New Dog Parent

Your dog may be incredibly gentle to you and everyone he knows, but some dogs will be aggressive to strangers. Perhaps you adopted them from a shelter and you don't know their past, or maybe they naturally developed anxiety over time. Either way at some point you're going to have to introduce your dog to a new person, but how do you do that without posing danger to the person? I've had to personally deal with this issue. Our dog is a gentle giant and loves nothing more than cuddling on the couch. If he knows a person he'll be painfully excited to see them and will beg for attention from them. In public he's perfectly fine meeting strangers. However if he sees someone new approach the property or the door he gets quite vicious and out of control. Eventually he bit one of my close friends the first time he came over, so we had to figure out a game plan. Luckily the bite was minor. In this article i'm going to walk you through our journey dealing with this aggressive behavior, and explain our step-by-step process for introducing our dog to strangers that we want to come over. Professional Help I want to point out right away that if your dog sounds like this it may be worth getting professional help - we certainly did, and all the information in this article is what we've learned from that professional help. First we spoke with a trainer who's dealt with aggressive dogs before. After a few sessions she referred us to a dog behaviorist. Unfortunately the behaviorist was booked out 6 months in advance. We were able to get in a little bit earlier due to a cancellation, and booking follow-ups was quicker as well. The cost of these appointments is around $200 for a 60-90 minute session. The first session we went with our dog leashed and muzzled, the behaviorist sat across the room and threw our dog treats as we talked. She could sense his anxiety and distrust of the situation. Eventually we walked our dog around the room, still muzzled and leashed to see what he wanted to do. By the end of the session we all felt he built up his sense of trust of her but to be safe we kept the muzzle and leash on. The final result of that training was we had a solid game plan for introducing our dog to new people in a safe way. But also he's on a prescription anti-anxiety medication to make it easier, and to alleviate some of his other behavioral problems. For him it was a combination of training and medication, and it's still a challenge but at least we have a process that works. Even before the medication started this process worked quite well. Learn The Triggers It's likely your dog has his own set of triggers. It might be certain locations that set your dog off. It might be only at home, or only out in public. Or both. It might even be certain types of people - as a child I had a dog that was afraid of tall people and he took a bit of adjusting to trust them. You want to learn what these trigger points are for your dog. For us it was any space our dog deems as 'his space'. This includes our home, the yard, a car that he's in, and if he's in a room for more than 10 minutes and lays down. Once he feels a space is his, he gets protective. Learning this piece of information is very important. The Process Alright i'm going to outline the step-by-step process we take when we introduce our dog to new people. It may seem a little ridiculous but it gets the job done. Meet the new person in a public open space, while the dog is leashed. Don't let him get comfortable and claim the space as his. Preferably have the person in the space before the dog. Go for a short walk with the person a few feet away out of the dogs reach. Talk with them as you walk.Give the person a bag of your dogs favorite treat ahead of time. Have them start throwing treats to the dog every minute or so, but keep things at a distance. Eventually, and carefully, have the person get closer while giving the dog the treats. If the dog seems calm let them pet the dog, making sure not to approach him from behind. At this point our dog is loving the person, but use your judgement. We start approaching our house, or if we have to drive back home we meet the person down the street and walk back with them.When we get near the house we keep up the treats and petting, and have the person go into the yard before the dog. This step is the scariest step for us, but we pay attention to our dogs behavior to see if he's angered. If he's fine we have them continue to give treats and pet the dog. Then we enter the house, continue the treats and love, but keep him on a leash. After spending some time with them in the house we eventually take off the leash and make sure they spend as much time with the dog as possible. The goal is to get him to love the person in this moment so he remembers them. We don't want them to have to go through this process again, or go to the bathroom and come back and he forgets who they are. Your dog may be different from ours, and you may want to perform this entire process with a muzzle on the dog. Then after getting into the house wean the dog off the muzzle with the person there. It may even take several sessions for your dog to acclimate to the person. To have my dog meet my dad, we first met them one day in public. Then the next day we ran through our process walking down our street. It worked flawlessly and we've done this several times. Learning Your Dogs Limits Over time we've realized there are some things our dog just shouldn't participate in because of his anxiety and aggression to strangers. It's a shame because our other dogs can partake in these, but its what we have to do to keep him and strangers safe. When he was younger we would take him with us on short vacations to nearby states. But now we leave him with a relative to avoid any risk of him attacking someone in a hotel or campsite. We also started muzzle training him around the same time. He had to wear a muzzle occasionally before them, specifically at the vet, but the muzzle training makes it an easier process if we have to bring him somewhere else and we're unsure how he'll react. As a result we now bring his muzzle with us whenever we bring him somewhere. If someone has to come over we take precautions like keeping him in his crate. We also have an automatic beep/vibrate bark collar which seems to keep him more calm in the crate (previously we were worried he would hurt himself in the crate he'd get so out of control). In some cases if we have an electrician or plumber coming over we'll just bring him to a relatives house for the day. A lot of these things are annoying, but it's much better than the risk of your dog harming someone or not being able to live your life. You need to find a balance of what keeps your dog happy, people safe, and lets you do what you need to do. We go through all of this because we love our dog and we want other people to see how great he can be once they get to know him. Don't give up on your dog.

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