Aggressive 6 month old GSD

Question
Dawn,

Let me preface my question with i have read your responces to previous posts on aggressive puppies and feel my dog falls into this category.  He is perfect with my family and close friends, he is socialized with other dogs and people at dog parks and does fine.  Recently i made a career move and needed to take him to my parents house while i got settled in. It has been about 3 weeks now and he is now barking continuously at visitors after about 10 mins he settles down, but the concerning thing is when someone gets up to leave he will snap at them, even after playing with them.  This has happened on 4 different occasions.  I did not meet his parents when i got him and was wondering is this a case of him being prey bred, or reacting to myself (his master) being away.  Also how do i stop this behavior, he listens to all of my commands and i am definitely the pack leader.  I will be getting him back in about 2 weeks and he will be neutered within that timeframe.

Please advise
Thanks,
Wayne  

Answer
Hi Wayne,  If they are getting up to leave and are turned away from him, then he is using herding drive to get their attention back to him.  If it was prey drive driven, then he would be snapping at them when he played with them.  The best thing to do is have your visitors spray him with a spray bottle filled with water whenever he tries to snap at them.  You can set this up by having them have the spray bottle in hand, get up to leave and when he goes to snap, turn around and spray him.  At the same time, they need to tell him "No".  You are basically using his startle reflex against him.  Dogs don't like to be startled, so a way to use that to your advantage as a correction is to startle them when they are doing something you don't want them to do.  They will start to associate the bad behavior with being startled.  The problem you have is that your problem is an instinct problem, not a behavioral problem, so that is a lot harder to break.  As the saying goes "Instinct overrides obedience" and that is very true when it comes to herding dogs.  Hopefully being as young as the dog is, you can hopefully imprint in his brain the negative effect of herding humans and he will curb the behavior.  If he starts to ignore water in the spray bottle, then add a little white vinegar to it.  But don't do that unless he starts to ignore water.   Hope this helps,

Dawn