Aggressive behavior in a Great Dane

Question
Hello!

I have read your bio %26 will read and rate your response fairly within 3 days. I adopted my beautiful Great Dane about 3 years ago from a local animal shelter. The individual that notified me about her is a great friend of mine that just happens to work at that shelter. He told me that he knew some of her history (she was treated very poorly/abused by a man)and thought she was a great match for our family. I checked her out and LOVED her immediately! She is a very big girl and is really "toy driven". She and I bonded very quickly and she loves me and my 2 young daughters. She tolerates my husband, at best.
She stayed inside with us for the first year of our new lives together. We have since had to move her outside because of the extreme lack of space (we live in a tiny house). She was always protective of my family and would almost block the door off so we couldn't open it if someone knocked on the door. We would let her bark at the door and then make her step away so we could tend to our business. Since she was moved outside, she has become increasingly aggressive. She has snapped at my mom and actually bit a neighbor girl, snapped at my brother and bit a visitor, all while they appeared, uninvited and without warning. When we are outside and someone shows us, she is more curious than aggressive, i.e., wanting to sit right beside me or my girls while we are visiting with the people that have shown up. We take her to the park to play with us and kids and adults will come to pet her and she doesn't flinch. She HATES our boxer and has on several occasion tried to inflict serious harm. I know this is a dominant trait in Great Danes and am very concerned about it. What can we do to redirect her tendencies? Do we need to try to surrender her to a rescue? Is there any hope at the end of this tunnel for us? We love her desperately and I cannot bear the thought of having to "give up" on her. Please help!!!! Thank you!

Answer
Hi Laura,

Thanks for agreeing to read and rate my bio.  I suspect that the honesty with which I respond to your submission will make me unpopular with you, and therefore result in a less-than-perfect rating, but I think that the issues you bring up in your submission are so important that my response needs to be there for other readers, and for that I thank you for your submission.

These are serious issues you bring up, and ones which in my professional opinion require professional, hands-on assistance from a state-certified professional teacher/dog trainer who can formulate written goals over the long term for you and your family to implement in order to help your dog.  So seek a professional, one with not only training experience, but with significant behavioural experience as well.  

For advice on how to hire a trainer, please see my "Meet the Trainer" page on my Web site at www.ny-njDogTrainer.com which I hope will help you make an informed decision about anyone you might hire.  Realize that a trainer who's "certified" may not have that much hands-on experience with dogs, and that such varies radically amongst trainers.  Ask the person you're thinking of hiring direct questions about their experience, their education, how many years they have been working with dogs professionally, and the extent of their BEHAVIOURAL knowledge of dogs (vs. just "training" dogs).  Trainers work from what I would describe as The Outside In; whereas, behaviour experts work more from The Inside Out, which I personally feel is more beneficial to an owner whose dog is experiencing the behavioural issues you describe.  Of course, knowledge of training methods and how to apply them is important, too.

For you as a dog owner, based on what you've written I strongly feel you can benefit from some one-on-one owner education which will help dispel for you some myths you have expressed about dogs, apparent to me in your written submission, one of which is that the issues she and your boxer are having are "dominance" related.  You don't describe what they're actually DOING, and haven't provided any detail on what causes the fights and how they proceed, so I can't comment further.  

The other serious myth is that having your dog outside, unsupervised, will somehow be better for your dog and not result in further behavioural deterioration.  From what I can garner from your submission, your dog's behaviour has begun to deteriorate even more since you've decided to "move her outside."  I'm not sure what that means, exactly, and if she's out there all day and all night, or just all day; but I'm thinking that your dog spends all her time alone and unsupervised outside, where she's very unfortunately gotten the opportunity to bite two people (a neighbourhood girl, and a "visitor"), and snapped at your brother.

As well, dogs have evolved to be and are typically bred to be social animals whose behaviour can and will deteriorate when removed from the daily interactions with their social group, as yours has been.  Was their something besides having a "tiny house" which provoked your moving her outside?  Some dogs will do just fine in a small home if they're getting other stimulation for their mind (training tricks and asked to perform obedience cues for food, as two examples) and at least three long walks a day on leash with their people which will help tire them out.

You are unintentionally doing the dog, and people, harm by leaving her outside for extended periods, unsupervised, where she's getting opportunities to bite and snap at people.  If you give her to a shelter, she will most likely be euthanized because of her behaviour.  It's also NOT fair to shift the commitment that you made to this dog when you adopted her as a family member to another entity, such as a rescue, and expect that they will be able to work with her and resolve the serious issues about which I'm hearing.  Shelters and rescues are overburdened and most have little or not time, or volunteers appropriately trained and experienced, to deal with the behaviour issues you're describing.  You made a commitment to this dog as a family member when you adopted her.  It's my strong feeling that, now that she needs help, you need to find a way to provide it to her. If paying a trainer is problematic, then you need to find ways to be creative, such as bartering services or providing something to the trainer (such as several paying referrals) which will make it worthwhile to the trainer to reduce her fee and make it affordable for you.  Be creative!  Don't give up, and don't be deterred by the pricing you see on Web sites until you've spoken with the trainers and asked what YOU can offer to their business to make them want to work with you at a discounted fee.

Please hire a qualified professional to help you with your dog, and someone who uses POSITIVE only methods - no harsh leash "corrections," no prong or shock collars, no choke collars, no threats, no hitting, no throwing chains or shake cans at your dog, which will just make matters worse.  Find someone who will show you how to use gentle but effective, consistent training in order to help your Dane.  Realize too that you'll need to put some effort in to helping her for what may amount to months, if not longer.  And, PLEASE, don't even think of dumping or shifting the responsibility of a dog who has bitten twice and snapped once on to someone else, or even on to a shelter or rescue.  If you do so without disclosing that your dog has bitten, there could be liability to you, depending on the state in which you live and how the shelter or rescue perceives and deals with such non-disclosures.  Eventually, dogs disclose their behaviour and shelter staff *know* that dogs who bite at the shelter and in such a manner that tells staff that they dog is an "experienced" biter have bitten previously. It's also not fair to not disclose the bites and put well-meaning, but possibly inexperienced, volunteers at risk for a serious bite from a very large dog.

If you're in my service area, feel free to contact me in order to discuss working with me.  But, again, be prepared to put some effort in to working with your dog and helping her.  There are no quick and dirty dog training fixes for the issues which you're describing.  Issues don't form in a day, and they can't be resolved in a day.  Issues generally take months or years to develop where they get to a place where the owners finally reach out for help and advice; so, it's unrealistic to expect that issues which took all that time to reach that point can be "fixed" in short order.

I do hope you've received my comments in the spirit in which they've been written, in order to guide you toward the proper help and to educate you and other dog owners or dog "people" who may be reading this.

Thanks for your submission and for agreeing to rate my response.  I don't know what I'll get in ratings, but I felt I had a responsibility to be honest.  Hope it's been appreicated.

Best,
Madeline (AllExperts expert since 2006)

Best,
Madeline