Oliver Hurt Angel Tonight

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

Oliver hurt Angel, our 15 year old 12 pound sheltie, again tonight. Hubs said it  was dominance behaviour he tried to mount her after flinging her about the room  which apparently all happened in the bit of a heart beat.  I was doing  laundry so wasn't present. 

I'm at a loss as to what to do when he tries to  dominate her, and it's NOT playing!  I did finally find out from the  previous owners that he's an alpha male to the point that even the husband cowed  to him.  

He's ONLY nine months old and weighs 75-85 pounds already!  Submission techniques are  not working on him he wants to push everyone and everything onto the floor and stand on top of them.

No he's not neutered.

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

thank you!

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

I've read through a lot of the posts with interest because my niece's 120 pound goldendoodle didn't start more aggressive knocking down of adults until a few months ago at about 16 or 18 months old.  He doesn't seem to dominate the 5 children (2 are under 3 years old) and he is now in love with and cuddles with  a tiny kitten, but he has taken down my sister a few times, and made my 39 year old niece hide from him a few times because he is taller and heavier than her and when he tackles her, so goes down.  So I was hoping that I would see some responses about this behavior starting many months AFTER neutering and many months AFTER lots of intense (and expensive) obedience training.

 

I see virtually everyone saying that you need to neuter him immediately, but I don't see a response from you as to why he isn't neutered.  Are you planning to breed him? 

I had Kona neutered at 6 months old with the hopes that it would calm down his zooming biting episodes on my arm where he would just get into a tizzy regardless of my many attempts to redirect with toys, bully sticks, distraction commands to sit or stay, etc.  And I hoped that it would calm down his humping of my leg when I would walk away.  Both have gotten better but I'm not convinced that the neutering has had anything to do with it.  He is 10.5 months old now and I think he has just shifted some of his puppy antics to other things.  He actually humps MORE now that I've adopted a female doodle 3 weeks ago.  They are both very "interested" in each other and both are fixed, so it's a puzzle to me.  They play very agressively with each other, but both seem  to like it and seek it out and then they curl up with their heads on each other to nap, so I wouldn't categorize their play as anything more than normal pack play.  What you describe sounds more agressive because it doesn't sound like the sheltie enjoys it or engages equally. 

 

I'm very interested to hear what you try and what helps improve the situation.  Sorry that I don't have the answers...but I'm interested!

 

 

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

Oliver arrived here 10 days ago as a rescue and he was intact, hence the reason he hasn't been neutured yet. 

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

That makes sense. I was lucky that the rescue organization I got Maggie from routinely spays and neuters all strays and rescues that they eventually adopt out.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I have never heard of any legitimate rescue group that doesn't spay or neuter every animal before adoption. And I'm pretty well versed in rescue, lol. 

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

It wasn't a group, it was an individual and a family situation on their end.  I'd prefer that he is neutered, I have no plans of breeding him, ever!

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Ha! It was all starting to sound so mysterious by the lack of the details.  I was starting to think that it had to be a literal rescue of a stray that you found on the streets, or a family friend who asked you to take him in because they couldn't handle him.  I've gotten so used to equating "rescue" with a recognized organization rather than the literal act of "rescuing" him from a bad situation.

 

He really is adorable, and I hope that with some time and attention, he will settle down a bit and start being less alpha.  That article you posted was very interesting and made me feel better about my pooches.  It really describes me as the alpha.  I think it's so cute when they sit and then want to kiss me after I've corrected one or the other of them...like they are apologizing for misbehaving.  Maggie is my rescue and it warms my heart how quick she is to come over and submit and try to kiss me while I'm correcting or training with Kona.  I feel very fortunate that she adapted so quickly to the family. she must have had at least some training and love before she became a scraggly stray in a kill shelter.  She learned within 2 days to use the bell to let me know she needed to go out. And she caught on to the basic "sit, stay, down, and come" commands the first few days with me.  Still working on "Heel".  Her loose leash walk is actually better than Kona's.  Whew!  I really did luck out. 

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

what is this bell that everyone talks about their dogs using to go out?  Oliver is house broken, thank heavens!  But he does scratch at the door knob when he wants to go out to potty.

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

You can google "potty training with bell" and find lots of info and videos, but it's really very simple.  And doodles seem to be very fast learners.  I just have a round christmas bell tied to a string that I have nailed to the wall right next to the back door.  It is at about nose level and I just trained them by grabbing their paw and hitting the bell and then opening the back door until they understood the link between the act of them hitting the bell with the back door opening.  It took Kona a few days to try it randomly and a few weeks to do it every single time.  Maggie caught on quicker because she had both Kona and me training her.  I love it because I can hear it from the other room, and they don't scratch my wall or door.  Mostly they just nudge the bell with their head or back. 

[Kimberly Baxter Packwood]

Thank you for some reason hubs thinks it's a desk bell I should be giving Oliver, I have some of those round sleigh bells I can hang up for him to use.

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

You can use a desk bell attached to your floor somehow.  I prefer the swinging bell on the wall so that I don't hit it or kick it around on the floor.

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

 

Kona cracked me up one day with his bell.  I heard it ring several times.  When I got to the back door, he was standing there asking permission to take my bra out to the back yard to destroy.  How polite of him!