late socialization

[djbalo]

My first Hollandse Herder is a five month old male puppy named Cid. I bought Cid to train for Schutzhund sport. I tested him at the previous owner's house, and was satisfied that he possessed the requisite temperament, and drives to become a good sport dog. When I got Cid home, however, it became very apparent that he had not been properly socialized, particularly with people. He demonstrates both fear based aggression, and avoidance. While he quickly bonded with me, and has begun to bond with my wife, he remains distant from others, frequently growling at strangers he sees at a distance, and avoids their attempts to warm up to him as they approach. I have had some success using his ball drive to acclimate him to strangers by having them ignore him, while I throw the tennis ball close to them. Mostly this works, but sometimes he is stressed to the point that his ball drive is extinguished, and he won't fetch the ball. He is social to submissive to older/bigger dogs, but demonstrates dominance/aggression with dogs his own size/age. Earlier tonight I had to pry him off of my married daughter's 4 month old Golden Retriever pup!

My question to you forum members involved in rescue, is have you been able to rehabilitate pups like this to the point that they could work, or do you think this is a lost cause?

[vneerland]

My first Hollandse Herder is a five month old male puppy named Cid. I bought Cid to train for Schutzhund sport. I tested him at the previous owner's house, and was satisfied that he possessed the requisite temperament, and drives to become a good sport dog. When I got Cid home, however, it became very apparent that he had not been properly socialized, particularly with people. He demonstrates both fear based aggression, and avoidance. While he quickly bonded with me, and has begun to bond with my wife, he remains distant from others, frequently growling at strangers he sees at a distance, and avoids their attempts to warm up to him as they approach. I have had some success using his ball drive to acclimate him to strangers by having them ignore him, while I throw the tennis ball close to them. Mostly this works, but sometimes he is stressed to the point that his ball drive is extinguished, and he won't fetch the ball. He is social to submissive to older/bigger dogs, but demonstrates dominance/aggression with dogs his own size/age. Earlier tonight I had to pry him off of my married daughter's 4 month old Golden Retriever pup!

My question to you forum members involved in rescue, is have you been able to rehabilitate pups like this to the point that they could work, or do you think this is a lost cause?

Hello Cids new owner. Welcome.
From reading your post, I think you are already doing what I think I would do in this case, and that is not to force the pup to accept the intro of strangers, but to make it his idea, like you are doing with the ball. Does he like food? How about handing out some wieners to a friend of the family, and having Cid figure out that if you overcome yourself, great things happen?
Once a few select friends have been succesfully approached in that manner, you might be able to expand that experiment?
I am not sure how I would go about the dog aggression part. He is pretty darn young for any nonsense like that, but who knows what the golden pup had said to cause the fight? All kidding aside. I personally hate dog aggression with a passion and while some dogs will not get along with all other dogs (and that is fine with me) I do not accept posturing, hackeling, stiff tails and legs and all the those premeditated things that preceed a fight. My dogs learn that you can pick a fight, but if you are the perp, you will have to answer to me as well, and somehow they mostly chose not to go there.
Thinking out loud, in your case though, I am not sure how firm I would handle that right now, because his aggression is probably caused by the same uncertainty that is causing his behavior towards strangers.
I do not think at just 5 months old, that you have a lost cause. I suspect you will not get a social butterfly at the end of this tunnel, but he might function just fine, with time and effort. Do you know anything about his bloodlines? While I doubt that to be the cause, I have heard of a particular (good working) dog in Holland that was extremely aggressive towards other dogs, and even produced a lot of that in his pups. I guess I am trying to say that some of it may be in the package and you can hope for improvement, but you might not be able to fully erase genetics. Just my

If you look around on this forum, there is an introduction section. Mosey on over there and give us a short intro about yourself if you like, so we know who we are having a conversation with. Please?

[djbalo]

Thanks for your quick reply. the incident with the Golden started as play, but when the Golden mounted Cid, he went over the top. I did unfortunately have to alpha roll him, as he came after me hard when I broke them up! The little shit wouldn't submit for about four minutes! When it was over he was fine, and when he re-engaged the golden, he kept it easy, as did the other dog. My biggest concern at the moment isn't this incident, but the avoidance/fear based aggression he shows around strangers. I'm sure you agree that this form of aggression isn't healthy or predictable. I have told the people we walk with to ignore him, and let him come to them on his own terms, and we are making some progress. His food drive is not as strong as his play/prey drives, but I plan to add some social feeding exercises to the equation. Cid incidentally is ' X ' bred HH on his fathers side, and French bred malinois on his mom's side. Keep the suggestions coming.

Thanks, Dean

[k9katet]

I agree with the feeding. Get super yummy high value food that he LOVES and hand it out to strangers. Let him approach them to get the food. Do this alot with as many different kinds of people as you can. My pup is getting much better with people standing up and has even jumped on a few people and has trained some fun stuff with a few people but now I'm noting that she doesn't like when people are sitting on the ground so that our next thing to tackle. They don't generalize well so it's good to show them tons of different people in different positions. My older female isn't outgoing with strangers but she will tolerate pets by them. That's all I ask for.

Not sure about the dog aggression. I was worried about my pup as she likes to fight and she's got a temper. But she plays with other puppies really well. The do better in the open. In an xpen there were a few squabbles. Older dogs don't really care for her as she jumps all over them. But my older female has been educating her well and playing well with her. She hasn't been with out other dogs but she's submissive to them through the fence. Again I don't expect her (or any dog) to play with other dogs or even like them but she has to at least ignore them. My older female only has eyes for me and that helps alot.

Good luck with your pup. Just get him out there and show him as much as you can in as positive of a way as you can. Are you in touch with owners of the littermates? Are they having similar problems? Have you contacted the breeder? I would think they'd want to know of concerns so they can make note of it for future breedings. Did you meet both parents?

[k9katet]

Also, how long have you had Cid? How old was he when you brought him home?