Well well well, here I am again.  Aggression is the new separation anxiety with Chloe. 

 For those of you who don’t know, I started taking Chloe to a friend's house during the day (I am a graduate student) so I could take her out for walks or play with her on breaks. This way Chloe is not at home, by herself, all day (30 min away), whining and having neighbors calling animal control on me. For the most part she gets along with the other dog, I’d say 90% of the time. When I am not there, she will sleep next to him on their couch or the bed.  It's only when I go to the house or spend time there that she will growl if he (Bailey, the other dog) walks by her or gets too close to one of the toys (we now have three squeakers there to help mitigate that). He is a very docile dog, but he is bigger than she is. I don’t know if she is aggressive because she gets possessive of certain things like toys or the couch or me or if she feels vulnerable since her amputation. Prior to her amputation and prior to her living with me, she lived with another dog, Rocket for 9 years.  Chloe was the submissive dog and she never showed aggression toward that dog or others until now. When I take her home, Chloe will show similar aggression to Rocket.  When I take her places that allow dogs off leash, she is fine socializing, unless they try to play with her by jumping on her back.  I have noticed that the growling toward Bailey is worse when there are people over visiting (more crowded).

And you are probably wondering how I have dealt with this so far:
I do some pack training behaviors with her like growling in her face when she is lying on the ground, so she knows that when I growl at her, I mean business. I have tried growling at her while she is growling at Bailey, even lightly putting her in a lying down position to do so, but it doesn’t work.  I have tried yelling at her, she doesn’t care.  It seems like she is shutting down all senses and concentrated on growling at Bailey.  She just stands in place to growl.  The only thing that is a temporary fix is dragging her away to go outside to blow off some steam.  In some cases, she just stands by the door waiting to go back inside and if I let her in she will go back to growling.  Bailey just takes it and tries to hide, but he is larger than Chloe and I hope he doesn’t decide to react some day.

She gets plenty of exercise and to my knowledge she doesn’t seem to be in pain or have arthritis.  Like I said, its not just with Bailey, but with Rocket, the dog she grew up with and was submissive to her whole life.  With humans she is perfectly fine, you can take her toys away, etc… no aggression.  It is dog on dog aggression only.

And to the admins, yes I have posted this on the MySmartPuppy.com forum and I haven’t heard anything back regarding advice for how to mitigate this situation.

If any of you have advice, books or websites you recommended I read please let me know. As a graduate student I am on a tight budget and so I really can’t afford private training sessions with a trainer, although if it comes down to it, I will do that if I must.

Chloe on left, Bailey on right.

-Chloe's mom

Hey,

I wonder if Chloe and Sammy are related?!  Sammy used to be fine with all dogs, then the amputation happened.  Now, he can't be around any dogs he doesn't know.  He growls and throws a fit!  My thought is that he doesn't feel like he can defend himself, so he is telling everyone to stay away.

My thought is if he felt more confident that I would control the situation he would chill out and we would go back to our happy zen selves.  I get anxious now when I walk him, because I can see him get tense.  So, it is a endless cycle.  I would suggest Ceasar Milans methods.  He has a website where they answer questions if you become a member.

I haven't had the time to work on Sammys issues, I am gone to work 13 to 18 hours a day, so when I get home it is feeding and bedtime.  But, some time soon I hope to have more normal hours, and can see if what Ceasar suggests will work on my boy.

Let us know if you find a method that works!

Elizabeth and Sammy

I think that maybe she needs to feel like you will make her safe.  She sounds like she only behaves that way when you are around.  So, if you are the safe zone, the only who will for sure be her protector, she won't feel like she has to defend you, but that she can relax and be a dog around you.

That is just my analysis from hours of the "dog whisperer"..

Whoa, are you sure startling her is the right way to go?  I'm no expert, but I've tried to read up on dog aggression and while redirecting is recommended, I think scaring/startling could raise her anxiety and make it worse. 

I highly recommend reading stuff by Patricia McConnell (I'm sure she has a website, if you wanted to Google her.  Two books of hers that I can think of that probably relate are Feisty Fido and Feeling Outnumbered? I also borrowed a multi-DVD set of a lecture she gave, titled Dog-Dog Aggression from my local library.  But then, McConnell lives in the area, so probably not as available elsewhere.

McConnell definitely does recommend the pop can trick admin mentioned for a lot of things, but I'm not sure about this particular situation.  Probably depends on whether Chloe is just being possessive of you or whether she's actually feeling insecure/scared.

Whoa, are you sure startling her is the right way to go?  I'm no expert, but I've tried to read up on dog aggression and while redirecting is recommended, I think scaring/startling could raise her anxiety and make it worse. 

No I am not sure if startling her is the right thing to do, I have no idea.  If I try to reward her when she is being nice or try to "redirect" by taking her outside and away from the situation when she is growling, future issues keep occuring. This has been going on for a few months now and I was hoping to try other things so that it doesn't happen again.  Maybe I just have to understand that my Chloe is a grouchy, growly butt and be wary when she is around other dogs? Thank you for the book suggestion by the way, I will look into it!

-Chloe's mom

When I take Chloe to the beach were she is allowed to roam off leash, she does get scared of some dogs.  The fur on her back stands up and she starts to growl.  She is really good about coming when I call or whistle, so in those situations I can get her to "run away".  I too can tell when she is getting that "look" and I call her away before she starts being a growly butt.  

This behavior is different than the one I am talking about with Bailey.  When she growls at Bailey, her fur does not stand up and she seems to ignore me for the most part.  I am leaning toward possessive aggressiveness with Bailey and fear induced aggressiveness with the dogs on the beach because the difference between the two situations is her fur standing up or lack thereof.

-Chloe's mom

Chloes mom said:

And to the admins, yes I have posted this on the MySmartPuppy.com forum and I haven’t heard anything back regarding advice for how to mitigate this situation.

Yea I'm still waiting to hear from them…

Unfortunately her vet is 350 miles away…  I do have someone helping me out and doing some positive reinforcement training, so hopefully this can be fixed or at least managed 

-Chloe's mom