In rec.pets.dogs.breeds James wrote:
There's no way to tell whether your particular dog will get better or
worse with maturity. If you locked her up in a room for 5 years, and
then brought her back to the dog park, she'd probably be worse. But
as
long as you continue to socialize her, and stop her when she becomes
over aggressive with other dogs, she'll get better.

Not necessarily. Dog parks are not at all natural environments for dogs.
It is not in the basic nature of a dog to freely accept strangers. With
some breeds, notably Labrador Retrievers, we have bred out a great deal
of the suspicion and natural strange dog aggression. With Pitbulls dog
aggression has been bred in. Not all Pitbulls have it to the same level.
Most can be trained to obey instructions not to engage. Many can never
be socialized into playing nicely with strange dogs as adults. So the
degree to which socialization can help will depend a lot on the
individual dog. The majority of adult dogs have no business being in a
dog park. Yes, there are many adult dogs that do OK playing with
strangers, but not most dogs. Puppies tend to do well, and plenty of
older dogs that do well. But most dogs between 18 months and 7 years
will not easily accept close interactions with other stranger adult dogs.

I adopted a
5-month
old pit/lab mix, and for the first few weeks, he was EXTREMELY vocal
when
playing with other dogs, and he was relentless in the way he would
play with them (biting the neck/ear area, like dogs are prone to do,
but he wouldn't stop). When it looked like he had crossed the line
between playing and being over aggressive, I would remove him and make
him sit for a few mins. He's almost 7 months old now, and does not
growl anymore when playing. He will also roll onto his back to play
just as often as he is the one standing over another dog. He's by no
means perfect, but he's slowly making progress.

Be very careful. If you corrected him for growling you may have created a
dog that will become aggressive without vocal warning. Suppressing the
display of aggression is a very common error. Your dog has another year
to go before he becomes mature enough to display his adult temperament.
Given your description chances are fairly high that you will have a dog
aggressive dog. The best situation for your dog will be (a) playing with
carefully introduced dogs, no sudden intrusions by new comers (b)
controlled situations so that your dog sees that YOU are in control and
he never needs to display aggression, AND never needs to be concerned
about a pushy other dog.

If you can train your dog with hand signals, or fear, or whatever to
not attack other dogs, that's great. But I'd prefer for my dog just
to be comfortable around other dogs...I feel like then there's less of
a risk that he'll snap. And the only way to accomplish that is
socialization.

This is true. But "socialization" is not the equivalent of "playing
with." Socialization is the process of exposing the being to various
situations. At the moment there is probably nothing wrong with your puppy
playing with other dogs. You will, however, need to be vigilant to see
that you interupt/distract situations in which any dog becomes a bully.
Your primary reaction should not be to punish your dog but merely to call
him out of the situation and leave it. Not temporarily, but for at least
an hour, your dog and any other who engaged in teasing/testing should be
prevented from engaging in any way - even body signals from a distance.
Keep in mind that play is practice for adulthood. Through play the dogs
are learning what hurts and what doesn't, what works and what doesn't.
This has both important benefits and important drawbacks. The critical
point to remember is that you cannot socialize away natural dog-dog
aggression. You can moderate it somewhat, you can reduce its intensity,
somewhat, but neither socialization nor training will change the basic
nature of your dog.

Diane Blackman

In rec.pets.dogs.behavior James wrote:

Well, the original poster had asked how she can get her dog to be
better accustomed to strange dogs. Obviously interacting only with
other adult dogs that she is familiar with is not working. I'm not a
dog trainer by profession, but I still stand by the dog park as an
excellent training tool for puppies, even if you're not doing any
actual training while you're there.

Dog parks often make the problem worse because of the rude and unruly
behavior of the dogs there. Sometimes continuing to attend a dog park
when a dog is clearly NOT enjoying the experience can permanently fix the
dog with aggressive/defensive behavior toward other dogs.

I did not correct my dog's growling in any way. Negative responses
from *adult* dogs to his growling while playing was enough for him to
get the idea (after it happened a dozen times - and to clarify, the
negative responses were nowhere near as severe as a fight). The only
time I stepped in was when he was showing overly-aggressive behaviour.
Granted I didn't remove him for an hour, but it was for a few
minutes, and don't dogs forget why they're being isolated after 30
seconds anyway?

The hour is INTENDED to make the dog fogret the interaction. The removal
should not be done in a way that the dog perceives as "bad" or unwanted.
The removal is to avoid creating unwanted patterns of behavior and get the
dog out a situation in which it feels it NEEDS to behave that way. The
function is to have the dog look to its human to control the situation and
to protect it, and to not engage in either self help or bullying.

As others have stated, I could secretly be raising an aggressive dog
that has learned not to growl before it lunges at my throat when I'm
drinking my coffee tomorrow morning. But the way I see it, my dog has
gone from a puppy that went to the dog park, growled and tried to
dominate every other dog there, to a puppy that is now entirely
accepting of strange dogs, and has learned to read another dog and
determine if its the type of dog that will rough house with him like
puppies are known to do (he ignores the ones that don't).

It could easily be. Especially if you are correct that you have not
supressed your dog's natural warning and escalation scale. But you still
have a very young dog on your hands. His behavior today really isn't
going to predict whether he will be as accepting and accomodating of play
style in the future. I've been where you are. I've believed what you
believe. I bought the tale that a dog that is well socialized (plays
with) other dogs as a puppy will be good with dogs as an adult. I got my
surprise and I learned better.

I can't possibly see the harm in continuing to introduce Holly to the
dog park, as long as her interaction is monitored. For all the quotes
I heard about "a dog is a dog", I'm surprised more people aren't
believers in the way a dog learns how to act socially in the wild.
And no need to tell me I'm raising a "wild dog"...

Dogs DO learn by their interactions with one another. And I DO believe in
the way dogs learn to act socially in the wild. That is nothing even
remotely resembling what you get in a dog park. Dogs in the wild are not
constantly exposed to strangers. Dog pack members are pretty stable
except those born into the pack. Adult dogs attempting to join an
existing pack usually find the introduction rather violent. Death is
sometimes the price a dog pays for trying to join strangers. Which is
exactly why normal adult dogs are NOT comfortable in the boisterous dog
park environment. Correct stranger to stranger dog behavior is to engage
in a variety of signals at a distance. The Turgid Rugas video tape on
"Calming Signals" may be of some help to you in understanding normal dog
to dog social behavior.

Oh a "A dog is a dog" does NOT mean that all dogs are basically the same.
They aren't. We have done a marvelous job of creating dogs very different
from their wild brethren, or preserving various aspects of that earthy
wild behavior, depending upon what it is we want from the dog. Different
breeds vary tremendously in very basic characterisics. Labrador
retrievers who can live peacefully with the family cat are common. Jack
Russell Terriers who can be trusted alone with the family cat are rare.
Correct temperament for the Golden Retriever is to invite the burglar in
and show him the silverware. That is completely incorrect for the German
Shepherd Dog or Malinios. Some breeds are highly protective of their pack
members but have virtually no drive to protect territory. Some breeds
have a high drive to protect terriotry but much lower drive when it comes
to pack members. Some dogs have very high prey drive, others virtually
none. Even in prey drive different breeds can have decidedly different
reactions to specific types of prey. Teaching a Retriever to retrieve is
simple. Teaching a whippet to retrieve is an accomplishment. It does an
injustice to the dogs when we assume they are merely blank slates to be
written upon. We have created these breeds with various inate behaviors.
Those are not easily disposed of by mere training and socialization.

Diane Blackman

Dog parks often make the problem worse because of the rude and unruly
behavior of the dogs there. Sometimes continuing to attend a dog park
when a dog is clearly NOT enjoying the experience can permanently fix the
dog with aggressive/defensive behavior toward other dogs.


I would agree with that. Perhaps I missread the original posters
problem. It *sounded* like the dog enjoys the dog park (as mine
originally did), but that it had a dominating personality towards
other dogs, especially smaller dogs (as mine originally did). Aside
from intoducing holly to smaller dogs, and removing her when she's
being bad, how would you suggest curing her problem? I think
socialization is a great tool, especially when you don't consider
yourself an excellent dog trainer (which is a surprising percent of
dog owners).

Also, I suppose that every dog park is different. The dog park here
is a large open field (without fences). There are usually at least 10
different dogs there, most of which my dog now recognizes and is
comfortable with. I think this helps him to be comfortable with new
dogs as well. I bring my dog there at least 3 times a week, and so
does everyone else there. If you're the type of dog owner that only
brings your puppy to the dog park once in a blue moon, then I would
definitely agree with you that this is probably not helping. You
haven't given them the chance to become accustomed to the location or
the other dogs. But if you're willing to put in the time, I think
they can benefit. Also, there are no aggressive adult dogs at our
park. If there were, I'm sure this would change things as you
indicated.