Fear of men

[jasper's_mommy]

Something happened yesterday and I feel so bad and a little like a failure. After almost a year of having Heidi in my life, I am now realizing, or maybe she has now decided, that she does NOT like men. She loves women, and adores children, but men really scare her.

The last couple of months she has started exhibiting fear through barking and growling at men while on her leash. I have been correcting her ("no, down, stay"), talking nice to the men, etc. She seemed to be doing better until yesterday. She was lying next to me and I was sitting at the table at the sidewalk cafe I go to. A man approaches and asks if he can pet her. I say yes, and he kneels down and we are talking and he is petting her and saying what I nice dog she is, how pretty she is, and all that. He gets up to leave and she lunges at him and bites his hand! I was totally shocked, very upset, and apologized profusely asking him if he is okay, and he says he is fine and walks away. This was (seemingly) completely unprovoked.

I have thought about what could possibly have been going through her head and have come up with the following: She, for whatever reason, is afraid of men; she was lying down in a vulnerable position and this man was standing over her; and she is on leash and unable to flee if she felt she needed to. What I am not understanding is why she decided to bite, without any warning whatsoever, while he was leaving.

Whatever the reasons, I will no longer be taking her to this place. Men are no longer allowed to pet her. I am also getting her back into training. I don't have a lot of money and am going to have to take her to the group training we were in before. One of the trainers there has a very well trained rottie herself and so I am going to try to get into that class.

I am very saddened by all of this. Heidi is such a sweet dog, and seeing this side of her makes me feel like I have let her down. She is just hitting adulthood and I thought by now I would have been able to predict how she would behave in any given situation, but obviously that is wrong.

[Canadianrotti]

Originally Posted by jasper's_mommy

She is just hitting adulthood and I thought by now I would have been able to predict how she would behave in any given situation, but obviously that is wrong.

Dont beat your self up over this, you have been working very hard with her. There are not a lot of other people out there that do half as much with their dogs as you have done. Even the best trained dogs can be un-predictable to some degree, they are animals.
A friend of mine had a lab that was just a big bag of marshmallows, she was the kindest dog you could ever meet. When she was older, she got cancer and the only way they knew was that she bit someone. It was just a matter of her being sick and in pain and the person touched her the wrong way.

[Brooke&Ryan]

Julius has never liked anyone hovering over him when he's in the down position (except for Ryan or I). It's a submissive position & when there is a stranger hovering over it can be intimidating for the dog. At least it is for Julius. Now Jules has never bitten anyone before but he will pull his "shying away" routine.

If someone approaches & wants to pet Julius we pull him up into a sit first so that the person isn't hovering over him.


Brooke

[MaddoxsMom]

Jasper,

Im sure you are making the right decision in putting her back into training, im sorry I cant be more of a help, but I am in no way qualified to advise you on this, just wanted to throw in some words of encouragement...

I hope that one of the trainers here can help you out with this...

Im sure that it will all work out okay.

Logan

[LORHEL]

I see that Heidi is a rescue, do you know of any past problems that might have caused her mistrust of men? Or any of her background. Did you make sure that you were not uneasy or nervous yourself, while this man was around? I made that mistake and have to always watch myself, because I cannot allow my emotions to affect my dog.

It is very easy to become apprehensive, I don't know that it happened in your case, but they pick up on it immediately.

Getting her back into class, and having as many positive experiences as you can-- I don't know if the answer is to totally isolate her from contact with men. How did she do in her other training class, and how long has her behavior, towards men been this way? Just need a little more info, so we can get an understanding of everything.

Hang in there, we all make mistakes, don't beat yourself up about it, I know its easy to say because I've done the same thing too, but learning as much as you can will help you be prepared and avoid these situations. You want to set Heidi up for as many positive experiences as possible.

I am sure you will get more responses, I just wanted to offer a little advice for now.

[Judi W]

Keep in mind all that the bite took place as he was leaving, not when he was petting her and also that he was kind to her and crouched down to do so he was not hovering over her. Let's not blame the victim and the owner was simply a bit too trusting and a bit complacent.

Training needs to continue until about 3 years of age.

She is evidentally not comfortable with men, but until she got a bit older and started feeling stronger, not too sure what her choices were. Now that she is older, she has decided her solution is to bite! Biting as someone is leaving is a sneak and (sorry to use this word) cowardly bite. Not brave enough to argue face to face, so yes, it is a fear bite but worse yet, she sucked everyone in by appearing to accept the petting.

So what to do? Not to dispair!!!! Train, and train and train because with each step in the training you know one another better. You learn to read her better and she learns that your instructions are to be respected and to trust your judgement. It doesn't happen easily or quickly with this kind of dog, but it is certainly something that can be accomplished. You can still take her out, but you must tell people that she is in training and should not bet petted. If someone attempts to do so anyway, you must stop them. Do not allow any interaction as the general public is not your choice as training tools, but she must learn to down stay where you tell her to, mind her own business and things will take course in time. Do not rush.

[jasper's_mommy]

Thank you for the replies. Judy, yes, it was a cowardly bite. Darn dog. I suppose I should be glad it wasn't bad and now I know what she is capable of and that she will indeed bite.

Lorhel, no, I was not nervous. In fact, I was barely even paying attention. She was nervous all by herself.

So it's off for more training. Sheesh these dogs are a lot of work.... but absolutely worth it... She will be the perfect dog once she quits biting people....

[BostonRott]

Originally Posted by jasper's_mommy

Something happened yesterday and I feel so bad and a little like a failure. After almost a year of having Heidi in my life, I am now realizing, or maybe she has now decided, that she does NOT like men. She loves women, and adores children, but men really scare her.

The last couple of months she has started exhibiting fear through barking and growling at men while on her leash. I have been correcting her ("no, down, stay"), talking nice to the men, etc. She seemed to be doing better until yesterday. She was lying next to me and I was sitting at the table at the sidewalk cafe I go to. A man approaches and asks if he can pet her. I say yes, and he kneels down and we are talking and he is petting her and saying what I nice dog she is, how pretty she is, and all that. He gets up to leave and she lunges at him and bites his hand! I was totally shocked, very upset, and apologized profusely asking him if he is okay, and he says he is fine and walks away. This was (seemingly) completely unprovoked.

She did exactly what you have been training her to do: give no warning. You have corrected her for offering dog warning signs: hackles, growling, barking. She had learned that when she offers a warning, you correct her. So now you have a dog who doesn't warn.

She needs to be desensitized to men, and also to learn that warning is not bad. You may well need to seek out a good trainer to help you with this.

Start by finding men whom she knows and is comfortable with. You continually feed her (put her meal in a bait pouch and feed it to her as rewards) while interacting with these men. Then start having the familiar men feed her treats (while she is hungry, and they have higher value).

Then move to strange men at much greater distance, going back to continually feeding her. Slowly (probaly over a period of weeks), work your way closer to them. I wouldn't attend sports events (soccer games, little league) because there is too much other excitement/distraction. Find your strange men in less busy circumstances.

Finally when she is comfortable with strange men passing her and she does not react at all, but looks confidently to you, allow them to start offering her treats.

You should look for Ian Dunbar's books/articles, he covers such topics very well.

[jasper's_mommy]

Gretchen, thank you for your suggestions. I am going to try the treat thing. One thing I would like to clarify though, is that she LOVES my brother and is fine and actually happy to see any of my male friends that she already knows. She also is open to meeting new male-type people as long as she is not confined by a leash. It *seems* to be, and of course I am learning new things by the day, that her problem is with the men-walking-by-while-she-is-on-a-leash situation.

I am going to start carrying treats with me and see how that goes. I am also going to get her into additional training. Now that I've calmed down a bit and digested what happened, I see that this is not the end of the world. We will work through it.

[BostonRott]

I would guess that she mostly sees your male friends at your house. She's comfortable with them there, the next step would be to see if she's comfortable with them in strange places. I.e. the grocery store parking lot. Or do strange places heighten her suspicion/defense too much, and she's uncomfortable with them there.

If the latter, I'd work on more exposure to "strange" places in general. Skip her meal, put the kibble in a container and take it with you. Feed her in a new strange place twice a week, be relaxed about it, and she'll learn that new places/people are not something to necessarily fear.

If she's comfortable with familiar men in unfamiliar surroundings, then I'd start working with hanging out at a store curb, or something similar........walking past men (at distance!!) in the park, meanwhile feeding her. You want her to think that "men = I get fed" and learn that they're not bad, and neither are unfamiliar places.

Also, know that leashes can heighten any dog's defensive drives because they remove the option of "flight" from "fight or flight." THus the dog now feels it must fight to survive (if stressed too much) and if it's not strong enough nerved to handle that, you start to have issues.

Again, I'd really suggest that you find a good trainer to help you through this. You need someone experienced to watch your girl, to see what her reactions truly are, and then be able to offer you suggestions on how to proceed.

[jasper's_mommy]

She is fine with men she already knows anywhere. It is only strange men in strange places. And it really pisses her off, and me too frankly, when a man challenges her with eye contact for whatever reason. But whatever, that's a whole other issue. There is a dog trainer lady with an amazingly obedient male rottie that I have been referred to. My pet sitter gave me her number and she apparently already knows about Heidi from when the sitter cared for Heidi in November. I have confidence that she'll be able to straighten Heidi out. Or at least lead us in the right direction.

[LORHEL]

I think with lots of work, you will be able to have your girl overcome this, it is hard work, but as you said it is worth it.

You mentioned you weren't nervous, but that you weren't paying that much attention... just remember to always be extra careful, when out like that, it takes a matter of seconds for something to happen when you are not watching. I made that mistake myself on the front porch. Started talking to a passerby and failed to see the eye contact building between my female and his male. I didn't think about it because his male is a rott mix, whom I've always seen as extremely tolerant and good natured. My mistake, and luckily she ended up just running up to him and huffing and puffing. I learned a valuable lesson that day.

Just offering some advice, best of luck.

[jasper's_mommy]

Oh yes, I learned several things that day, and that was one of them. Thanks to everyone for the advice. She certainly keeps me on my toes!!