triggers

[jazz]

ok we need yuor help please we have a very sweet bm whom i would trust with anyone wouldnt hurt a fly!(i know all dogs can but you know what i mean)
this is untill it comes to going out into our back garden, she turns into a very agressive dog, not with me or the family just at the garden a bird a leaf the wind anything. I know they are guard dogs but this seems exessive the next doors dog set her off some six months ago barking through the fence, she didnt like it so she put her head throught the wooden fence to get her and it wasnt rottern !!!! and now i have tryed everything i know to stop her but nothing seemes to work, i honestly belive if somone climed over our fence she would try to kill them, i know this seems like im being over the top but as far as the back garden is concernd she is nuts , and last week we had our first explosion at the front odf the house so now we have to muzzle her this is not what i want for her because she isnt aggressive when playing with other dogs at the heath......plase help

 

[musicdeb]

How old is the pup? Sounds like she's doing her job and it's up to you to show her what she is suppose to do. If there is no threat, then tell her it's ok with your words and your body movements. Muzzles are good to put you at ease but muzzles can cause the pup to be aggressive.

Depending on her age, she could be going through her fear stage or she could be coming into her true temperament.

 

[CeeCee]

I don't think you're being "over the top." If left uncorrected my concern would be that the behavior could be transferred to other situations. (She might have transferred it to the front door.) If it's not already, make sure that going outside is a calm and low energy event. I would suggest not bringing her out into the garden until she is calm. (If she's excited to go out, you may have wait a bit - put her in a sit or down stay until she calms down.) Leash her and when she is calm, invite her to come out. If she tries to charge out, being her back and start over. When she enters the yard politely, walk her around a bit - making sure she stays calm. When she remains calm and you know she's in a relaxed state of mind, you can drop the leash, but keep it on her in case she gets ramped up and you need to correct or stop her.

Repeating this process over and over until coming into the yard calmly is her habit. When you are out in the yard playing, if you see her getting too ramped up, stop the play and have her relax for a bit. She may be getting over excited and just letting it all burst out.

 

[DennasMom]

I agree with CeeCee... it's not necessarily the garden or the door triggering the event - it's how you react to it (especially that first time). Somehow you've reinforced her "explosive" behavior, and need to "re-calibrate" her reactions - CeeCee has some great advice!

 

[ruby55]

What Ceecee said. BM's aren't usually over the top; they may bark a bit but they usually need to be antagonized into serious aggressive behavior. Ours might run out on the deck & bark when someone shows up, but it's usually the "Hey I'm hear come pet me!" kind of bark. Were you seeing this behavior before she got into a fence war with your neighbor's dog? Could that have been the trigger for this behavior?

 

[Laura Lee]

I hope the advice you received is starting to show signs of working for you. I can’t offer you a potential solution, but I can offer sympathy in relating to what you are feeling.

I have a normally very sweet female BM who turned into a raving lunatic in the back of our SUV whenever we were out and about decided to run our vehicle though the car wash. I’m not talking just the normal growling or alert barking, but a crazed and vicious reaction of barking, snarling and snapping of her jaws as the water or bristled drums made contact with the car windows. It most definitely antagonized her, sending her into attack mode -- biting, snapping and clawing at the windows trying to get at the “offending†water/drums.

Our older male BM, now deceased, never reacted that way during a run through a car wash -- he just looked on curiously. So it was quite scary to me to see our female react the way she did. Like you, it gave me pause wondering how she’d react to someone unknown to us coming onto our property.

It got progressively worse over the four or five occasions in which we had her with us when getting the car washed, so we stopped doing that…which was an easy solution. Your situation is more problematic in that the trigger is located on your property. That’s a tough one.