Hello everyone, I am a regular attendee to this forum, albeit this is my first post on here. I have a 10 month old Golden lab Retriever, our first dog and we love him to bits! Over the past 3-4 months he has developed what I would describe as occasional impulsive aggression. In particular, in around 90% of the times, I will be walking him in the park and whilst he is off his lead. During this time I will start to carry out some fitness which included jogging / running up and down whilst he is sniffing around and playing. Then he will all of a sudden sprint towards me whilst I am jogging and begin to jump up and aggressively bite my hand and clothes whilst growling / barking. It's a burst of energy he has and the aggression is significantly different to him playing in other situations. The biting will leave redness to my skin but he has never drawn blood. The most difficult thing is he maintains this aggression for some time by repeatedly running towards me and biting. It only stops when I attempt to put him back on the lead and even then he sometimes carries on. I cannot understand why he does this, I can only attribute it to the fact I am jogging around, either he is anxious because I am not showing him attention or he does think it’s a game, but I can’t understand why his aggression is significantly greater. When he sees other people jogging or children playing he will never be aggression towards them. Things I have tried: 1) standing still, arms folded and ignoring him 2) smack his backside in the hope it will shock him 3) put him on his lead and walk him around 4) distraction ie. Throwing a stick / treat The above never seem work and he only stops when he wants to. He has been neutered a while back. Apart from these incidents, he is a great dog, he is never aggressive to people or other dogs. He is really calm and patient with babies / children. He is well behaved in the house and intelligent. It’s just his sudden onset of aggression which really causes me frustration and I cannot seem resolve it! In the back of my mind I am also worried if he will do it in another situation in the future I.e. To someone else Does anyone have any advice or dealt with a similar situation? Thanks, Stephen
I really think he's playing. You are showing more signs of fun in your own movements so he gets ramped up too and plays more roughly. I can't see you and your dog but what you describe is pretty common, highly unlikely this is aggression. Plus, at 10 months old he is, I swear, just past the age I see when the most problems crop up, 9 months. He's a teenager. Thank your lucky stars he will never want to drive your car. Except for smacking him all the things you are trying are good tries. Keep working on these things, they will work eventually but I think if you took him to training class and learned some obedience routines with lots of sits and downs those would be very helpful distractions. He might well do that to someone else, if they make the same moves as you he might think they are playing too. And they might not have a Lab board to come on and ask about. Neutering probably has nothing to do with this, it's just natural teenage exuberance. He's too young to run with you yet but maybe a little more execise attention devoted to him, off leash fetches maybe, would take some of the starch out of him.
I agree. He is playing - 100% certain about that. That's how dogs play running games - they run, jump and grab at eachother. He thinks you are having great fun together....(though obviously it is no fun for you). So, don't look at this as an aggression problem, because it isn't. Do look at it as highlighting a need to train him to be calm around people jogging and also to work on impulse control. With the jogging, you can either not jog around him or you can teach him to be calm while you jog. That'd involve having someone holding him and giving him treats for sitting quietly while you jog. You'd need to start by jogging at quite a distance away, and very slowly. Make it boring and easy for your dog to stay calm. If he can't stay calm then go further away - as far as you need to. Once he can sit quietly and take a treat at this distance then you can come a bit closer. Keep it slow though. Repeat. Once he's finally ok with you jogging slowly close by (this might take many sessions) then go back to the far distance and increase your speed. Gradually come closer as he can handle it. All the while the person with him should be doling out the treats at a high rate, as long as he's sitting or standing or lying quietly. If he's not, move further away again. You can gradually build up to having you hold the lead (or having someone walk him beside you), while you jog slowly for a couple of steps, gradually doing more and more.
Yes would agree that this is playing, not aggression. Rachel has given you some good tips, I would give it a try and see if they help. Our dog was around 9 months old when we got him and he loved to do this - I know it's not much fun for the human half of the equation. But I would go out in the back yard and walk calmly, treating the pooch with kibble when he walked calmly with me and turning my back on him when he jumped and grabbed at my clothes. Then I would start to move faster and repeat. It didn't take too long before I could run around jumping and flapping my arms and my dog would just trot along at my side. So don't worry, you can teach your pooch an alternate behaviour to the jumping and biting.
Yup, playing - had this with Ripple, it was a really miserable time for me as I had to endure it on nearly every walk ( and I wasn't even trying to jog or run). It was the start of the teenage years - Rachael has given you some good advice - I also used lots of impulse control games to help him get over this.
My boy, Shadow, does this to me. It's definitely playing and I'm not bothered by it because a) I very, very, very rarely run when he's around (or at all!) and b) he only ever does it to me - he's never demonstrated similar behaviour to anyone else. Rachael's advice is what you need to follow if you want to fix this.
You have a teenager. You need to nip this in the bud so it doesn't become his normal behaviour. One of our previous dogs got excited by joggers so we desensitised her using the same ideas as Rachael. We took her to the park where all the joggers did their evening runs and stayed with her in the middle of the grass. We sat down with her on a lead and rewarded her when she paid attention to us. Over a session we moved slowly closer to the joggers track at the edge of the park. After a few evenings she started to work out that stopping with us on the grass was more rewarding than chasing joggers. She (almost) broke the habit.
