were inside, he sat and barked at us until I got a cong out filled with peanut butter. That kept him busy for about fifteen minutes. When he was finished he was not aggressive but was very demanding of attention from the visitor. He jumped up on the couch where my friend was sitting, put his paws up on my friend’s chest and stayed there while my friend pet him for about 45min until he was satisfied and lay quietly on the floor.
-having my friend give him a cong every time she came over. After only a few visits he was excited to have her come in, but still barked and tried to physically get in between us the entire time she was over.
-taking him out for a walk when a visitor was over and I could see his aggression coming out. He was totally fine once we were outside, although he showed more aggression to a passing dog than is normal for him. We came back in through the front door and as soon as we had passed the threshold of the apartment he turned on the visitor and started barking and lunging aggressively.
Moving forward, I’m wondering what elements are essential to a successful visit. For the one visit that went well, was it because he could hear the visitor for a good hour before coming back into the apartment, or was it because she was already in the apartment when he entered it, or both? Is there hope that with repeated positive visits he will learn that visitors are safe? Why is he so good about visitors when my roommate is home but not when it’s just me? Is there something I should be doing differently? How do I do this training process safely? He is not crate trained. He has never bitten anyone but my roommate says he has never behaved this way before. Prior to my roommate and I moving into this apartment, the dog had lived most of his life in a house. I was thinking I could start visits with him on a leash, and then let him off if things are going well.
Thank you so much for any thoughts/advice! If I can trouble shoot this, I won’t have to move out and that would be wonderful!