Leash aggression/anxiety

[EMILY JONES]

Hi all! I have a seven year old Australian cattle dog mix who I rescued when she was a little over a year old. She was found by animal control tied up in a back yard. Over the last couple years she has been getting progressively more anxious and aggressive when we go on walks and when we meet new people or dogs. She’ll bark hysterically at dogs on a walk, and snaps if anyone tries to pet her. When strangers come in the house she takes a while to warm up and will bark at them and bite if they come too close. She also is possessive of me when it comes to my husband showing affection. Not sure if all of these are related, just at a loss for how to help her feel more comfortable and correct these behaviors. 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Emily,

Welcome the forums!

First off, thank you so kindly for rescuing and opening your heart and home to this dog with a history of being tied up in a backyard. I can't imagine how terribly bored and frustrated this dog must have felt!

With dogs who bark on walks at people/dogs, there's always the chance for it to be "barrier frustration" in other words, dogs eager to meet and greet people and dogs, and who bark because they are restrained by the leash and therefore unable to get closer. These dogs are dying to interact and cut the distance, but since you mention that she  snaps when people try to pet her and she struggles with guests, it sounds more like an issue based on anxiety/mistrust/fear of strangers since she is looking for distance rather than interaction. 

Now, in Australian Cattle dogs, we can expect them to be rather aloof and reserved with people, but this shouldn't lead to suspiciousness that graduates to snapping behaviors. So likely this is some everlasting baggage from her past being tied up and not being properly socialized towards people and dogs. 

The term snapping can be used to portray two different scenarios: one where the dog opens and closes the mouth at a distance from a person without making any contact with the person, and one were the dog actually makes contact with the skin but applies no pressure.  Both behaviors are concerning and should be tackled early before the behavior worsens and escalates to a more severe type of biting. 

In these cases, you'll need to take a multifaceted approach. Here are some general tips:

-Start with a vet visit

Your dog is now 7 and you mention this behavior starting in the past couple of years. The big question is, what triggered this behavior to pop out? Was she perfectly OK around people and dogs prior to that? Or so-so? Was she exposed to lots of cumulative stress? Did somebody approach her the wrong way? Has she always been uneasy around people and it has gotten gradually worse? 

One very first step due to the late onset of this behavior, especially in the case of a dog who suddenly snaps out of the blue, is having your dog see the vet. There are several underlying medical conditions that can lower a dog's threshold for biting. An ear infection, for instance, can cause a dog to lash out when people happen to touch the dog's ears or face. Some dogs may undergo behavior changes due to underlying medical conditions such as low thyroid levels (which this breed is predisposed to). The causes can be various and therefore a vet visit is a must to rule out underlying medical disorders. 

-Make Safety Your Top Priority

Taking steps to ensure the safety of others is paramount. Keeping your dog on leash on walks, and maybe letting her wear a "caution" vest can help discourage people from approaching. 

Conditioning her to wear a basket muzzle when around people is important, however, realize that, just because your dog is muzzled, doesn't mean she's safe to be around. Use caution as if your dog wasn't wearing it. Make sure to use a bite-proof basket muzzle. I personally like the wire basket muzzles from Dean and Tyler and some models made by Jafco. 

Here is a video on how to condition a dog to wear a muzzle. I am using a nylon muzzle in this video, but you can still feed treats through a basket muzzle. 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-your-dog-to-wear-a-muzzle/

Training an emergency U-turn may also be helpful so to avoid too-close encounters when strangers are walking your way on a tight sidewalk. Here is a guide on that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/emergency-u-turn/

It's important to therefore avoid full-intensity exposures that are likely to evoke the problem behavior (snapping).  

-Prevent Rehearsal of the Problematic Behavior

Allowing your dog to practice the snapping behavior will cause the behavior to put roots and strongly establish. Here's the thing: every time your dog snaps at a stranger, the stranger will obviously move away. Such increase in distance is reinforcing to the dog as she gets to feel relief. 

Snap after snap, the dog learns that, in order to keep people away, all she needs to do is snap. Soon, this behavior establishes and may become the dog's default behavior of interacting with people she's not comfortable having around. 

It's therefore important not putting the dog into the position of feeling so uncomfortable she needs to snap. In other words, you want to keep her as under threshold as possible:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

-Know Your Dog's Triggers 

Carefully evaluate what triggers and situations your dog has snapped in the past and take steps to prevent her from being exposed to such situations. 

For example, if she has snapped at somebody trying to hug her, make sure to let people know that she's not comfortable having people hug her, but consider that even moving towards your dog can be interpreted by your dog as an intent to hug, so you'll need to be very careful about what people do around your dog.

Safety comes always first, so it's better taking the better safe than sorry approach. You can't go wrong in practicing excessive caution in these circumstances.

-Watch Your Dog's Body Language

Learn to recognize early signs of when your dog is starting to get tense. This way you can remove your dog from situations before he feels the need to escalate. Often, early pre-warning signs include nose licking, turning the head, yawning, stiffening etc. 

More is covered here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/signs-fear-stress-dogs/

Don't forget to take a look at Kendall Shepherd's Ladder of Aggression:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-dont-bite-blue/

-Implement Behavior Modification 

To tackle cases of reactivity directed towards strangers, you'll need to tackle the underlying emotional response. The goal of behavior modification is to change your dog's perception of strangers and to teach and reinforce alternate behaviors.  This is often done through methods that involve desensitization and counterconditioning. 

Some of my favorite methods for working on dogs uncomfortable towards strangers are:

Leslie McDevitt's Look at That exercises (you can start by having her watch strangers walk by her property if that's not too overwhelming for her. 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/

Jean Donaldson's' Open Bar Closed Bar:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/open-bar-closed-bar/

For closer encounters, one of my favorite go-to methods is Susan Clothier's Treat/Retreat Method:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/treat-retreat-game/

The ultimate goal would be to obtain what's known as a dog's positive conditioned emotional response so that the dog no longer dreads being around strangers, but actually starts tolerating and even enjoying it. Here's a read on that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/conditioned-emotional-response-cer/

As promising as all of this sounds, it's important to understand that aggressive tendencies may not be cured once and for all. No guarantees can ever be made on the outcome of training and behavior modification.  You'll therefore need to have realistic expectations and accept the fact that you may need to implement management long-term.

-Training Alternate Behaviors

Once a dog's emotional response has changed, it is easier to train a dog to perform some desirable, alternate behaviors that will replace the snapping. More on differential reinforcement can be found here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/differential-reinforcement-incompatible-behaviors/

For instance, once your dog is better under control, when a person approaches, you can train your dog to go sniff the ground on cue searching for some tasty treats you have tossed there, or she can learn to quietly lie down in her spot with a cookie. You can also have her do some sits and toss the treats in a treat/retreat fashion so she's going back and forth and looking for the tossed treats rather than thinking about snapping. 

-Avoid Punishment

As tempting as it may be to punish a dog for snapping at strangers, consider that this approach can literally 'bite you in the back." Here's the thing: a dog's snapping behavior is a warning, your dog's way of saying "I am not comfortable having people this close to me or doing whatever they were doing."

If you try to suppress this plea for help using punishment, you may be left with a dog who bites with little or no warning. In other words, she'll go straight to a bite with no growling or air snapping to warn you and others about this intent. 

-The Importance of Working With a Professional

It goes without saying that a dog who is snapping at strangers is a strong liability. There is always the chance that someone may get hurt. Even as you step in, to stop your dog from potentially injuring somebody, you may be on the receiving end of a redirected bite.

For safety and correct implementation of behavior modification, it's therefore important to enlist the help of a qualified, force-free dog trainer or behavior consultant. If you are lucky to have a board-certified veterinary behaviorist near you, that would be an optimal solution. 

These professionals can, not only rule-out medical problems, but they may also prescribe medications to help lower your dog's threshold so to facilitate learning. 

Remember: behavior modification takes some time to implement and requires management when the dog is not being actively worked with and conditioned. This means that when these sessions are not practiced, the dog should be kept away from her triggers (management) considering that, as mentioned, it can be highly reinforcing for dogs to bark/growl and snap considering that the person or dog in question often leaves/or is removed following this display.

Will be posting about the issue you are facing with your husband shortly. 

Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional who uses force-free behavior modification techniques (no shock, prongs, or physical corrections) for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

You also mentioned that your ACD struggles with guests, this can also be tackled through management and behavior modification, and as in other cases, requires a systematic step-by-step approach. Here in the link below, you can see a case study on a case of a dog who was reactive towards a person entering the room.

Of course, you'll need stricter management since we always have that great risk for a bite. In some cases, if guests don't come off too often, but just in a blue moon, it may be easier to just manage (keep the dog away from guests behind a tall baby-gate, crated with a stuffed Kong or in a separate room) than directly work on behavior modification which will require frequent refresher sessions here and there. 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dog-barking-someone-enters-room/

All these behaviors can certainly be related, being that lack of socialization may have had a profound effect on how she relates to people. If she was doing perfectly fine with people before, consider that perhaps something has happened that has negatively rocked her world (stress, changes, a move, an unpleasant encounter, a full intensity exposure, trigger stacking) causing anxiety to raise its ugly head. 

In regards to your husband showing affection and her acting possessive, the same principles apply. You can read more about this behavior here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/overprotective-of-owners/

You would therefore need to identify what triggers it (hugs?) prevent rehearsal of the behavior and implement management (no affection in her presence), and then if you want to work on it directly, it would entail creating positive associations with your husband's presence around you, and doing very gradual exposures with her under threshold by presenting small pieces of the issue she struggles with and making it clear that treats are provided contingent upon your husband doing these things. When your husband stops doing all these things, the treat delivery stops. 

For example, if she struggles with hugs, you would practice having your husband approach you, drop treats, then have her watch him place a hand on your shoulder, toss treats, then have her watch him placing the arm around you shoulders, toss treats, then a very loose hug, toss treats, then a slightly tighter hug, toss treats, then a full hug, toss treats, then a full bear hug with some swinging motions, toss treats, then bear hug, with swinging motions and verbal remarks, toss treats. 

Of course, this is just an example. She may react in certain segments, and when that happens it's sign that she wasn't ready for that level of interaction yet, so you'll need to go back a few steps and even split things further. However, since there is a risk element here (risk for bites if we aren't diligent in watching her body language) we need to thread with extra caution so you many want her muzzled just in case (she can still pick treats from the floor with certain types of basket muzzles) or practice behind a tall baby gate she won't climb or jump over, and have a behavior professional guide you through (watching her carefully and possibly timing the treat tossing) so to minimize the chances for mistakes or setbacks from sloppy implementation. 

I hope this helps, 

Of course, don't forget doing brain games and training session!

Let me know if you need any help or have further questions!

Best,

Adrienne 

Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional who uses force-free behavior modification techniques (no shock, prongs, or physical corrections) for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

[EMILY JONES]

Thank you so much for the thorough suggestions and strategies. I will work on implementing these with her ASAP! 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

You're very welcome!

Keep us posted on how thing go and make sure to work with professional for safety and correct implementation. 

Best,

Adrienne