Re: [pyrnet] new behavior-growling at small dog

My oldest girl was in the habit of acting "stupid" around any male human
for a while. (Now she loves all but will tell me if she knows something.) I believe what started this was when she went to have her
teeth cleaned, her nails clipped, etc. and the vet put her out every time.
Well, besides Pyrs being sensitive to anesthetic, the shot burns like heck
and is given in the rump. I, of course, at this time didn't know what to do
and would pet her and tell her it was alright.
She got some thing about having her rump approached and would sit, twirl
around, anything so you couldn't reach her back end. Took her to obedience
class a two years of age, she loved the female instructor but not the male
and would promptly sit when he did the "stand for exam". I've since gotten her better about all this, although she still acts stupid at the vets but now loves everyone....unless she knows something about them. She then tells me (have learned to read her) and I tell whoever that she's an excellent judge of character and to just leave her alone. I've only seen three people so far that she really didn't like. One was a vet (not our regular vet, female so she's not going by sex) who always talked down to me and ended up letting some of Raj's pups die simply because she didn't want to take any advise. The other is a local judge (female) in our conformation class who always acts strange to us. The last was one time when we were at the vet's and Raj was smoozzshing with everyone....female, male, adult, child (she loves any child), cat, dog, you name it. Then some guy walked in and immediately she was watching him. (No animal with him, guess he was picking something up.) He went to the desk and after registering, of course decided to try and pet Raj. She looked at him gave a rumble and calmly tried to keep from being touched. The dummy then leaned in a said something like "she could take my hand off if she wanted to". I told him to leave her be and when he left, everyone commented on how good she was with everyone else and that there was something about him she didn't like.

Anyway, my point was, the dog has to respect you as alpha then if necessary (such as getting after a small dog) you can safely correct her physically by "picking her up" by the scruff and giving a good shake or rolling her over on her back, holding her down and starring her in the eye 'til she looks away. Don't look away until she does or you'll be saying you give in, instead of her. I admit, I've also growled the deepest growl possible while doing either, to break up a scuffle. As long as they respect you, you stay out of the way of another dog getting bit and you catch it in time, things should go pretty well. If they're already into it, it can be harder as you have to get after each of them without catching teeth that was meant for the other dog. (Had this happen once, for some reason I stepped between the two before they knew what was happening and caught it in the leg. Luckily I had jeans on....but it stopped the whole thing. They were like "oops, we got Mom, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again". Felt sorry for them really, didn't mean to get me.)

> In a panic mode, I yelled "leave it" and "no". (Leave it works very well
> for her in many different situations)Then I let her sniff him while he was
> being held and she was better so I said "good girl" a few time, but she
> still ended up growling under her breath so to speak. Maybe she could
sense
> how much I loved the little guy?
> Sherri
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mapleway@iolinc.net [mailto:mapleway@iolinc.net]
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 11:06 PM
> To: pyrnet-l@pyrnet.org
> Subject: Re: [pyrnet] new behavior-growling at small dog
>
>
> In what manner do you correct her?
>
> Chrissy