[Rottlva]

Firstly, I think that Larry's post made a good deal of sense. After having a softer, lower drive rottweiler, and now owning a tougher very high drive rottweiler, I understand the level of committment in owning and training such a dog....

I wrote a response back in August that I had wanted to share, that is similar to Larry's post re: having the dog on the pole, but the pole is a person instead. Here it is.....

Although I don't post nearly as much as I would like too, I really wanted to comment on this.

A behavior only continues when it is reinforced. There are many different things that are reinforcing to dogs, food, absence of a correction, praise, toys, distance (from the thing frightening them), play, etc.

It sounds as though you have tried many of these things. While I like Patricia McConnel's auto watch alot, it takes so long to actually get to the point where you are passing other dogs close up, and if done incorrectly can reinforce the aroused behavior.

I like to think of aggression in combination with arousal. When a dog agresses, there are a number of hormones released to support the actions needed to aggress. We've all been in situations where we've been aroused, felt the need to defend ourselves. It is a horrible feeling. So, aggression in and of itself is not a good feeling to the dog. Ultimately, the dog would prefer not to aggress.

I am going somewhere with this. Ultimately all dogs that aggress are acting out of fear, resource guarders are afraid you are going to take their prescious things, dog aggressive dogs worry about the approach, status, are social guffas, and can't communicate their messages properly, fear aggressive dogs are fearful of whatever. All together, these dogs are using the aggressive behaviors to ask for DISTANCE. "Please, back away, this situation is uncomfortable".

Have you ever thought of using distance as a reward???? This is similar to Ian Dunbar's treat and retreat method for dogs scared of strangers. Essentially you take whatever the dog is afraid of , lets say people. THe dog will have a distance that it won't react, and a place where it will react. Your responsiblity it to find that line. March right over the line, so you are going beyond the dog's threshold. THe dog will lunge, bark, do it's aggressive displays. You will wait. Dog will eventually stop, give a calming signal, some positive behaivor. AT that minute, the stranger walks away...BAM... calm behaivor gives me the distance that I want!!!!! Next time, same thing..... wait for that calm behavior.... BAM again!!! Read the distance is the reinforcer, nothing else!!

Obviously this needs to be done in different situations with different people, dogs, whatever before the dog will begin to generalize, but I have witnessed this work with reactive dogs, stranger, dog aggressive dogs, and have seen video with it being used on feral cats. All with tremendous success. Again, Please don't try this at home, but a little food for thought.

A few more things. A dog that is allowed to aggress and release all of those hormones will be in a heightened state of reactivity for awhile. I am drawing a blank of the author's name, but the book title is "Rehabilitating your reactive dog". Anyhow she describes it as being in a car accident. Days after your car accident you are more likely to react to simple stuff, just because you are on edge due to those hormones that were released after your accident still circulating around. Perhaps allowing your dog some time off from all of this aggression work will help her to settle those hormones, and you can give her a clean hormone slate.

I feel your frustration, I truly do. Remember that for each and every dog that your dog sees, there are different parameters that you must work with. Each distance might be slightly different, postures may change, arrousal levels might be different. Making sure that YOU and your trainer are controling the siutation is paramount. Allowing that behvior to be reinforced either negatively or positively is not good.

I hope that post was of some help. I really do not feel all is lost with this dog, but I do feel that alot of people have done her wrong, thus setting you back further.