German Shepherd puppy, Ceaser

Question
Hi there,

I really hope you can help me!! To give you more info I'm gonna start at the beginning - I have a pack of 6 dogs. I recently heard about becoming pack leader so I've started taking them on long walks ect ect. I got a 4month old, male GSD puppy. Everything went well went I brought him home. I immediately started obedience training and he obeys me all the time. I did a lot of research about GSDS,however I had a female GSD growing up and she died recently so I got HIM, ceaser.

About two weeks ago when I went to visit my sister I took him with me to socialise him with other dogs as she has 2 jack russels. He ran up to the fence and started barking aggressively and then moved back. He did this for a while , but later on I took him into the yard and by the second day they played happily..now on every walk as we pass by a house he does this 'barking and retreating' I can't snap him out of it so I just pull him away and keep moving forward. Even at my house when he spots our neighbours lab he does this!

He and my doberman pincher got into a tiff and as soon as I tried to do the 'alpha roll' (roll dog on side) sure ur familiar with it, he attacked me! I tried to do the roll again with a leash on to prevent him from biting me, but this worse nd it! Tonight when he and the same dog got a bit rough I grabbed him by the cheeks to 'shake' him (as I read is much better than the roll) he attacked again! I don't understand why?!I can't have him be aggressive as I have a baby!he's still young and I'm willing to do anything!how can I change 4 him not to b aggressive? My baby is 4months old and he's gonna grow up with Ceaser! I can't put my child in danger! I know I'm the problem so please do u hav ANY advice? :(( thank u for ur time!!
Hope to hear from you SOON!

Answer
Greetings, and thank you for contacting All Experts!
First of all, it is great you are taking your pack on long walks, kudos to you, as not many people are diligent in ensuring their dogs get the amount of exercise and leadership they need. It is also great that Ceaser is listening to you all the time.

Sounds like you need to work more on focus and control in order to prevent him from getting to the point of being aroused upon passing other dogs. He is a young dog, so if you work on this now, you should have a good chances of seeing results quickly if you nip this behavior in the bud. Left untreated, such aggressive displays will get more difficult to eradicate since they are self-rewarding. He is learning that by barking aggressively, he keeps other dogs away. You usually see this in insecure dogs that do not know how to approach dogs correctly and is often due to lack of socialization. The retreating as he barks makes me assume he is doing this due to fear, the sort of ''I attack to prevent being attacked'' mindset. In some dogs however, this is just being a bully. Obedience training classes are highly recommended so to get a dog accustomed to acting polite around other dogs.

You can try the following exercise in order to teach him focus and put him up for success:

1) Start by investing in the tastiest treats you dog knows. These are 100 dollar treats, treats your dog would die for, examples are slices of hot dogs, freeze dried liver, steak, boneless, skin less chicken,oven cooked chicken livers..Keep small bits of these treats handy by putting them in a fanny pack or treat pouch that goes around your waist.

2) Now work on this exercise: make a sound with your mouth, anything, a whistle, a smacking noise, just not words. Place a treat at your eye level and as soon as Ceaser looks at you, give the treat. Repeat-repeat-repeat. The sequel is as such: you make sound with your mouth with treat at eye level/dog makes eye contact/you give treat. Do it 10-15 times until your dog gets a hang of it. Timing is of the essence:the second your dog looks at you the treat is delivered.

3) At some point something wonderful will happen: your dog will look up at you in the eyes automatically when you make the noise in anticipation of the treat. By doing this you have taught your dog to focus on you and that eye contact is a good thing. Now you can apply this exercise successfully for your behavioral problems and this is how:

4) Once Cesar has the focus exercise above down well go in more and more distracting environments.. and practice on the mouth noise/ eye contact/ treat sequence..start with a walk around the block, then a busier road, and then by the fenced areas with dogs. Go very slowly.

Get gradually closer and closer to the fences with dogs. If your dog reacts aggressively you have gone too close too fast for his comfort.. get farther away and restart working from a greater distance..You must work under the threshold, that is, you need to watch his body language for early signs of aggression such as staring, getting tense, raising the tail high etc and work on preventing the aggression from escalating. If he is getting ready to react, say a firm ''leave it'' with a leash tug, and make your noise with your mouth to get his focus back to you. This way you are not only telling him that reacting aggressively is not accepted but you are also putting him up for success by giving him an alternate behavior (focusing on you).

Now if this does not work, (and he is too aroused to make eye contact because he is too worried about the other dogs) try this simpler exercise, -but your ultimate goal should still be to get him to focus on you as he gets more under control-:

Plan B:

If he has a hard time giving you focus after several trials, you may try skipping the focus exercises (just for now) and simply accepting him not reacting to the dogs by just tossing the treats a few steps ahead of him when passing fences with dogs. Dogs rarely will refuse a treat when tossed on the ground. Continue tossing treats as you pass the other dog repeatedly being fast enough to not give him a chances to acknowledge the other dog. If you are pretty diligent working on this you will get results and best of all, you will change the emotional state of your dog. Basically instead of him reacting like ''Oh, a dog, bark, bark bark whooof whoof, grrrr!'' he will be thinking ''A dog! Sweet! Where's my treat, where's my treat! If he gets really good at this, you will notice that when he is calmer, the other dogs will be less likely to bark as he passes by, it really does have a calming effect on all the neighborhood.


Pretty much from your descriptions I am assuming you have watched shows from Mr. Cesar Millan or read the book ''the Monks of New Skete''. Both Cesar and the Monks of New Skete use outdated training methods. If you contact trainers today, you will notice that the majority of them frown upon Cesar Millan because he has brought all the progress and training methods based on scientific studies today back to where we where they were about 20 years ago.

The growling response to you from the alpha rolling is not at all uncommon and can be downright dangerous. Most likely what you are seeing is ''defensive aggression'' a fight response due to feeling cornered and fearful. In order to better understand this, let's take a look of alpha rolls and how and why they occur in wolves.
From my article about alpha rolls:
http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-an-Alpha-Roll-and-Why-it-Should-Never-be-Done

''The alpha roll consists of a dominant canine, pinning a subordinate canine to the ground and rolling it on its back.  This is usually a method of last resort used quite sparingly and under some extreme circumstances. There is still much controversy on the subject with claims of wolves only using this method with the intent to kill the opponent dog and claims of wolves even never really resorting to such rolls.

Much more common than the dog pinning down another dog action however, are natural and spontaneous alpha rolls. In this case, a submissive dog will automatically and voluntarily roll on its back and show its stomach area up as a way to surrender and demonstrate submission towards a more dominant dog.

In a domestic setting, an alpha roll is accomplished by humans by forcibly pinning the dog on its back, with often the owner straddling the dog and staring it into submission. While the alpha roll method was once recommended by various dog trainers to help owners establish leadership, nowadays many have come to realize how dangerous and outright wrong using an alpha roll may be.

In some circumstances, alpha rolls have exacerbated aggression in dogs, and in some cases dogs have resorted to bite the owner in the face, something the dog would not have resorted to if the alpha roll did not occur in the first place. The reason why dogs may react to alpha rolls in such a manner is because they often may react out of fear, dominance or simple resentment.

Alpha rolls may also cause the dog to lose trust in their handler. These dogs will learn to fear their owner, believing him or her to be unjust and quite unpredictable. The owner therefore is perceived as a bully, somebody who they no longer find pleasure training with. The bond between dog and owner may be really hurt as well.''

You can see in this video that in nature, wolves are not forcibly rolled on their back as Mr. Millan wants us to believe, but that rather, wolves roll on their back spontaneously to surrender to the authority of a more assertive member:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw3q3FIv4SU

Same applies to the grabbing the cheeks, the easiest way to make a dog aggressive is to make him fearful, when all dogs need are consistent rules and a benevolent leader. If you feel you need to up your leadership role, use the Nothing in life is free method. Here are some details:

http://www.mobilespca.org/Uploads/Documents/Training%20Your%20Dog.pdf

It may also help to read more about being a benevolent leader by reading some of David Mech's interesting studies:
http://www.4pawsu.com/alphawolf.pdf

If your dogs get into a minor scuffle do not intervene. If it is something minor, they should sort things out on their own. If it does get serious though, you need to be able to remove your dogs from the situation. Try to order your dogs to perform a ''down'' and ''knock it off'' no other choices given. In a multi dog household you need to have very good control on all the members or you must keep them separated to prevent serious injuries. If they are too aroused to listen to you, make a loud noise to startle them or toss a blanket on them to disorient them. Never get in the middle; you are at high risk for re-directed aggression. I hope this has helped better the relationship with your pack, my very best wishes!