Dogs in front garden - Harassing my dog

evilmonkee

Hi,

On the route I walk daily there are 3 small dogs which the owner allows into the front garden.
Everytime these dogs are out they run snarling and growling at the gate and stick paws / nose (snapping and snarling) out around the sides of the gate, in a vicious manner, not in a friendly way.

My girl is friendly but she does not take aggression well. It has gotten to the point that the dogs will bark and growl when she is within smelling distance and she will lunge at the gate (she is always on-lead). She will try to shove her nose down and could easily bite a toe or tip of nose if she got her head down to them.

I spoke to the owner, she has seen this happen on many occasions and does nothing, I got so fed up that I told her to control her rats (I know i could have handled this much better) but she refuses to do anything.

I don't want to cross the road (on principal and as it will only avoid the problem and not train my girl).

Anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to prevent this happening? Or is there anything I could do to force the owner to control her dogs?

Also, I am worried that if my girl someday does bite the little ones while they are sticking body parts through the gate that I will end up with the guards at my door even though she is being provoked.

Sorry for the long post but I am quite worried about this.

Jelly2

evilmonkee wrote: »

Hi,

On the route I walk daily there are 3 small dogs which the owner allows into the front garden.
Everytime these dogs are out they run snarling and growling at the gate and stick paws / nose (snapping and snarling) out around the sides of the gate, in a vicious manner, not in a friendly way.

My girl is friendly but she does not take aggression well. It has gotten to the point that the dogs will bark and growl when she is within smelling distance and she will lunge at the gate (she is always on-lead). She will try to shove her nose down and could easily bite a toe or tip of nose if she got her head down to them.

I spoke to the owner, she has seen this happen on many occasions and does nothing, I got so fed up that I told her to control her rats (I know i could have handled this much better) but she refuses to do anything.

I don't want to cross the road (on principal and as it will only avoid the problem and not train my girl).

Anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to prevent this happening? Or is there anything I could do to force the owner to control her dogs?

Also, I am worried that if my girl someday does bite the little ones while they are sticking body parts through the gate that I will end up with the guards at my door even though she is being provoked.

Sorry for the long post but I am quite worried about this.

I'm sure it's not particularly nice for your dog to walk pass aggressive dogs, but I don't really see what else you can do except walk past on the other side of the road or change your route. The other person's dogs are contained within her private property, and therefore are under control.

lucycat

Agreed - if they are in the neighbours garden and she has a gate, then there is nothing you can do as she is in the right there. I personally think small dogs can be more territorial than bigger dogs - my two (Shih Tzu and Havanese) go mental if there is another dog lingering outside the house, whereas the Rottie I had growing up wouldn't pass too much heed.

It will probably be less stressful for your own dog to just cross the road until you get past the house, or maybe take another route on your walk? Not ideal I know, but I think that might be your only option...

seamus

Not a whole lot you can do about the other dogs. As said above, they're contained on the owner's property. So regardless of anything, the owner is not doing anything legally wrong.

Distraction techniques sound like what you need here. Teach your dog to simply ignore them. So (roughly) bring some high-value treats on your walk, hot dog or whatever. Before you get to this house, ensure your dog is on a short lead and let her know what you have in your hand. As you pass the house, try to keep her attention with the treats and feed her one every few seconds that she keeps focussed on you. If she breaks off and starts going at the other dogs, stop, pull her attention back to you again, then start moving, maintaining her attention in you the entire time that you're walking by this house.
Once you're in the clear, put the treats away and continue on your walk. Repeat every walk. Eventually you will reach a point where the dog will look to you for treats every time you pass this house, rather than go at the dogs. You don't actually need to carry a pocket full of treats for the rest of your life - once the habit is created you just reinforce it with one or treats every few days.

Optionally you can also carry a bag of treats with you and throw them into the garden to get the dogs to go somewhere else

evilmonkee

Jelly2 wrote: »

The other person's dogs are contained within her private property, and therefore are under control.

The dogs are shoving their paws and nose through the sides of the gate, so they are on the footpath, does this count as on her property? This is what I am mostly worried about.

Also, I would preferably like to address this issue rather than to try and avoid the issue
e.g. teach my dog a "leave it" command where she would not lunge at them.

Sorry if my post wasn't clear

evilmonkee

seamus wrote: »

bring some high-value treats on your walk, hot dog or whatever. Before you get to this house

Thanks this sound like a great idea. The problem will be that she is not food motivated, especially when she is outside. Think I may have to carry a slice of liver in my pocket YUM

seamus

Then you need a ridiculously high-value treat. And maybe try walking her just before feeding time.
Not sure about carrying liver in your pocket but whatever works for you

Tranceypoo

I have a very similar problem and I can't cross the road cos it's a narrow country lane. For me, I tried the distraction, food, toy etc but my dog was so 'in the zone' by this stage, totally focussed on the barking dogs, that nothing works!!

TooManyDogs

I have a similar house near me, and 6 dogs on leads so can't afford for any of them to react

I did similar to what Seamus suggested but I stopped outside the gate and didn't move. Eventually the 2 little sh!ts just stopped barking once they realised we weren't going to go away because of their barking, they gave up and retreated back to their house. Any time one of mine looked at them with ears up/tail up/stiff body etc I corrected them so they learned that they had to stand calmly no matter what the other dogs were doing. Now it's worked a dream and they walk past no matter what the other dogs are doing

axle108

Totally agree with TooManyDogs. I have done the exact in similar situations. Its amazing how shortlived the rucus can be. The worst is when you try to walk on with your dog reacting to the barkers in the garden. Forget high value treats when your dog is reacting like this, yes one could avoid the situation. What happens if you encounter this at other gardens on your walk ? do you avoid all situations. I have used what TooManyDogs advised including corrections, but you must remain calm (correct and relax, dont rise to it) . Look on this as a training exercise and keep trying and evaluating how your dog reacts, until you find what works for you. If you see any sort of improvement, no matter what works, build on it. Different dogs, different situations.

The Sweeper

Irish law cites the dogs are under control. Laws in other countries identify their behaviour as nuisance behaviour, but given where you live, all you can do is some high-value treat work involving ignoring the dogs. Teach your dog to focus on you, not them.