Sam is developing territorial aggression, but I think I am the problem not him.

[jacqui]

Our problems with Sam our German Shephard is a big one, the background of which I feel is important to share with you in order for you to understand and visualise the complete picture and location etc., however, this could so easily turn into a book, therefore I will not waste your time with long paragraphs, instead I will atempt to brief you initially in list form.
1. My husband and I moved from Britain to Hungary in 2005.
2. We brought with us our 2 dogs one 17yrs and one 12 yrs.
3. The 17yr old border collie died after 6 months of being in Hungary.
4. Our 12 yr old girl (heinz 57) got very lonely in our 10 acre farmland so.
5. May 2006 we rescued a 12 week old GS pup.
6. We do not speak fluent Hungarian so could not employ professional help with training and carried out basic training ourselves, but our experience of GS behaviour was non existent, and we quickly realised that we needed help.
7. We contacted via the internet a professional GS trainer/breeder in the UK who told us that we should not even think about trying to train Sam until he was at least a year old.
8. So, we sat back and enjoyed watching him grow, but also became aware that he was growing away from us.
9. Sam sleeps in a large kennel on our open veranda and patrols about 1 and a half acres at night.
The real story starts from here................
Sam has killed many of our chickens by waiting for them to get out of their pen, then he stalks them and goes in for the kill. We always take them away from him and bury them, so he dosent get to keep his kill. During the night, he will kill mice and line them up on the lawn for us, he will do the same with a cat not clever enough not to enter his territory. He does not rip them or try to eat them, only kill and walk away. (I am sure this means something significant, perhaps someone can tell me) This however is not our biggest problem with Sam. We live in a very rural position on a National Park, we may possibly have 3 cars a week pass our property, lots of tractors, horse and carts etc, but not cars. At the first sign of an approaching vehicle, horse and cart etc, Sam races to the gate/fence and barks, he bites the tops of the wooden fences and screams. The postman comes on motorbike and Sam goes crazy to get at him. In fact one day he did catch hold of his coat collar, but found that he couldnt bark with it in his mouth, so he let go. The postman laughs and says dont worry, all farm dogs are the same (but we are not prepared to continue in this way, and need help please.
One final thing. We have now adopted the rule that both of us always carry a choker and lead in our pocket. The other day, around dusk, someone called to the house, Sam got to the gates before us a and started screaming and biting the tops of the gates, tearing great lumps of wood off until his gums were bleeding. I managed to catch him and put a lead on him while my husband attended to the caller. Sam calmed down and sat by my side on the driveway for a couple of minutes, then he seemed to say "well I have tried it your way mum and this person has not gone away, now we will do it my way". he leapt up on me nipping at my shoulder, back and leg and started screaming and twisting around hoping I would let go of the lead, which of course I didnt do.
When the caller went, and Sam had calmed down a bit, I let him off his lead and he did what he always does when this happens, he bolted for his kennel and no amount of coaxing would make him come out. We went indoors and left him for about 20 minutes then I opened the door and called him, he came inside tail wagging, usual slobery kisses and acted as if nothing had happened.
We know he is a very intelligent dog and there is a lot we have to do to help him become the social dog we need him to be in this environment, so can you please point us in the right direction.

Incidentally, since this last episode, we have made a few changes, for instance, we urge him into the house a lot more now so that he can get used to socialising with us in our environment and not always in his. He still wont sleep in the house at night, but we have restricted his partol area to about a half acre to try to take a bit of responsibility away from him. We have spoken to our vet about this problem and he just laughs and says that all the dogs in the village hate the postman so dont worry about it. This is something more than just hating the postman though dont you think? perhaps you can give me some pointers before I am not only grey, but bald too.
Thanks jacqui

[Steph&Wyatt]

Hi Jacqui,
I too have a Problem Germen Shephard named Wyatt, but his issues pale compared to your Sams. I can't believe no one replyed to you with some advice, I hope they did, but if not try e-mailing them or try to post again. The alpha technique's have helped me, have you tried them? I hope things have improved for you
Good luck
Stephanie

[Blue]

I would suggest restricting his freedom and doing intensive obedience training with Sam. What you need is for him to respond to you from wherever you are on your property, in this way you can call him off from his "guard mode" the way police men call their GSs off of attacking an offender.

By restricting his freedom, I mean do scheduled walks with him, where you are in control and if you can, avoid leash free activity. Even if this means he is in the house a lot. Walking with your dog is an excellent way to establish your role as alpha as well as creating a "pack mentality" with your pet.

Right now Sam feels he has the right to do whatever he pleases plus because he is in an alpha role the territory is his and he must defend it.

To try and right his wrong behaviour I would start alpha training immediately - his nipping at you and jumping up on you and guests is a clear sign of who is alpha.

As they say here often enough, alpha training is very important. Here are some important points on alpha training-
1) If you come across your dog while he is sleeping or lying on the floor then you can reinforce your position as alpha dog by making him move away from where you want to go, no the other way around.
2) Make sure that you always go through doorways first. Try reinforcing your position as alpha dog is to walk your dog around the house on the leash, making your dog wait while you walk through doorways first.
3) At mealtimes make sure that your dog or dogs eat after all of the humans have.
4) When your dog wants to go outside for a walk, make it sit and wait until you are ready to go
5) Do not feed your dogs tidbits or let it pester you at the table. Save the morsels and tidbits for training sessions instead.
6) Do not greet your dogs straightaway when you arrive home. Make it wait until you are ready and then call it to you.
7) Whenever your dogs want attention or anything wait till they are sitting and being well behaved

I also found in the training of my dog Blue, it helps to disallow the dog access to human beds, this includes any couches or La-Z-boys too.

By restricting your dogs movements outside, you will be able to better control your dogs behaviour and stop it before it starts.

After your dog becomes very responsive to obedience and alpha training indoors and on the short leash outside, you can start trying to let him out on longer and longer leads - make sure that your recall remains consistent and that he responds to it with immediacy.

If Sam doesn't recall when he should, shorten the leash again by a few feet and recommence the remote training. When Sam is consistently obedient to you from a distance on a leash, you can try leash free recalls/commands but start leash free training when there are the least amount of distractions around.

If Sam is primarily a guard dog, he still needs to know who is alpha. Have you thought of sending him away to police level obedience training? It is hard to send your pet away, but with his level of aggressiveness, you may want to consider it before he has the potential to really hurt someone or something.

Please let us know how he is doing or if you are having any results!

[Steph&Wyatt]

Hi Jacqui,
That is very good advice from Blue and I think it will help you a lot, of course your Sam is not going to like it, he sounds very aplha, just don't let him make you feel guilty.Training has made a big difference with Wyatt, but it does take time, consistency and patience, we're still a work in progress, GSs really have a mind of their own.
Good luck and please post how it's going.
Stephanie & Wyatt

[jacqui]

Hi Stephanie,

Thank you so much for your interest in Sam and our troubles with him. I had got fed up with looking for advice on the website, and only your email today gave me some hope that I am not alone in this after all. Sam is marginally better since I posted my problem, in fact he is in the garden at the moment chasing snow flakes.
We still have a big problem as far as visitors to the gates are concerned, but if we know someone is coming, both my husband and I go out and put sam on his lead and talk to him and encourage him to be calm before the visitor arrives and we wait together for the arrival, this seems to work quite well, he does shake and scream a bit when they arrive and wont walk up the drive on his leash, he just lies down and rolls over and over trying to get off his leash The postman however is still a problem. We have moved the post box away from the garden fence now so we at least know that Sam cannot reach him. We had a big discussion regarding Sam and decided that we do not want him as a guard dog, we really want him as a family dog. We realised that although we have a lot of land here, we are very safe. The only burglars are the Deer eating the fruit in the orchard. The only thing Sam needs to protect outside is the car. So we try to have him indoors with us at night now (when he will come in). so that he becomes more sociable with us and our indoor habits. We have decided to hae Sam neutered, maybe this will quiten him down a bit, we will see. We would like to send Sam on some training, as was suggested, but Sam only understands English and there are no training facilities for him only in Hungarian. I hope you will keep in touch with me, it is lovely to be able to talk about Sam with someone who understands a little of what we are going through.

[jacqui]

Dear Blue,

Thank you for your kindness in responding to our troubles with Sam. We have discussed your suggestions and printed them off and have decided that we will start again with Sam from the very beginning. Tomorrow he will have a new lead, with a 30ft rope attached and we will start all over again. We will keep you posted on our progress, and hope you will keep in touch with us, your support is very much appreciated. Jacqui & Chris

[Steph&Wyatt]

Hii, Jacqui,
I'm so glad you replied, Blue always gives good advice, You can e-mail them directly with questions and they usually reply in a couple of days. I can understand your frustration and believe me I can understand your fear when your Sam goes off on someone, the first time Wyatt did that I was scared to death, I still am, so for right now, like you ,we try not to put ourself in that situation, GSs can be VERY stubborn, and like kids a lot of hard work(a whole lot), please keep posting, believe me your not alone.
Best wishes
Stephanie & Wyatt

[jacqui]

Stephanie and Wyatt

Thanks for your response. We are now keeping Sam restricted to our front garden at all times. Last night he slept in the house, all night. That was a first. Yesterday we purchased an extendable leash (as suggested by Blue). Sam normally hates leads of any description, but once he realised that he could walk away from me more than usual, he comically walked to the end of the leash and stopped and waited for me to catch up. Bless him, he thinks he has taught me a new trick. Anyway, we take him for walks only on his leash now into the "big" garden and so far so good. Little by little I hope we will be able to break his bad habits of just running, running, running all round his big territory and not really knowing what to do with all the space. Thanks again for your replies, it is great that you and Wyatt are concerned and interested in Sam. I did contact Kingdom of Pets directly for help, but they didnt even bother to reply. Never mind at least is dosent all look so gloomy now. Sam sends hugs and kisses to you and a hand shake to Wyatt.

[Blue]

I am so happy to hear you are making headway with Sam!
Sam is still young enough that his behaviour is more easily modified then that of an older more established dog used to it's position in the pack!

I definitely recommend having Sam neutered, as territorial aggression can easily be aggravated by intact male hormones, these hormones encourage Sam to acquire his own territory (so as to attract some females) and protect that territory vigorously!

It is great improvement that Sam is walking on a leash with you! I am happy to hear you are restricting his responsibilities to the house and a smaller yard
- this will improve his relationship with you, and increase your chances of practicing alpha techniques with him, and thus improving his behaviour overall.

In time you should try to walk Sam on a shorter leash so as to work on:
1. His behaviour on a short leash - so that he is manageable at close confines especially around visitors.
2. Obedience such as: sit-stay while next to you, an improved and reliable recall, heel would be great for going to greet visitors, and also down-stay while next to you so you can chat with visitors without any risk of him jumping up or him running off.
3. The best progress would be having Sam greet visitors, while in a calm sit-stay/down-stay at your side.

One concern I do have - extendable leash - do you mean the type that are literally retractable (like a tape measure), or a long-lead that is something you can hand coil (similar to a lunging reign used for horses - just a really long leash)?

Extendable leashes are great after training has progressed to a more advanced response from the dog. But during training, the automatic retractable leashes are harder to control a dog with. It is harder to control a dog on a retractable because of the tiny little string that they retract on and the large heavy container/handle, these components make it more difficult to "reel" the dog in quickly and effectively (without getting some form of painful rope burn). The retractable leashes also tend to encourage the owners to "retract themselves" towards the dog - when for alpha training and obedience training we want the dog to come to the owners.

If you have one of the retractable leashes and not a long-lead, I would recommend going out and buying a long-lead to continue with training - and you can use the retractable when Sam has learned his manners .

With the long-lead - when Sam starts acting up, you can give him a reprimand (Ahhh, Grrr or whatever he responds to best) and then straight away reel him in towards you. This way he knows that bad behaviour causes his loss of freedom. Never use his recall in the early stages of training while he's overly excited and not likely to respond - he may not appear to notice you calling him, but he'll soon learn that a response to a recall is not necessary when distractions are nearby and thus not necessary at all.

The long-lead also gives you more control of his recall training - if he doesn't respond after the first or second call, reel him in but don't reward him enthusiastically, just give him a pet, make him sit stay, and then re-release him on a shorter lead.

As I said in my earlier post, recall training is best started on a short leash, and then graduated to longer and longer distances away from you. So perhaps save recall training until Sam is comfortable on a short leash, or your attempts to recall him from a distance may be unfruitful.

Otherwise, keep us updated with your progress and let us know what your biggest trials are and we can see how to help you and support you through Sam's training!

Good luck, and Sam's lucky to have someone who cares so much about him!
Blue

[Steph&Wyatt]

Hi Jacqui and Sam,
How clever you are to learn so quick ,you're a good human, Sam must be soooo proud! I'm glad things are looking better for you, I know what it feels like to have your German Shephard want to "eat" someone and have no (or very little) control over the siuation, Wyatt does good with commands in the house and he's getting better outside, BUT.... sometimes he will just take off after a racoon or whatnot, usually straight towards the unfenced 60ft bluff with me shaking my pebble can yelling NO, ARGHHHHH and GRRRR like an idiot, (good thing I live in the boonies), then he'll pop out and give me this stupid silly grin like he's laughing @ me and sit in front of me like he should have done 10 minutes earlier, well I better quit rambling on ,I'm too am glad you answered back, it's nice to have someone to talk "kids" with.
Wyatt send hugs and kisses back to you and a big woof to Sam.
Please keep posting
Stephanie and Wyatt