Tips welcome: my dogs are very aggressive when on a leash

Paddy Cow

Hi everyone,

I have three dogs. They are all maltese/bichon mix. Jamie and Lily are brother and sister and are 11 months. Molly came from another litter and is 9 months. When they are off their lead in the park, they mix with other dogs well. There's lots of sniffing and maybe some barking but it's not aggressive.

The problem I have is that if they meet another dog when they are on their leads, they go absolutely mental. Jamie had the snip four months ago. When I walk them, Jamie is on a lead on his own and the two girls are on a coupler lead. The girls aren't aggressive but they feed off Jamie's reaction, which is to go absolutely ballistic and they start barking. I've tried walking them separately and Jamie is definitely the issue. When I have the girls on their own, they don't go mental when they meet another dog. I've tried reassuring Jamie when we meet another dog by getting down to his level, petting him and telling him in a calm voice "it's ok" etc.

Is it an age thing that he will grow out of or are they any specific techniques that I need to learn to curb this behaviour? All tips are very welcome. My dogs are small and weigh no more that 5kgs but when they meet another dog, it's not nice for that dog if the three of them are barking etc.

Paddy Cow

I don't know if this is relevant or not but I'll add it for extra background info. Because my dogs are small and cute, it has been hard teaching them social etiquette. When I'm out with them I try to teach them not to run up to people but 90% of the time, people see them and are like "they're soooo cute" and call them over. Of course the puppies respond to the attention and lap it up but it has lead to a couple of instances where someone didn't want their attention but the puppies ran up to them before I could stop them.

Could these mixed signals have any bearing on the leash issue? I know that if I had three dobermans people wouldn't be calling them and undoing my training so I wonder if this has to do with the leash problem? Maybe the puppies think that if they don't have to listen to me when they're off the leash, then they don't have to listen to me when their on the leash????

Anyways, as I said, all tips welcome

VonVix

When you say Jamie is "going mental" does he seem fearful or overexcited? If you go closer to another dog does he go forward to greet them or does he slink away and try to get away from them?

Paddy Cow

VonVix wrote: »

When you say Jamie is "going mental" does he seem fearful or overexcited? If you go closer to another dog does he go forward to greet them or does he slink away and try to get away from them?

I would say over excited. When he's on the lead and meets another dog he goes into aggressive mode.

I've heard that dogs feel more threatened when they are on the lead and meet other dogs.

baldtooyoung

My dog cal can be similar when on the lead but an angel who doesn't bother with anybody or dogs while off it.
What I do I just give him a tennis ball while walking on the lead.completely distracts him from everything and he is lovely and placid on the lead then.

VonVix

Paddy Cow wrote: »

I would say over excited. When he's on the lead and meets another dog he goes into aggressive mode.

I've heard that dogs feel more threatened when they are on the lead and meet other dogs.

Chances are he's more likely a "frustrated greeter", being on leash doesn't necessarily make dogs feel threatened. The 'threatening' thing about meeting another dog on leash is the fact they meet head on, which is a very unnatural way for dogs to greet each other.

Dogs who are proper leash aggressive (e.g. do NOT like dogs at all and they are often fearful) are often stuck between a choice of fight or flight when they see a dog, and because they are on leash they cannot decide to get away if they want to, so instead they try to get the offending dog away from them by barking/growling/lunging.

A frustrated greeter wants to get to a dog SO bad but flips out more at the fact they cannot get to where they want to go, it's almost as if they are barking at the other dog to come closer because they can't reach lol.

A way to deal with it is to make yourself more interesting than other dogs. Bring treats on walks, the moment he spots another dog, TREAT. Keep treating when he is quiet and behaving how you like him to. Good treats are like tiny squares of ham, hotdogs chopped into tiny pieces, little pieces of chicken. You might find that they are more valuable to him then barking/meeting other dogs on walks.

It won't change things in one walk (this is a habit you're trying to break here), eventually the reaction you should be looking for is that he'll look to you for a treat expectantly the moment he notices another dog

Ashbx

I have this exact issue with one of my two. Off the lead, she is fantastic but on a lead, she goes berserk with excitement however she does tend to snap a bit when we do get to them. I personally still don't think she's fearful. I think shes so excited and just hasn't been taught how to greet a dog in that situation - my fault completely!

If I see a dog walking in the same direction ahead of me, I slow and follow it until Chip calms down. As we get closer she seems to calm and we can overtake or follow no problem. If the dog is coming head on, as Vonvix said above, is a no go! If I come head on with a dog, Chip will snap at the dog no question! In this instance, the moment she reacts, I turn around and find a spot to pull in off the path. I will stand and wait for the other dog to pass me and make Chip sit and watch. I will reward her if she was good and doesn't react. At first, she always reacted! As time has gone on, I do notice a big difference with her. She still eagerly watching and tail wags like mad but she doesn't make a peep!

Paddy Cow

Thanks guys. Ye make a lot of sense. I'm so relieved to hear it's not aggression. Now I know what the problem is, I can try different things.

Paddy Cow

I had a major set back today. My puppies are 11 months and I was making progress with Jamie on the lead. His two sisters are very laid back and never give a moments trouble. The advantage of having three puppies is that they keep each other company if I have to go out but it's harder to get their attention to teach them commands. They've been soooo good recently that I thought I had it cracked. Their recall was excellent and even if they were playing with another dog, when I called them, they returned, which made me very happy.

Then I took them for a walk this morning. We went down to the beach as usual and they saw a dog in the distance. Lily and Jamie went running up to it and were barking like crazy. I called them back but they wouldn't listen. I tried walking away while calling them and usually if they see me walking away they follow but today they didn't. They kept barking at this dog to the point where it's owner turned around and took it away from the beach. The owner was rightly p!ssed off and told me I should have aggressive dogs on a leash. I apologised and said they're not normally lie this and put it down to a one time thing. My dogs are toy dogs and while they were being high spirited I thought they were grand and nothing to worry about. Sometimes they bark and shout and other times they get afraid of the dogs they meet.

I continued with my walk and we met the same owner and dog again. This time there was no denying it. Lily and Jamie chased that poor dog and put the fear of God in her. While the first time they were high spirited*, this time they were mean and aggressive. I've never seen them behave like that towards another dog before. They really scared her and scared me with their behaviour.

The funny thing is, less than 30 seconds later they met another dog and they were fine with it The owner of the scared dog told me that if I have aggressive dogs they should be on a lead and I totally agree with her but this has never happened before.

*High spirited is not a euphemism for badly behaved dog. My neighbours have a dog that terrorises mine but it's not because he's aggressive, he just has too much energy. I joke with his owner that the dog would be a candidate for ritalin.

If by some chance the woman who I met this morning is reading this, I apologise for my dog's behaviour.

VonVix

Well I don't like every person I meet either.

Dog training isn't something that happens as if you're going from A to B to C. You go from A to C to B and then back to A again and for some reason you're at D, then back to B. Progression happens with time, and it's something to be practiced and reinforced.

What matters is you acknowledge something less than desirable happened and that it wasn't your fault that your dog did something out of the ordinary. I've met and heard of countless people who don't care about their dogs having a badly behaved moment. My 6 month old puppy has MANY of those moments and thinks every dog he meets is someone to play with and he gets terribly frustrated if he can't get close to a dog (barking, whining, etc) it was scary for me at first because I was thinking did I do something wrong to make him this way, I'm used to my two other lads behaving perfectly well on leash but then I have to realise that he is an individual and I have to work with him to make the right decisions and that I'm far more cool and fun than other dogs around.

What I'm saying is don't beat yourself up for your dog being a dog, I'd be surprised if anyone here didn't have a moment where their dog did something embarrassing/scary/concerning/different than usual!

If you're feeling unsure about a particular dog's recall, getting a recall line is always a good idea, to help reinforce your dog returning to you without them running off all willynilly.

DBB

You've it all to do if you're trying to manage three dogs in such a situation OP. I would suggest you get some help from a good behaviourist because what you're trying to do there is really, really challenging and you have to be sure you're doing it right.
One more thing, and perhaps today will have galvanised this realisation in your mind... if you have any inkling that there's another dog in the area, you must put your dogs on their leads so that they can't rush over. Even if they were rushing over to another dog in friendliness, it is highly disconcerting for many dogs to be approached by one, let alone two or three other dogs that they don't know, particularly if they approach at speed. It doesn't matter what size they are.
Indeed, it's this sort of thing that causes dogs to develop problems with other dogs themselves, so letting your dogs charge up to others, whether in friendliness or otherwise, is really unfair on the other dog, particularly when the owner of the other dog is keeping their dog near to them and minding their own business.
What's more, and again I'm sure you are keenly aware of this, but some day, your dogs could just rush the wrong dog(s) or owners and end up badly injured themselves.

tk123

I'd echo getting help from a behaviourist as well as keeping the dogs on lead for now. I actually just had a behaviourist session with Emmaline from http://www.citizencanineireland.com with my two on Friday and it was great! Learnt loads, the dogs had fun too and it was great to get a different perspective and different ideas.

I've been on the receiving end of small/toy dogs coming at my retrievers - I've posted about my frustration here before. Some owners laugh it off because they're small dogs but unless you know the other owner, their dog and whether they're ok with it you've no idea what damage your dogs could be doing. I eventually had words with the other owner and he didn't take very kindly to me criticising his dogs and their lack of training and socialisation (lol! ) but my girl was at the stage where she was afraid of going into the park and losing confidence around other dogs, I was falling over them as they ran into my path to get to her and I could have killed him and his dogs when they tried to attack my boy the morning after he'd been in the vets for 2 days for scans and biospies etc Also she's two and 38kgs - still a bit young to stand up for herself but if I had of let it get to the stage where she felt that afraid that she snapped she could have killed one one of his dogs - something some owners don't realise.

ShaShaBear

Agreed on the protection of your own dogs front.

Most people on here know that my last boy Shadow was absolutely TERRIFIED of other dogs. The noises that used to come out of him at the mere sight of a dog 30+ feet away would have any sane owner heading straight for a vet :eek:
I had many instances of people with small to utterly tiny dogs letting them run at Shadow because "they're very friendly" and they either ended up attacking Shadow, or he attacked them. One day, he actually left a westie (Shadow was a border collie, not huge by any means) on his death bed in the vets after a confrontation. Luckily for us, the owners admitted fully to the fact that they hadn't restrained their own dog and we happily paid the vet bill.

Unless you are 10000000000000000000000000000% utterly confident of your dog's recall or stay ability in ALL situations, don't give them the opportunity to run at another dog.