I've had my six month old German Shepherd/Blue heeler for about 3 months
now. He is a very beautiful and healthy 45lb pup that is very friendly and
smart. Unfortunately, the first 2 months of his life weren't the best start
for him. He was bred by a irresponsible and ruthless farmer, from the
stories I hear about the place (I was never there) there was a lot of larger
dogs that were mean to the puppies. They shot the dogs they didn't want and
were cruel to the ones they kept.

When I first got him home, he was very timid and scared. He would cry when I
picked him up and absolutely would not like me put a collar or leash on him.
Over the past 3 months i've worked with him and he has made a remarkable
turn around. He loves going for walks, almost all his shyness has
disappeared and for the most part he is a normal puppy. The only evidence of
his past is extreme submissiveness to people (including urination- but this
is getting much better and should correct itself) and he is also shy around
multiple dogs. He doesn't mind being around just one other dog, or dogs his
size, but as soon as I put him in an environment with more than one dogs,
especially large ones, he freaks.

I've been taking him to the local petsmart and letting him play with the
other dogs in the neighborhood and he is also getting better, but I have
noticed a few things that I don't like and want to make sure this won't be a
problem in the future. When he is afraid or just doesn't want other dogs to
bother him, he has learned that insted of trying to run away he can just
snap to get rid of them. While this is not a common occurrence (most of the
time he runs) I have seen it happen more and more. Usually his hackles are
always up, infact they come up almost every time he is around another dog
until he gets comfortable. Please note he is not like this around all dogs,
there have been plenty of situations where he has sniffed and played with no
problems, as long as the dog is his size or smaller and that's the only dog
around.

From what you've heard, would you call this behavior fear aggression and is
there a possibility that as he gets older and bigger (I.E. more self
confidence) the problem could worse? If so, what should I be doing now while
he is young?

Thanks.

Paddington wrote:
Who is this jackass? Who are hell are you to criticize me for what's
happened in his life and when I rescued him. After your spelling and
grammar, it's not like I give you any credibility anyway. But if you
are an
inbred "wizard"of some kind I suppose forming a complete sentence
requires
help.

He's seriously insane. Just ignore him. He treats everyone like
garbage so don't take it personally...if you don't agree with him, you
will be labeled as a dog abuser. But only by him...which means nothing
so don't let it bother you.