My GSD and my brother

[witzend.1]

I've had Roxie, 6 year old GSD, for 5.5 years.  She's been mistreated in her most important first 6 months by some idiot.  She's the most affectionate dog, loves the kids to bits and guards the house like a fiend from hell.  But she's scared to death of my Brother.  He has his own Shepherd, loves dogs but did make a huge mistake when he first met Roxie of barking back at her when she barked at him, he then, stupidly, chased her.  Roxie is now terrified of him and barks continuously while he's visiting - running off upstairs and hiding in the bedroom.  she does occasionally run past him (on tiptoes) and he's tried sitting in the middle of the kitchen on the floor with cheese, liver cake and other tempting morsels.  Roxie just wont accept him at all.  Is there anything else we can try?

Paula

[woofgang]

well I Reckon drgnrdr will have some ace suggestions but for now, take the stress off the poor dog and keep her and your (idiot!) brother apart!!

[drgnrdr]

Hey woofgang! Yes quite true don't stress her out for now, but I need a few questions answered if I am going to try and help.

What is your brother doing when offering these tastey morsels? Looking at her? Looking away? talking to her and how is his voice? High pitch baby talk or just his normal voice,Has he made himself as small as possible, has he tried yawning at her or licking his lips and keep his eyes averted?

What do you do or say when she responds at/to him? Let me know and I'll try to help, there is no cookie cutter response, that's why I need answers, every dog is different.

[mimififi]

I don't know if it's relevent, but i have a 2 year old GSD and have only had her for a short time.  She loves my husband particularly, she is very affectionate to all of us and loves to be by my side When my husband is home on weekends and very late at night, she is just made up.

However, she is wary of other men.  Women she has no problem with, but she doesn't like other men near the house and barks/growls sometimes too.  She is very protective and likes to keep them away.  However, if the man is wearing a hat, and/or day-glo clothing, she is actually afraid and keeps her distance, barking a bit then backing off fighting her instinct to flee but being held by her devotion to the pack(us).  I have to constantly reassure her and make out like I really like the guy and be really inviting and friendly, which is hard because I can't kiss every postman/delivery man who comes to the door!, and she does settle down eventually.

However, on the weekend, we were in the pub with her and she was good as gold.  She was sitting next to me and I had my 10 month baby on my lap.  The waitress, who she had met a few minutes prior, came up to take our order and she put her hand out to pat the baby and talk to her, and th dog went mental, she wasn't having any tom dick or henrietta touching her proxy pup and every time the waitress came up, she growled and barked.  It was so embarrassing.

Maybe if Roxie feels like your brother is scary or frightening, maybe you should try being really pantomime friendly with him, give him a hug and shake hands and have really positive body language with him.  Don't know if it will help, of course DrG is the expert, but I thought I'd share just in case.

Good luck with her GSD's are so lovely, and i wouldn't ever have a different breed now. :-)

[witzend.1]

Hi and thanks for your time, Woofgang - I agree with you; it was a really stupid thing to do.

mimififi: They are excellent friends are sheperds, I don't feel right if I don't have a shep - those awful periods between one dying and another coming in make me feel like a half person. I love the breed and we've had them since I can remember - although never one like Roxie, with "Special Needs". They are very protective of their packs though - and they love babies. I cant bath my kids without Roxie getting involved in some way.

drgnrdr: Yes he does look at her, he should be looking away right? He talks in a soft kind of way but I think that sometimes Roxie just doesn't like his voice whatever he tries to do with it - that sets her off if she's in another room. When he's on the floor he's sitting. Why would he yawn at her or lick his lips? Haven't heard those ideas before. yes he should keep his eyes averted shouldn't he.

When she's in the same room, now that I'm thinking about it, I do sometimes try to encourage her to come closer to me (while I'm close to him) but I'm also telling her she's a good girl - that could be misread couldn't it?

I don't force her to be near him and we've all started ignoring her when she's running past and barking, not making any comments to her at all unless she's by my side then I treat her normally (but telling her she's a good girl). At odd times when Rox has stayed still long enough for him to touch her (the very end of her nose, that sinks in to her very very short neck) she gets lots of praise. This has happened on the rare occasion - when she's glued to my leg, never when I'm out of touching range.

There are one or two other men that she's afraid of but she doesn't go off like she does with him - she's fine with women and kids.

Hope you can help.

Paula

[drgnrdr]

Oaky I'll see what I can do, usually I have to talk to you for about 1/2 an hour to get a complete picture, so I'll try and see if I can give you some tips blind.

Yes he should not be looking at her when he tries to say hello, he will need to be onboard with this or it won't have a chance. Check out: http://www.canis.no/rugaas/index.php

You'll understand what I'm talking about with lip licking and yawning.

To begin with, he needs to divert his eyes and sit perfectly still and have some really tastey morsels in hand which he just holds out for her eventually.

Make sure she is HUNGRY and on leash when you start the exercises. What you do alot of times is what she goes by, you need to talk and sound happy and encourage any time she goes towards him. Depending on how large your house is you may have to do this in an area with more room, she needs to be desensitized to seeing him and having him there.( If she really doesn't like his voice you can record his voice, when he's not there and play it on low volume at first and treat her when she hears it, then gradually turn it up and treat her).

To treat the fear, plan the steps for conditioning your dog gradually to the feared thing. Plan how you are going to start at a DISTANCE from the feared thing, with it functioning at a low INTENSITY for periods of short DURATION. Plan how you will, over time, gradually reduce the distance, increase the intensity, and expose the dog to the feared thing for periods of longer duration. Plan how you will increase one variable at a time.

[drgnrdr]

Discontinue all exposure of the dog to the feared thing. Start your conditioning program at the distance, intensity and duration where your dog happily accepts rewards. Advance very slowly toward your goal of having the dog comfortable with the feared thing so that the dog will be able to function happily around it in the future. Be patient and take as long as needed to avoid pushing the dog too fast. If you trigger the dog's fear during this process, that's a big setback, so keep the progress slow enough to avoid that.

Reward your dog at times the dog is showing confidence. Avoid rewarding fearfulness. Certainly don't punish the dog for acting fearful! Just give the rewards at the moments when you see in your dog the state of mind that is your goal.
When she has had enough and you can't progress anymore , give her a quiet place to rest. When she comes out and checks things you can ignore her and act calm and if she goes towards him herself just have him hold still...freeze...don't stare at her,,, he can lick his lips, or yawn quietly, she can smell him as long as you think she isn't going to get aggressive with him. Only tell her she is a good girl/treat if she comes towards him not while she is freezing in place and not going forward. If she stays by your side and acts nervous or afraid and non confident do not praise her or touch her, you will be rewarding her for being afraid.

I will tell you this, if he holds out his hand (sitting sideways and hand outward, not looking at her) with a treat and she takes it and smells his hand, and does not go forward letting him touch her UNDER the neck not OVER her head, he should not reach out, she won't trust him after that, but if she goes towards his hand have him pet under the chin breifly as long as she allows, and keep his voice calm if she accepts it. You would be praising her also.

[drgnrdr]

Anytime she acts fearful or stops accepting treats go back to a better distance, now I have given you lots of info and this is much harder because I can't evaluate your dog in person, so you may need tweaking in the program as time goes on, I hope you can get all this, because I had to give you so much to try and cover as much as I could for any scenario. Hope you can do this, it may take a long time to get her out of this, if this has been going on for a long time, it can't be corrected in seconds, I hope he has learned his lesson. I would have suggested you quickly get her use to him right after it happened, that's the best time. Do not touch or talk to her when she leans against you for comfort and if she is fearful, you will be rewarding her.

This is the basic speech I give but I add certain things depending on what the person says back to me, that's why this is harder. Let us know how it goes, this may take awhile.

[witzend.1]

drgnrdr

Thank you for all that. I'll copy & print it out. My brother can read it, I know he'll try because he really does want to get on with Roxie.

I'll let you know how we go on.

Thanks for your time.

Paula