Temper Tantrums!

[Snowman81]

Hello,

Is it possible for a dog to have a bit of a temper tantrum?! My terrier / staffy/ collie type cross is about 1yr 4 months and doing well in lots of ways...have started agility which she loves and getting better off the lead. However every now and again when I correct her for doing something wrong such as suddenly pulling on the lead and heading for a piece of litter/stick/ pigeon she suddenly seems to see red and starts attacking her lead and almost dangling from it terrier style. N.B. To correct her I just mean saying 'no' or 'leave' in a firm voice.
She has 3 walks a day and lots of ball games. Her walks are pretty varied to keep her amused. She goes to work with me or my partner so is never really left unless we go out for a few hours.

She has now broken 3 leads and when she is in the middle of this frenzy it is pretty hard to go anywhere with her jumping all over the place biting the lead.

What is the best way to handle this? I don't want to pull her so have started using a small body harness to prevent her damaging her neck and give me more control as I can physically get hold of her. So far I have tried ignoring her and turning away, saying a firm no, pyhsically preventing her from getting hold of the lead with my arm, distracting her with stick or ball games or comands such as sit, lie down etc. All of them work a bit but tried them all today and still a broken lead! Anyone else have this problem?

Sorry this is such as long post! Any advice welcome

 

[CorvusCorax]

Absolutely, lots of dogs grab leads, grab arms, jump up when they don't want to do something or are physically or vocally rebuked.

My dog used to do it in agility because of the mix of excitement/pressure.

I would physically put him back on the ground by holding his muzzle and placing him there or holding his lead down low (why a collar is better for this) to keep him on the ground and not releasing him til he was calm.

And not 'no' or 'leave' - while calm and low-pitched, you could have heard me in another country.

The most important thing to do is to remain very quiet and calm yourself, don't panic.
Don't remain static and stop when she does it, keep moving, drag her if you have to.

If distractions like praise and food or ignoring her and turning away etc definitely does not work, try something like a rattle bottle, or rape alarm (great tip from Cayla) to snap her out of it.

Normally I hate chain leads, but in cases like this they don't break and the dog will NOT want to chew it.

 

[CAYLA]

What CC said, I think in this situation if she is responding in such a way to a reprimand I would use the shock factor and something to snap her out of it like a high pitched alarm (rape) as suggested something like that, I would not use a harness, I would place her on a half check and I still would check, a good firm check (once) bleep alarm and in your most firm voice, in a raised tone) "leave it" recover and walk off, don't prolong the reprimand/bleep don't be worried you will damage her their is a right and wrong way to use a check/half check and a half check their is little room for damage, you are not jsut going hay wire with it, you are checking her at the time in one quick check, check her from the side not when she is in front, so that you are pulling/checking her back.
Also when she does begint o respond then praise her for ignoring, drop her a treat, praise her for walking well.

Does she have an fox terrier in her, they commonly have these rages when being challenged/reprimanded

 

[Snowman81]

Thanks for these ideas, will give them a go. I have a half check collar and will try this instead of the harness. Also the dropping a treat when she stops sounds good as it will direct her down instead of up!

She is such a monkey, I will have to get firm I guess!

The fox terrier comment made me smile... She is a rescue from Wales so we don't have any history but she has a very fuzzy beard and moustache so you never know....

When she was younger and we told her off she used to secretly 'steal' something from the room when we weren't looking and then try and sneak off to chew it.