Fearful & Fearful Aggression

[rottiluver]

I've been wondering...what classifies a dog as fearful and fearful aggressive? Thought I should make a new thread for this one!

Thanks,
Tanya & Diesel

[Judi W]

A timid fearful reaction to the world is pretty much evident. Aggression is that individual's response to that fear. Quite simple. Dogs that shows aggression when there is no threat are doing so out of fear. This is never correct.

[Skip]

Originally Posted by Judi W

A timid fearful reaction to the world is pretty much evident. Aggression is that individual's response to that fear. Quite simple. Dogs that shows aggression when there is no threat are doing so out of fear. This is never correct.

I would like to add to that that there are some STUPID owners out there that have actually trained (or did not train it out) and rewarded their dogs for showing any aggression to anybody else. Some of these bombs are man-made. I'm not talking about properly trained police, sport, or personal protection dogs.

[Judi W]

That occurs when the wussy little lady says "oh, isn't that wonderful? He/she's protecting me"...........

However, that pup still would not be firing off if it were not insecure in the first place. It is during this first impression that one can move the dog forward, or retard forever its perception of the world.

[Skip]

Originally Posted by Judi W

That occurs when the wussy little lady says "oh, isn't that wonderful? He/she's protecting me"...........

However, that pup still would not be firing off if it were not insecure in the first place. It is during this first impression that one can move the dog forward, or retard forever its perception of the world.

I agree again..I just wanted to make the statement that I think there's a lot of those "wussy little ladies" AND "wussy little men" that will reward the pup at the first sign of this experimental aggression.

[Judi W]

Skip you are entirely correct. As well, people who say they have not rewarded this behavior do not understand that the youngster knows their approval without any overt signs. Also as they gain just a little size they get the really big reward of seeing the person they are threatening move away.

[MontanaRott]

This reminds me of a hugely frustrating encounter Phil and I had a while back while walking Guerin. A young woman with a kid of about 6 stopped us and wanted to talk. Tied in the back seat, not for safety, but because he would not stop biting her kid, was a Rottweiler pup of around 4mo.
After the "oh your dog must be German" stuff was out of the way, she proceeded to tell us, she had gotten this pup out of the paper for 100.00 BUT it was out of AKC Champion lines, because she wanted a dog to protect her and her son. You know all the usual red flag kinds of things.
They lived alone and she knew this dog was going to give its life for them, as it would bark and growl and lunge, at strangers. She then went on to tell us, as the pup chewed on her son, that she could not wait for it to get as big as our boy, so she could put the two of them in her yard and not have to worrry about anything happening to her son.
After spending a good half hour, trying to undo all her misconceptions, telling her the danger her son would be in left unattended with this dog and pointing her towards our obedience instructor and writing down the web address of this forum, we took our leave.
She just WOULD NOT hear that it was HER job to protect her son and the dog and not the other way around. And she would not hear that encouraging this pups bad behavior was NOT doing him any favors or her. That he was not being brave he was scared. And sadly those kinds of people with those ideas about this breed are far too common in our experience.
I am really afraid her dog will become a statistic. Another nail in the coffin for this breed.