What do I do? My baby is becomming aggressive to other dogs she meets on walks!?

Question

Daisy is a little over a year old, and she's always loved other dogs and people. She is a half black lab half pit bull mix. I do NOT blame her recent aggression on the fact that she's half pit.

I socialized her while she was young, and still take her to the dog park. I let her off her leash and she plays with dogs of every size, age, breed and gender- never had a problem. But several times now in the past couple of weeks she has almost gotten into fights with other dogs while on a walk.

It started with an encounter with another femal pit bull on a busy street in my town. The owner was a homless man, and I did not know the dog. We stopped to talk to someone and the OTHER dog lashed out at her. I pulled her away without a problem and took her to a calmer place for her to settle down. Not an hour later, however, a lady walking her own female pit was approaching. Daisy wanted to meet her. The other womans dog seemed nonchalant about the idea but the woman insister her dog was friendly and let them meet. Once again, the dog must've felt it's space invaded and lashed out at my dog. I pulled her away again and took her home.

Neither of these times it didn't appear that Daisy was being aggressive-I pay very close attention to how she's behaving when she's out. But literally every time she's met another female dog on leash SHE has lashed out, and I think she's just got it in her head after those experiences that another female on leash means trouble. I took her to the park today and she was fine with the other dogs but I was still afraid something could happen so I took her home early( some of the other dogs seemed irritated by her enthusiasm, they were older and I didn't want them to nip and further scar her).

What do I do? I want her to be social and she really loves to play with the other dogs, I haven't been letting her meet other females on walks and I've even been just crossing the street when I see another dog. I'm almost ready to swear off meeting other dogs, but I would like to try to re-socialize Daisy first...or something...

Answer 1

This is going to sound like a weird question, but is Daisy black? I ask because you've got a combo of breeds that can be hard for other dogs to "read" more so if they're black.



What were the humans doing while the dogs met? Were the leashes held tight? This can sometimes cause a reaction as well.



I would give Daisy a break from seeing/greeting other dogs for a minimum of a week, better if you can do two. The reason for this is to give her time to calm down. When the other dog lashed out at her it started hormonal response in Daisy's body. First adrenaline was released, as Daisy started to calm the adrenaline level went down, but a new hormone was released. These hormones caused by a stressful event are meant to put eyes on the back of your head. To keep you ready to respond quickly to a stressful situation. These hormones last in the body between 2-7 days. The levels at which they are released depends on how many stress inducing incidents have occurred. Every time she lashes out more hormones are released.



She's not being aggressive, she's being reactive. In her current state of hightened alert her mind is saying "A dog like that got me before, I'm not letting that happen again, I'm gonna get them before they get me."



You still need to exercise her during this cool down period, just avoid other dogs. During the cool down period start looking for a good positive trainer or behaviorist who deals with fear reactive dogs. They can help you "re-socialize" her. This needs to be approached carefully, done incorrectly is going to make the problem worse. For now meetings with dogs should be in a controlled environment under the supervision of your trainer.



The sooner you start working on this behavior the better. Good luck.

Answer 2

Well, I don't let my dog meet other dogs while on leash because he can tend to be leash aggressive, which a lot of dogs are. He is a sweet dog, and gets along with all the dogs in the dog park, but on leash he can be something else. I started training him that when we see another dog walking toward us, I make him sit down and stay in a sit position until they pass by. It can be a bit of a challenge sometimes with certain dogs, but if he gets up and starts to bark and lunge, I sit him back down and we wait until he settles down (like you did), before we go on. He is getting better with sitting and waiting. We do this only when we are in a park or some area where there is not a lot of people. When we walk the busy sidewalks, I keep him on short leash, right by my side so if I see him making a move I don't like, he gets a leash correction and we continue to walk. Don't know if this would help you out or not, but it works well for my dog.

Answer 3

My dog had this problem but it was a bit more severe because she's a german shepherd X bull terrier and pretty big so she can do major damage.



I knew someone who had a pretty placid dog and me and my dog met them at a park. We didn't let the dogs near eachother at first but we slowly started walking in the same direction with a few meters of space between us. Very slowly, we got closer and closer together but we still didn't let the dogs sniff eachother. Soon enough, we had the dogs walking side by side and then they were both perfectly happy to run about together when we got abck to the park.



I hope this helps, having a dog become antisocial is a terrible thing to happen.

Answer 4

Unfortunetely everything you have been doing is only going to feed into her *lashing out* at other dogs. I have a similar problem to you with my own dog, he's never actually gotten into a fight, but he gets very stiff and doesn't really enjoy meeting other dogs on a leash. It's hard for me to relax and not feed into my dog's tension when meeting new dogs so I haven't really found a great solution yet. Mainly what I've been trying to do is just make sure he is still plenty socialized with other dogs when he is off lead and having him see dogs that he has already met before while on lead to reassure (both of us) that he will be fine.

Answer 5

females meeting females can have aggressive tendencies with strange dogs because everyone thinks they are the alpha and too many alpha's is not a good group. She needs to continue to meet and greet others, but you have to pay attention to make sure you can control each situation with a calm but strong directive. If you see she is going to act out, interrupt the behavior before it begins and you can redirect the energy and keep it appropriate. Never allow misbehaving, especially if it could lead to injuries. be alert until you are sure your dog is safe, calm and confident in all situations.

Answer 6

I'd say the easiest way is probably to teach her to "leave it." Start with objects, and then use the term when she's going to walk by another dog.



Also, maybe you shouldn't let her say "hi," to other dogs walking down the street. Teach her that walks are strictly business, and the dog park is where playtime happens.

Answer 7

Your "baby" is aggressive to dogs on walks? I've never heard of a dog-aggressive baby.

Answer 8

Please seek advise from a professional trainer.It is necessary.