Free Living With Dogs by Dr Hugh Wirth Page B

a savage Kelpie who was fenced in the backyard. If anyone came near him he became madder and madder. The owner called me to the house because the dog was too violent to bring into the surgery. When I got there the dog snarled and threw itself at the fence. I asked the man how he fed the dog. ‘I throw food out of the window,’ he said. Why did he keep the dog? ‘Because I love him,’ he answered.
    I suggested we put the dog down, but we couldn’t get near him. I carry a stick with a lasso on it, for catching recalcitrant dogs, and eventually we were able to get the lasso around the dog’s head and pin it down long enough for me to give it an injection. The dog was seven, and he’d been desexed, but it made no difference. He had inherited aggression, which worsened with age. Even the worst temperament can be modified if you get to the dog when it’s young, but this owner had no control and he was clearly terrified of the dog.
    This is an extreme example of a boss dog, and the owner had only compounded the dog’s existing problems. Initially the man had bought an unsatisfactory dog, which proved too much for him. His answer was not to dump the dog, but ignore it, and then he covered that by saying he loved the animal. Instead of seeking guidance on the dog he simply left it in the backyard, and the animal went from bad to worse.
    People get sick of their dog’s uncorrected behaviour, but the owners are part of the problem. Often people who have difficulty asserting themselves in daily life tend to choose assertive dogs. Then you get the owner saying the dog has a behaviour problem.
DESEXING
    Having a dog desexed may also help to curb its dominance. People think that desexing is done solely to stop reproduction, but it also removes the secondary sex characteristics, such as aggression, assertiveness and wanting to get out to mate, which all result from the male hormone. One client was very upset about the abnormal sexual behaviour of her Jack Russell: it was dominant, used to bite people, and tried to mount everything in sight, including human legs and the cat. We desexed the dog and the problems disappeared.
    Dogs are very aware of the pecking order within a family. I’ve known cases where a dominant dog will struggle with the youngest child to make sure it doesn’t get pushed into the bottom spot in the social order. Whenever the child tries to assert him or herself, the dog will try to put them back into bottom place. If the child is more assertive, they will be challenged by the dog, but will eventually topple it. Dogs will never threaten you if you’re the boss, but if the dog has reached the stage of believing it is the boss, then you’ve got problems.
OWNER ASSERTION
    Allowing the animal to become a boss dog is the primary reason for behaviour problems in dogs. The second reason is that the dog’s instinctive behaviour has never been modified by the owner. When dogs dig up plants, rip down the washing, or piddle in the house, they’re just being dogs, but you have to modify that behaviour by teaching your dog to look after the house and the garden.
    Dogs will also behave according to their breed characteristics. An owner may think their dog has a behavioural problem if it chases cars, but generally the dogs that chase cars are those that were bred to chase, like Border Collies and Kelpies. Kelpies are bred to react to movement, and it is a corruption of a natural instinct for them to chase cars, rather than sheep or cattle. Modify the behaviour and fence the dog in, so it doesn’t get run over chasing cars.
    Start teaching a dog when it is young. If a puppy does something wrong in your presence, like digging a hole in the garden, smack it lightly over the bridge of the nose, or on the rump with an open hand. This simulates the mother’s bite. A mother will growl if she doesn’t like what the puppy is doing. Then she nips, to reinforce the message. Adapt this technique, and the dog will soon understand