Aggressive behavior w/ my male while out walking

e28jay · 06-23-2008, 06:38 PM

Hi All,

My first post here. I'll introduce myself and my babies in the new member section. But here is my first question.

This is fairly new behavior for our male dog. I believe it started when we moved from Cali to Oregon. I have a male and a female dobie, both are fixed and both about 4 yrs old. They've been walked together since they were puppies. Since we've moved to our new state our male will show aggression to our female when another dog is walking by. Never towards the dog that is walking by, only to our female dog. She is more of the dominant one so of course she doesn't stand for that and growls and snarls right back him. This causes a pretty ugly scene being new to the neighborhood but they stop as soon as I yell NO and yank on the leashes. Both dogs are super friendly to pets and humans though! Both dogs have been socialized since they were pups. And this does not happen every time another dog is present only sometimes. Yesterday we had a friendly chat with our new next door neighbor. I had our dogs on the leashes and she had her dog on the leash. No problems at all! So it's the strangest thing. Any thoughts on why he would do this? Or how to correct it? Obviously I can start walking them one at a time... but I want to know why he would act like this and can it be corrected.

**lyngr** · 06-23-2008, 06:57 PM

Sounds like he's transferring his frustration to your female... Being confined/restrained on a leash and wanting to get to (greet) the on coming dog, as opposed to a casual loose leash conversation with your neighbor & his dog. The move and unfamiliar environment may be adding to his anxiety?

**MIA** · 06-23-2008, 08:39 PM

My MinPins do this IF they are on a loose leash walk, if they are on a controlled walk (healing on either side of me) they don't do this. If I have them in a sit stay they don't do it, aka if I am in control they don't do it SO not sure when your male is doing it but he may feel at that moment that he's needing to control the situation, can't due to leash and takes out the frustration on the female. Make sense??

**RedFawnRising** · 06-24-2008, 04:37 PM

It does sound like displaced aggression due to frustration and perhaps anxiety.

What's his level of training?

Can you engage him actively next time you see a risk situation coming?

As in, you see a new dog approaching, get him actively doing a command for you and treat/reward him.

I know this will take a lot of coordination, (probably more than I have, most days!) with two dogs at once, plus the distraction of the oncoming third dog, but it's worth trying.

If that feels too much, I'd try the same thing, while walking him alone. Just train, train, train on approaching dogs, reward for every good thing, even for an honest "try."

Then bump up the difficulty level to working the two dogs on a walk together.

Good luck!

**2gooddobes** · 06-24-2008, 06:16 PM

I had something along the same lines happen while walking with Beetle and Bella. Beetle is a rescue that has had to overcome some fear issues. While on leash he tends to get a little nervous when a strange dog approaches. If i put him in a sit he is fine in about 30 seconds. When i walked the two of them i got lazy and stopped working on this problem, one day a man approached with a dog that was barking and acting crazy, instead of stopping and letting Beetle gather himself i walked towards the man and his unruly dog, i could tell Beetle ws a little nervous and out of nowhere he turned on Bella and pinned her to the ground. We worked on the problem for a few weeks and he is now over this fear. Anxiety, fear,and frustration, can all transform into aggresion. Just becasue a dog does this does not make it an aggresive dog in my book they just need some immediate training to correct the problem.