I have a puppy that is 3 months old. He was not born in a litter as he was an only pup. I have 2 adult dogs and he is very aggressive towards them almost like he is insecure. I have seen puppies play and growl but this one is very different. I saw an episode when Victoria was giving a timeout to a little dog. I want to do it effectively so I ask for some advise.
Thanks
How do you give your puppy a timeout?
Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost
Find the motivation for the behaviour. Fear? Excitement? Frustration?
Find the reward in the behaviour (some behaviours are self rewarding, ie its fun to bark.)
Prevent that behaviour from being rewarding.
Teach a replacement behaviour that IS rewarding.
However, if its fear then you might need a different angle, which is to ignore what he is doing (prevent him doing harm though) and reward every interaction with the trigger for his fear.
Ie... my lovely spider analogy.
Im frightened of spiders. If a spider bites me, ill be more frightened, If you shout at me for showing my fear, i may stop demonstrating the fear but i will be more frightened.
I could go one of two ways here. I could learn then to become aggressive to the spider and kill it so it cannot harm me.
I could shut down completely every time i see the spider.
Either way, i like spiders less.
Alternatively, every time I see a spider, i also see a £10 note, every time you see me see a spider you give me a hug and a £20 note.... ill be wanting to see you every time i see a spider and ill eventually quite like spiders.
Sometimes if you have a pup who behaves badly towards other dogs, some people will say 'well let them bite him and he will learn'. This is bad though because the fear stems from not knowing how to behave, and wanting to protect himself. If the other dog frightens him or hurts him further, he learns he was right, other dogs ARE scary and he must be even MORE horrible to them to get them to leave him alone.
If on the other hand every time he sees another dog he gets a game with a toy or a squidge of cheese spread, or a piece of livercake.. eventually other dogs will mean good things.
People dont always think this method will work because at first you seem to be rewarding the behaviour. The thing is, if a dog is really reacting extremely badly, they are not in a position to learn anything about their behaviour or that it has an effect on anything around them.
Socialising with other dogs is important. If you have access to adult dogs who will NOT bite him or be horrid, but will either play if he is nice, or walk away if he is horrid, then do a lot of that and do plenty of rewarding him so its a nice experience.
Knowing more about his breed and what he actually does would help - my pup plays extremely viciously with my youngest adult dog. Meeting strange dogs though shes very polite and sweet.
Find the reward in the behaviour (some behaviours are self rewarding, ie its fun to bark.)
Prevent that behaviour from being rewarding.
Teach a replacement behaviour that IS rewarding.
However, if its fear then you might need a different angle, which is to ignore what he is doing (prevent him doing harm though) and reward every interaction with the trigger for his fear.
Ie... my lovely spider analogy.
Im frightened of spiders. If a spider bites me, ill be more frightened, If you shout at me for showing my fear, i may stop demonstrating the fear but i will be more frightened.
I could go one of two ways here. I could learn then to become aggressive to the spider and kill it so it cannot harm me.
I could shut down completely every time i see the spider.
Either way, i like spiders less.
Alternatively, every time I see a spider, i also see a £10 note, every time you see me see a spider you give me a hug and a £20 note.... ill be wanting to see you every time i see a spider and ill eventually quite like spiders.
Sometimes if you have a pup who behaves badly towards other dogs, some people will say 'well let them bite him and he will learn'. This is bad though because the fear stems from not knowing how to behave, and wanting to protect himself. If the other dog frightens him or hurts him further, he learns he was right, other dogs ARE scary and he must be even MORE horrible to them to get them to leave him alone.
If on the other hand every time he sees another dog he gets a game with a toy or a squidge of cheese spread, or a piece of livercake.. eventually other dogs will mean good things.
People dont always think this method will work because at first you seem to be rewarding the behaviour. The thing is, if a dog is really reacting extremely badly, they are not in a position to learn anything about their behaviour or that it has an effect on anything around them.
Socialising with other dogs is important. If you have access to adult dogs who will NOT bite him or be horrid, but will either play if he is nice, or walk away if he is horrid, then do a lot of that and do plenty of rewarding him so its a nice experience.
Knowing more about his breed and what he actually does would help - my pup plays extremely viciously with my youngest adult dog. Meeting strange dogs though shes very polite and sweet.
The pup is a pomeranian toy size estimated to be around 5 lbs. The other dogs I have is a 1.5 year old 20lb Pomeranian mix and a 5 year old westie.
The pup seems to be more aggressive towards pom mix because he gets a response out of him. My pom mix has already try to fight back while the little pup scampers away whining then comes back with a vengance and more aggressive.
The pup tries to be vicious towards my westie by snarling and biting his face but my westie just turns away and ignores him.
I have introduced my pup to other adult pomeranians, english bulldog, lab/pitbull mix, welsh corgi and other dogs of all shapes and sizes. He just does not seem to like the company of other dogs.
The pup seems to be more aggressive towards pom mix because he gets a response out of him. My pom mix has already try to fight back while the little pup scampers away whining then comes back with a vengance and more aggressive.
The pup tries to be vicious towards my westie by snarling and biting his face but my westie just turns away and ignores him.
I have introduced my pup to other adult pomeranians, english bulldog, lab/pitbull mix, welsh corgi and other dogs of all shapes and sizes. He just does not seem to like the company of other dogs.
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Ocelot0411
- Posts: 593
- Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 7:30 am
yep, Emmabeth will undoubtedly be right, so i would follow what she advises as closely as you can.
The thing that strikes me about this is that you state that your pup had no litter mates. This is undoubtedly part of the issue as he has not had the opportunity to learn 'doggie behaviour' from any siblings, who would have been his age his size, his family, and he would therefore have been able to interact with them without any fear at all. What you may have now is 'good lord, how to I talk to them (adult dogs), won't they just eat me?'. As Emmabeth says, you need to find the trigger.
As he has missed out on having litter mates then it probably means that you are going to have to work harder to teach him to interact with other dogs, so a great deal of time and patience may be required. i am sure it is not the case though that he just doesn't like the company of other dogs, as afterall dogs are sociable animals who need company.
The thing that strikes me about this is that you state that your pup had no litter mates. This is undoubtedly part of the issue as he has not had the opportunity to learn 'doggie behaviour' from any siblings, who would have been his age his size, his family, and he would therefore have been able to interact with them without any fear at all. What you may have now is 'good lord, how to I talk to them (adult dogs), won't they just eat me?'. As Emmabeth says, you need to find the trigger.
As he has missed out on having litter mates then it probably means that you are going to have to work harder to teach him to interact with other dogs, so a great deal of time and patience may be required. i am sure it is not the case though that he just doesn't like the company of other dogs, as afterall dogs are sociable animals who need company.
Yep, don't I know it. Sighemmabeth wrote: (some behaviours are self rewarding, ie its fun to bark.)
