Dog behavior question.

lindsayH

lindsayH

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I am interested to hear your views on pack behaviour/aggression and how you personally deal with it. My 8 year old border collie bitch is an only dog and generally very well behaved. She is mostly pretty good with other dogs but is very much an alpha bitch, although she defers to humans. She mixes with other dogs at work and I have friends/clients dogs stay at my house from time to time. Although she mostly ignores other dogs, she will growl/curl a lip when toys or food are involved and if the warning is ignored she will lunge. She has never really hurt another dog or drawn blood, even when severely provoked. Generally, especially at home, I take the approach that it is my job to set pack order and discipline and she gets told off for aggressive behaviour. She's starting to realise I don't accept it and mostly keeps a lid on it if I'm in the room but will revert to type if I'm not looking! However, these dogs aren't 'pack members' but only visitors and I've got to wondering just how unreasonable this behaviour is. What level of aggression do you deem acceptable in your dog (if any)? For instance, it is obviously acceptable for a dog to defend itself if it is attacked, but would you expect your dog to allow another dog to share it's food bowl or take a toy out of it's mouth? If not, where do you draw the line? Does it depend on age (Islay is definitely tougher on puppies) and pack rank? Sorry for the essay, I'm not really looking to change my girl as I'm generally very happy with her, but her behaviour has got me thinking and I'd be really interested to hear your views.
 
I have friends dogs to stay and also foster dogs so am confident that my 3 dogs(2 Dobermanns & a Lancashire Heeler) are well socialised dogs. All my dogs would object to another dog taking something from their mouth but will allow each other to do so sometimes. Toys are a bit of a flashpoint and as dogs have no concept of sharing I would expect trouble if another dog tried to take it from them. I would not think it acceptable for any dog to have to share his food bowl with another dog and mine certainly wouldnt want to. So toys unless supervised are off limits.

My dogs are a lot more generous with puppies, there is such a thing as puppy licence which is an adult dog telling off a puppy but not being aggressive. Any dog is entitled to defend itself if attacked.

I feed all my dogs separately, every dog is entitled to eat its food in peace and I dont want them gobbling down their food before another dog can get to it. My dogs are quite happy to share a water bowl with others, I have a small bucket outside my back door so when we get back from walks they can drink without soaking my kitchen floor where there is also a water bowl. Whoever gets to the water first drinks first, although as its a bucket sometimes 3 will drink at once.
 
I was at a talk by Dr Ian Dunbar, well known American behaviourist, who said if you haven't got blood/vet bills, you haven't got a problem, and you shouldn't interfere with what is dogs establishing hierarchy and their own discipline. And that's pretty much it really - if you are there and you are pack leader she will defer to you but in your absence she sees it as her job to put everyone in their place. Over time the others learn not to infringe, and they also learn what to her and the other members are the resources they consider worth defending. For some it is toys, for others it is food and for some it is their lead/bed/owner. Let them sort it out between themselves so long as no-one is getting hurt.
 
Since you asked, my view is that your understanding of what is happening is not correct.

Alpha male, dominance type talk is very popular in dog training circles but there is little (or no) evidence to support it. Alpha male theory in dogs is supposed to come from wolf behaviour. It is based on a 1930's and 40's study done in captive wolves by Rudolph Schenkel that concluded that wolves fight until an alpha emerges. However, that study was immediately questioned as captive behaviour is different from wild behaviour, in fact Schenkel himself withdrew his theory and it currently has no support in how we understand wolf behaviour...it has taken a life of its own in dog training though and nothing seems to be stoping it!

Your dog is resource guarding which is the reaction of a stressed or fearful dog and can have as its object food, sleeping areas, the home or the family. You may find that she is worse when you are around so what she is really guarding is you, not the toy food.

In terms of dealing with this you have a number of options:
- avoid the problem: don't give her toys or food with other dogs around or give them in another room or while she's in a crate.
- counter-condition another behaviour: teach her a really good 'off' so that you can ask her to leave the contentious object.
- general training: NILIF seems to work really well with resource guarding dogs.
 
my three dogs are an established group with there being very little in the way of disagreements, they are fed in the same room and i can and do leave that room-they do not go to each others bowls until they have been left. they play ball as a group outside.
i do feel i am lucky but i have been observant , i dont leave balls down as all of mine love a ball and i feel the house is too confined, i have a teddy on the floor in the house as my lurcher loves something soft and my other 2 are not interested in them.
if you have an unestablished group of dogs (ie comings and going within a group that do not live together) i think you are pushing your luck leaving food and toys down as it encourages guarding, why should your dog allow others into the house and up to her food/toys. i also think if she keeps a lid on it because you are present but not when you are not there trouble is being stored up. with my own established group i will not leave food down if the bowls are left as it encourages friction between them and if things errupt they will be less confident within their group-i want to discourage that as much as possible-especially as at less one of them has old age dementia which in an unstable group could led to him being a target for the others-he barges through doorways when he is excited/jumps on top of the others and pushes past them if my group/pack were not confident with each other i think he would have to be shut away a lot or the others would have a pop at him especially as he is a very timid soul.

your bitch is giving you warnings-raised lip/growl-please listen to her a house is a very confined space which we impose on our dogs and they do not have the space to behave as a true pack-i.e the weaker ones may not be able to move away to a distance the dominant dog feels is acceptable, they may meet in doorways/small rooms and the weaker one may wish to be with you for confidance because of the above and that in itself puts them in the firing line for the dominant dog.


it is unlikely to be aggression with puppies she is putting them in their place and i am always ok with mine doing that-but i trust them to tell the puppy off not attack it.
 
Booboos said:
Since you asked, my view is that your understanding of what is happening is not correct.

Alpha male, dominance type talk is very popular in dog training circles but there is little (or no) evidence to support it. Alpha male theory in dogs is supposed to come from wolf behaviour. It is based on a 1930's and 40's study done in captive wolves by Rudolph Schenkel that concluded that wolves fight until an alpha emerges. However, that study was immediately questioned as captive behaviour is different from wild behaviour, in fact Schenkel himself withdrew his theory and it currently has no support in how we understand wolf behaviour...it has taken a life of its own in dog training though and nothing seems to be stoping it!

Your dog is resource guarding which is the reaction of a stressed or fearful dog and can have as its object food, sleeping areas, the home or the family. You may find that she is worse when you are around so what she is really guarding is you, not the toy food.

In terms of dealing with this you have a number of options:
- avoid the problem: don't give her toys or food with other dogs around or give them in another room or while she's in a crate.
- counter-condition another behaviour: teach her a really good 'off' so that you can ask her to leave the contentious object.
- general training: NILIF seems to work really well with resource guarding dogs.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree, I also wonder, in the nicest possible way, if bringing in strange dogs may be making her insecure. BooBoo's solutions to dealing with the problem, would, I think, help with this too.
 
Thank you all for your responses. Reading back my thread I can see that it sounds like I have a problem that I'm trying to solve which isn't really the case. It's more that my dog's behaviour has got me interested is pack behaviour in general and it's interesting to hear about the experience of others and how they personally deal with hierarchy.
Thank you for your thoughts Dobie girl, I also take away toys unless the dogs are supervised and it's interesting to hear you do the same. Do you only do this when a strange dog is around or all the time? Ie. Are toys an issue with your established group of dogs? I have also found that water is no issue at all and haven't yet had any experience of a dog that is possessive of water.
Thanks Jill, I sometimes think about getting a second dog and do wonder if people just let the dogs get on with sorting themselves out or try and be more proactive in the hierarchy establishing process.
Booboos, you're quite right I did ask :D
I have no expertise or training in canine behaviour (apart from the small amount you get during veterinary nurse training) and I'm quite happy to be told I don't know what I'm talking about! I have been more interested in the subject recently though, hence the post. I used the word 'alpha' without really thinking about what it meant. In this case what I mean is a dog that is confident, dominant and outgoing but also quite consistant and fair and prepared to take responsibility. The sort of dog you would imagine taking charge if humans suddenly vanished. Your post has piqued my interest as what you describe corresponded to my basic views of canine behaviour. Can you point me in the right direction for an alternative, more up to date viewpoint? I've just googled and read all about the NILIF training which was fantastic and largely outlines how my dog has been trained already. It will be very useful to direct my clients towards though, I can think of many who would benefit, especially the dog that is staying with me at the moment! I would imagine having strange dogs in the house is a little stressful for my dog, but she is used to it and it's just something she will have to deal with. Thankfully, 99% of the time she seems completely unfazed.
Your whole post was interesting to read, thanks Twiggy. My dog will also not go to another's food bowl unless they have finished and even if I am not in the room or they are a very submissive. It's something I've always insisted on. I don't leave food or toys down when a strange dog is around but do sometimes with a dog she knows well. It's good to hear about how your established pack interact too. Sounds like a basic question, but how do you define 'telling off' as opposed to 'attacking'? As Booboos has already pointed out, when discussing behaviour we might not all have the same ideas about what things mean and am interested to hear where others' "red lines" are.
 
Try Karen Pryor's "Don't shoot the dog" or Jean Donaldson's "The Culture Clash" - these are both quite behaviour oriented. John Fisher's "Think Dog!" is a classic and formed much of the impetus for change in how we think about dog behaviour and the development of associations of behaviourists who focus on positive reinforcement.

If you enjoy more theoretical approaches try Bruce Fogle's "The dog's mind" or more specific to the discussion Barry Eaton's "Dominance in dogs".

My all time favourite is S R Lindsay's massive three volume "Handbook of applied dog behaviour and training". This is by far the most extensive, scientifically informed and comprehensive account of all matters doggie!
 
I do actually believe in pack behaviour, anyone who looks at a litter of puppies or indeed a pack of foxhounds can see that it exists.

I also believe that *some* dogs particularly from certain breeds and with certain genetics can display dominance and I have seen it with my own eyes.
I also believe that dogs cannot read these books or studies and therefore do not always behave accordingly :p

However I do not think a pet collie is likely to be trying to dominate or play alpha, she sounds insecure if anything.
 
lindsayH said:
Sounds like a basic question, but how do you define 'telling off' as opposed to 'attacking'?
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my 2 older (13 & 15yrs) castrated male dogs will tolerate a submissive young dog (top age depends on how submissive and i suppose hormones) usually up to 6-8 months, being around but if they step out of line ie get in the way, jump on them or wont leave them alone the 13yr old will make a lot of growling noises and basically shove the puppy to the ground-he will put his mouth around or to their throat only if the puppy resists being on the floor on its back, he has never left a mark on any dog/puppy and once they have stopped resisting and relaxed he walks away and lets them get up as if nothing has happened.
the 15yr old is not as good with his doggy etiquette and just turns into a bit of a snapping mess but it is rare from him and is down to lack of confidence and in 15yrs he has never left a mark either-he is going a bit loopy in his old age and something scared him when i was taking his lead off the other day and i assume he felt cornered as i got the same treatment-it does not hurt and his teeth make no contact-but the fact that he is starting to occasionally freaks means he is not allowed to mix with any dogs other than my own anymore and i always crate him alone now-he is lucky he is a weedy type and only weighs 8kg or i would be having to think about letting him go ashewould be a liability if he was a strong dog
 
lindsayH said:
Thank you all for your responses. Reading back my thread I can see that it sounds like I have a problem that I'm trying to solve which isn't really the case. It's more that my dog's behaviour has got me interested is pack behaviour in general and it's interesting to hear about the experience of others and how they personally deal with hierarchy.
Thank you for your thoughts Dobie girl, I also take away toys unless the dogs are supervised and it's interesting to hear you do the same. Do you only do this when a strange dog is around or all the time? Ie. Are toys an issue with your established group of dogs? I have also found that water is no issue at all and haven't yet had any experience of a dog that is possessive of water.
Thanks Jill, I sometimes think about getting a second dog and do wonder if people just let the dogs get on with sorting themselves out or try and be more proactive in the hierarchy establishing process.
Booboos, you're quite right I did ask :D
I have no expertise or training in canine behaviour (apart from the small amount you get during veterinary nurse training) and I'm quite happy to be told I don't know what I'm talking about! I have been more interested in the subject recently though, hence the post. I used the word 'alpha' without really thinking about what it meant. In this case what I mean is a dog that is confident, dominant and outgoing but also quite consistant and fair and prepared to take responsibility. The sort of dog you would imagine taking charge if humans suddenly vanished. Your post has piqued my interest as what you describe corresponded to my basic views of canine behaviour. Can you point me in the right direction for an alternative, more up to date viewpoint? I've just googled and read all about the NILIF training which was fantastic and largely outlines how my dog has been trained already. It will be very useful to direct my clients towards though, I can think of many who would benefit, especially the dog that is staying with me at the moment! I would imagine having strange dogs in the house is a little stressful for my dog, but she is used to it and it's just something she will have to deal with. Thankfully, 99% of the time she seems completely unfazed.
Your whole post was interesting to read, thanks Twiggy. My dog will also not go to another's food bowl unless they have finished and even if I am not in the room or they are a very submissive. It's something I've always insisted on. I don't leave food or toys down when a strange dog is around but do sometimes with a dog she knows well. It's good to hear about how your established pack interact too. Sounds like a basic question, but how do you define 'telling off' as opposed to 'attacking'? As Booboos has already pointed out, when discussing behaviour we might not all have the same ideas about what things mean and am interested to hear where others' "red lines" are.
Click to expand...

Im the keeper of the toys, they are only dolled out when Im around even if there is no strange dogs staying. Toys are not a problem for my dogs as the 2 Dobes will allow the LH to take it off them. I consider aggression as a bite, growling, lifting lips are warnings. My male Dobe has an amazing temperment, if another dog is hassling him in, his face he will growl and sometimes a very loud bark . A friend has an entire Springer Spaniel who tries it on with all mine but wont push the bitches too far but will push his luck with Diesel who has pinned him in the past and sat on him. Diesel will fight if another dog wants it but with someone just pushing their luck he will tone it down. These occurrences are very rare though but all my males have been the same even the very dog aggressive dog I adopted who after training was brilliant around all dogs.

Ive read a lot of books on the subject of dog behaviour but I believe Ive learned more just watching how dogs interact with each other and learning about dog signals. I believe everyone should socialise their dogs as much as is humanly possible. So many dogs end up in rescue and free on Gumtree because they are not good with other dogs which to me is the failure of their owners.

You should speak to Cayla, she is our resident Guru and has probabley forgotten more than a lot of us know, she also runs a rescue with her mum and tends to end up with dogs that no one else will touch and she turns them around and makes good citizens of them.
 
CaveCanem said:
I also believe that dogs cannot read these books or studies and therefore do not always behave accordingly :p
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To be fair to the academics who spend their lives studying animals, they do look at animals to arrive at their theories, they don't make them up just for the sake of the books/articles (I am not entirely certain the same can be said of someone whose main motivation, for example, is to sell DVDs and tickets to live demos) and because they look under laboratory conditions sometimes they see things we miss. For example, I was reading up on intelligence studies in different animals and it seems that rhesus monkeys can perform inferential reasoning (if A is better than B, and B is better than C, and C is better than D, and D is better than E, when presented with B and D the monkey chooses B), while marmoset monkeys cannot which seems to accord with our intuitions as rhesus monkeys are closer to us genetically than marmosets (therefore we expect them to be more intelligent as we are more intelligent than animals)....until someone noticed that the objects in the test were a colour marmosets cannot readily see (rhesus have much better colour perception than marmosets); if you change the colour of the object marmosets perform as well as rhesus and if you make the experiment species specific even pigeons show inferential reasoning (!!!).
 
My bitch is exactly the same as yours by the sounds of it. She is well socialised but can get fed up of other dogs and when she is she will make that clear with a lip curl. If her signals are ignored she will send any dog packing, never hurt anything, doesn't draw blood, just sees them off. I don't punish her, she's entitled to her own space, if other dogs don't want to listen to her warnings then what else can she do? I don't think it's abnormal behaviour.
 
Booboos I am not wishing to denigrate anyone but personally, the people who have helped me most with my dogs were the people who worked with lots of different types of dogs, practically, day in, day out, and probably didn't have time to write about it, and from them I believe (many may disagree) that essentially most dogs will behave in the way that they think will make the pressure (for example, another dog trying to get my food or get my toy) stop and pleasure (eating my food in peace, having my toy to myself) start.
 
CaveCanem said:
I do actually believe in pack behaviour, anyone who looks at a litter of puppies or indeed a pack of foxhounds can see that it exists.

I also believe that *some* dogs particularly from certain breeds and with certain genetics can display dominance and I have seen it with my own eyes.
I also believe that dogs cannot read these books or studies and therefore do not always behave accordingly :p

However I do not think a pet collie is likely to be trying to dominate or play alpha, she sounds insecure if anything.
Click to expand...


^^^^ I have to agree, esp in regard to the varied breed and varied traits, dominance does indeed exist (be it rare) and indeed is brandied about to much by folk who literally cannot make hide nor hair of dog behaviour.... its easy to to label certain behaviours. I luckily have the opportunity to see vast amounts of breeds and their displayed behaviours In and out of their familiar environments and inc up to 30 at a time running free and litters of puppies of varied ages and breeds, it makes for very interesting observation :)
I do agree with booboos in that the OPs dog in this instance is simply resource guarding (perfectly natural) but is se other wise displaying aggression, snapping or lunging? or is it simply over toys/food?
I have about 20 dogs here now and funnily enough the only one causing issues is a collie:p, I have 9 dogs and take new dogs into my home every day, be it boarders or rescues, have no issue with my on pack they know what is expected the new arrivals will learn very quickly what is expected of them too and what is not tolerated, as long as I show them in a consistant and clear manner. If she regards your commands then what more do you need?, I would add not leaving her unsupervised with dogs (boarders) which im sure you don't as matter of safety and never leaving possessions out when she is mixing with boarders as to ward other dogs off them is perfectly natural. I actually see no point in toys unless they are a tool/boredom breaker for a puppy and im afraid im a grouch and dont want dog toys in my house I would rather they play with toys outdoors.

Ps and and yes I have seen dogs guard water, infact one ended up fracturing another dogs jaw from attempting to drink from (A) water bowl :eek: a breed I have observed for its heightened what I would deem "dominance" toward other dogs.
 
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My lurcher bitch is a resource guarder. I rescued her in middle age and shes had a rough time of it. She wouldnt guard water from my other dog, but I took them both lure racing today and when offered a drink, when another dog approached she was prepared to guard it and take a stand. Her resource guarding comes from lack of confidence. We've worked quite hard on it, and beds/sofas etc, toys and food in a bowl are all ok now. Shes raw fed and my other dog isnt allowed to even glance her way when she has a raw bone. She considers them very high value, despite getting them at least once a day for over a year. She just gets them in her crate with a sheet over so she feels ok. I dont think its unreasonable of her to want to eat them in peace, so we are both happy with the arrangement :)
 
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