Quote:
Originally posted by nynewbie
(and yes, she stills fills my heart with joy, I just want to understand if I did something wrong). |
Please do not read anything into this or take it as anyway derogatory it was simply a matter of clarification and that your signature made me laugh. It should in no way to be taken as any reflection on you or your dog. It is not my style.
When she growled at the GR, no hair up on her back at all, ears up and alert, head raised, body seemed relaxed. I got the impression that she growled because my attention was on the other dog. I would say that you are correct that she has growled to show her dislike for you putting your attention else where. This is not uncommon for a dog that you have not had long. It is a dominance based behavior (you should be paying attention too me) which is understandable as the hierachy has not been properly established yet (impossible after one month). To cure it simply repeat the exercise and either ignore her until she calms down or you can correct her for it if you wish (I at this stage would not I would simple ignore her until she alters her behavior unless it esculates markedly upon doing so). Once she calms down return and give her attention. I would simply keep doing this until she learns that shedoes not get your attention through this. If however she does get markedly worse then a correction of sorts may be necessary. You may find that it faids with time as the rules and leadership become clearer.
With the St. B, different case-hair up around her neck, ears forward, tense body, head lowered somewhat. This sounds more like a fear reaction but this may vary if the hair was only up on the dogs neck and not all down the back. Either way you need to continue training the dog and simply be rewarding everytime she passes by the other dog without incident to begin with. To help this pass at a distance where she notices the dog but is comfortable with it. If she reats negatively then you are too close. You will get a feel for the distance. Watch her body language, if she stiffens you are too close, if she looks but hardly reacts, the distance is correct. Once she will do this and you can see the distance strinking then you may with to look at some compulsion to make her believe that she cannot do this behavior.
You can also add this this focus exercises.
Have you spoken to your trainer about this? Will be very important to get her input, she can see the dog and should be able to give you far more specific advice.
Mick.