I'm boarding a dog at my house. She's super sweet. No, really, I know you read that subject and now you're going, "That's sarcasm, right JB?" Well, no, it's not. She's super sweet 40% of the time, independent but amusing another 50% of the time, and an utter psycho dog 10% of the time.

Wait. Let's do some info dump'ing.

There are lots of kinds of aggression in dogs. 99% of the time, any aggression is learned aggression. Basically, if it shows up after six months of age, it's learned aggression. If it shows up before but your dog grows out of it... that's not aggression, that's an overly exuberant puppy. I know they growled, showed teeth, and drew blood. Yes, that's an overly exuberant puppy.

If, however, it shows up early -- like, say 2 or 3 months, or even younger -- and sticks around? That's biological aggression. (A note: If it shows up late in life, very suddenly, take your dog to the vet. It could be a liver issue.)

There are various types of biological aggression. There's a thyroid imbalance, which is rare but VERY easily treatable. There's the liver issue in the note above. There's a few other chemical/hormonal imbalances that can be checked for and treated.

Then there's congenital aggression. Congenital aggression means something is broken in your dog's brain. No, really. They do CT scans to figure out which bit isn't working right. (There's nothing they can really do once they figure that out, mind you.) There's some pretty consistent patterns in which it shows itself. Usually like this:

"La dee da, I'm the happiest puppy in the world! I love butterflies! And being petted! And I adore -- I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF YOU BITCH! BRING IT! BRING IT!" *cue being ripped bloody by another dog, long past the point any sane dog would stop* "I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Yeah. It's sudden, very extreme, the dogs never back down if you try the Dog Whisperer thing, and it's very, very frightening.

Cue the puppy I'm boarding. I first saw her at 7 months, and it was clear from the get-go that she had some sort of biological aggression. (We've since run the tests: it's congenital.) I picked her up at 9 months old (no time for boarding before then), and have had her for almost 4 weeks now. She's actually doing amazingly well. The two-week check up is under the cut: point form what was going on, and what we'd succeeded in as of mid-Jan. Note that when I say "dislike" or "possessive" or "unwilling," etc, what that means is, "Dog instantly shows ALL her teeth, snarls, lunges, and tries to bite. WILL break skin if she makes contact." Something like "extreme dislike" would indicate that she doesn't stop even if the person goes away; she chases them down and continues attacking. That said:



Obvious problems included:
Dislike of being moved when comfortable
Being moved when intent (as in wanting to go outside and being told to move away from the door, as in chewing and being asked to scoot over, etc)
Possessiveness of toys, bones, bully sticks, pig ears, socks, Pam's clothes, shoes, trash, dog poop, food or drinks where she can sniff them. Does not want people coming near her, much less taking things away from her.
Getting into trash
Counter and table surfing
Dislike of being put in crate
Dislike of being handled in crate
Severe dislike and lunging upon being bathed
Dislike of having paws, muzzle, and ears handled
Dislike of having nails clipped
Dislike of being brushed
Unwillingness to back down when annoyed, with annoyance rapidly growing into fury
Attacking dogs and people when playing and gets bumped too hard
Poop eating
Being unable to throttle back after she gets angry, being unable to calm down after she gets angry
Dislike of being manhandled. Ex: if pushed gently down to sit, may or may not snap.
Not housebroken
Unaware of people and commands in general: doesn't notice if she's upsetting a person, or if the person is interested in her, unless she's outside.

Commands:
Sits if she sees you have a treat
No recall ("come") unless she feels like it
No leash walking
No potty on command
No stay
No down
No settle
No look or paying attention when asked

Progress made:
-Drops certain items, such as trash, clothes. May take several seconds. 
-Avoids trash and clothes 90% of the time. Avoids food/drinks 30% of the time.
-Allows bully sticks, bones, toys to be taken. No longer snarls and lunges. Occasionally growls.
-Allows petting when chewing on toys/bones/etc. Allows people to walk past and over her while she's chewing.
-Allows self to be moved when on the floor. 
-When shows aggression, does not move up into lunging. Calms down readily. (From 10 minutes initially to 30 seconds now, most of the time.) 
-Learning to move away rather than attack. 
-Has learned to yelp rather than attack if pushed or bumped when playing. 
-Has learned to back off on hearing a yelp. 
-Has learned to back off when asked to calm down and sees squirt bottle.
-Has learned/is learning to go into crate easily when asked.
-Does not whine and cry in crate.
-Does not potty in crate.
-Learning not to growl when confined in travel crate.
-Has not had a potty accident in the house in a week (except for night time diarrhea, if she eats a whole pig ear). Still on a set potty schedule.
-Occasionally asks to go potty by jumping on door/bells.
-Pees right away when taken out to grass. 
-Will allow handling of paws, including moving pads and nails, for a few minutes at a time. Treats help.
-Will allow bathing. Growls at back legs/paws, but no lunge or snap.
-Allows touching of muzzle and ears and patting and petting of legs and hips.
-Comes when called and in sight.
-Walks on a loose leash 70% of time. Easily distracted.
-No longer eating poop. Never possessive of it.
-Begin transferring good behaviors to Pam and Pam's house, focusing on walking politely, avoiding clothes and trash, not protecting couch.
-Tunes in to people in general much better. Respect has risen greatly, mania dropped away as she learns to focus. As she learns to focus, she learns rules and boundaries more easily.


TL; DR: she went from picking up and destroying everything (food, clothes, trash, toys) and full-out attacking if you tried to get near her, to dropping most things on command and settling down out of her full-on attack mode in about 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

Monday I left her for 8 hours to work. Tuesday she lost her ever lovin' mind. Yesterday I left her longer than I meant to. Today is a rough day -- she's definitely back slid -- but still markedly better than it used to be.

However, I just heard this giant snarling barking outside, and went charging out to see what was going on. Right at the front door, I saw the puppy (all 20 pounds of her) attacking Lily, my pit. This would be laughable if one of them couldn't very severely hurt the other, all because the puppy's "stop fighting now" switch is broken. I ended up grabbing Lily, who was defending but not attacking, and lifting her up out of the way. Then I kicked at the puppy, fully expecting her to turn on me instead.

The good news: She didn't turn on me, and no one was hurt. She backed off finally and sat in a corner, clearly freaked out.

The bad news: Oh man, when she attacks me I handle it with no big deal. When she attacked Lily I was totally shaky afterward. :( It's so much worse! She hasn't gone after one of my dogs almost since she got here, aside from the occasional snap that she stops right away. I can only guess that she snapped, and since I wasn't standing right there to yell at her, she kept going and it escalated.

It's really, really tempting to get pissed off at her. In fact, I was when I put her in her crate. But getting pissed off at her only makes things worse; it means I treat her harshly, and since she doesn't have the 'back off' switch other dogs do, she escalates. And since she's broken, she escalates FAST.

The other thing is that when I calm down and think about it, I realize that she DID back off (okay, when I kicked at her), and she DIDN'T attack me for kicking at her. (I'm actually still rather surprised at this.) She went and sat in the corner, and looked like the most miserable little dog you've ever seen. I was able to walk over, scruff her, pick her up, and put her in her crate with only a little growl when I lifted her. (Yes, this is improvement. It's BEEN a giant snarl, "I would rip your face off if I could get my head around," backed up by several broken-skin spots on my hand when she managed it one day.)

But what really strikes me? Is how extremely upset she looked. This is a dog with something broken in her head, not a dog that hates everyone and the world. She reacts like this, and afterward even she doesn't know how or what happened, just that everyone is pissed at her.

We're working to make her life better. These outbursts are becoming few and far between. We've figured out how to manage them when they happen. She's learned that good things happen when she calms down and thinks things through. I've got a line on a medication that might help a little, which, combined with training, could help a lot.

I'm kind of freaked out about how freaked out I got when she attacked Lily. I mean, I handled it okay -- even now, calm, I don't think I could have done anything better. But, MAN, it's worse when it's one of my dogs. :(

At least blogging about it has calmed me down...

J