Escalating dog aggressiveness

[lilmiraclesfarm]

Shorthorsemom gave some excellent suggestions. Its difficult to tell you whats best and what probley won't work as we can't view your dog and see your dogs physical reactions. Sometimes what we think is an aggression could easily be mistaken as a fear, etc. So on that note, you should work with your come command. You want your dog to be at the point where you say come, she stops in her tracks and comes. With that, you can add in a "shake can, or a throw chain" to snap her out of her focus. A shake can is basically a can with some pennies inside it, tape the top and when the dog is focused or barking, you just shake the can, a throw chain is like a dog chain. You throw is underhand at the dog/ground by their feet. They look at you, "Good Girl, Come" Have them sit and reward! From there keep the distraction off... work her, ask for a down, ask for paw or any other tricks she knows. Once you've done that a couple times you can release her.

 

[LindaL]

A lot of you have given some really good advise and also some we have tried and didn't work with her or I won't try for whatever reason.

I totally forgot about a "shake can". I used to use that a long time ago with another dog for barking and it works (at least for getting their attention on you). I will try that again.

Abby is definitely not a "mean" dog. Her aggression towards anything is based on fear. I think it kind of freaks her out that she is even showing aggression towards Gunner...and is almost EXPECTING me to "save" her from herself!

Yes, she is most definitely bored. At our other house, we had a dog door and she could go outside/play in our fenced yard almost all the time. Now, she is cooped up inside, except for when when we take her out to potty or for a walk (which isn't often enough). We plan on putting a fenced in area in our yard, so hopefully that will help with the boredom. I DO play with her a lot, just because she demands it (and I enjoy it, too...lol), but she can't really run and play in the house like she can outside.

Yesterday, she and Gunner had a pretty good day...No scuffles and they laid down in their "sun spot" on the floor together...which is normal for them, but I find almost funny now since they have this "thing" going on between them. Abby will lick Gunner's face/ears sometimes as well.

We never leave them totally "unsupervised". If we leave the house for any time, we put Abby in her crate (which she loves). We also crate her at night. That was originally meant for her "puppy stage" (chewing, housebreaking, etc), but she feels "safe" in there. So, with this new issue, it's a good thing we do it.

I hope to get this resolved soon, so it does not get to the FIGHT stage. I think once it gets to that point, it is very hard to stop it from happening again. I would hate to have to either re-home her or put her down for hurting/killing another of my dogs. She is a "good dog".