Fear Aggression

The background:

I have a 7 month old dachshund mix puppy.
I got Sophie in January when she was 3 months old, she came from what I guess you would call a puppy mill. The dogs and puppies seemed to have been taken care of pretty good, with the exception that they din’t get much socialization with many humans or dogs other than their own kind.

Sophie was kept in a fenced in stall with some of her litter mates.

Apparently because she is not a pure bred she wasn’t given any of her puppy shots. Because of this, I was not able to socialize her with any dog other than one until after her shots were completed . The parvo virus was running wild in my area during the time I got her. I only know about 5 dogs, and two of them were puppies that ended up getting the parvo virus. Because these dogs were taken to the other houses that had dogs I knew, I was not able to take Sophie to those houses or have those dogs in my house to socialize her with. Also, because it was winter and the weather were I live was so cold, not many people were coming over to our house.

The problem:

Sophie barks and jumps all over people that come into my house. When dogs come into my house she barks at them feverishly, hackles goes up, and gets aggressive with them. When we are outside and people or dogs walk by the house she barks like mad and the hackles go up. On walks the same thing happens when a dog barks at her, even if she can’t see it because it is inside of its house. When we come across people on walks she barks and tries to get at them.

There are many dogs in my neighborhood and many people walk their dogs through my neighborhood. I try to walk Sophie everyday, but because of her behavior, it makes the walks difficult. I try to leave the house open minded, and think “this time she won’t behave like a mad dog”, but it never turns out that way.

Will she be like this all of her life now because she missed the socialization period?

Socialization issues are common in puppymill dogs. Both issues (the in house and walking issues) can be dealt with with positive training methods/desensitization. The idea is to get the meaning of other dogs and people to be a a positive one,not one of danger. She is still young and is open to learning. She is behind the curve some because of her previous lack of experience but that does not mean you cannot at the very least get her to be calmer.

First off I want to recommend a very good book for leash reactive dogs called Fiesty Fido, it is by Patricia McConnell and Karen London. These women are both very accomplished animal behaviourists. The book is short and available on line (I got mine on Ebay) for less than 10 bucks.

I would also highly recommend finding a good positive reinforcement trainer in your locale. No leash corrections necessary, really! You want to be especially careful giving corrections to a dachsie, their spines and backs are their weak links and they also often have tracheal issues that do not respond well to physical corrections. The trainer should be certified throught APDT and should not advocate any sort of physical punishment!

I am a professional dogwalker and I specialize in taking on dogs with “issues” and have been in the past an advocate of correction based training, but I have officially crossed over to R+ (reward based reinforcement). Not only is the success rate higher but the fear and frustration in the relationship between you and your beloved dog goes away. It is replaced by a teamwork based respect for each other. All of my fear reactive dogs have improved using this protocol. It may take a bit longer than correction based training but it is definitely worth it as it literally changes how the dog thinks as opposed to just making him afraid of a correction.

As for in the house…yeah I know thisis long….
Keep a leash on her so you can manage the jumping, step on the leash close to her body so she is restrained from jumping. Get someone to practice coming in the front door and totally ignoring her. The very second she calms (if even for a second) praise her or click and treat. Keep a jar of really good yummies at the door. Once she has started to calm regularly with you start asking the people coming in to drop a treat to her (still ignoring the dog though) until the people come to represent good things..eventually she will be a well mannered dog who is excited ina good way to see people. Then you can work on actual introductions. Baby steps!!