Fear of men, agressive with dogs

[LILYLARUE]

Moving on after a quick sniff is the way to go til you gain more knowledge. Of course, you should be looking for any aggressive behaviors before you approach another dog as well. Ears tensed in a backward way, crouching and in deep stare, tail stiffly upward, etc. If she gets her hackles up, then turn and walk away. If she is excited to meet the other dog in a nice, relaxed but excited way, then go for that sniff she desperately needs and then quickly off again to meet another new friend.

It is amazing what tiny changes in behavior will alert you to. That's what we need to learn from the dogs. We just assume that a wagging tail means happy. Sometimes it's HOW they wag that tail that says what mood they are in.

There is a great book that details body language page by page and picture by picture. It's incredible that they can capture that and organize it so it becomes a great resource. I will check the title and post that one for you as well. It even shows pics on how to know if your dog is smiling. That was really cool to see.

You can never read enough. Every trainer/author has their own ideas of what works and what doesn't. What I will say, is that most dogs can work out their aggressive issues by positive training methods. Negative training methods would only work on a severly aggressive dog and even then one is never guarenteed that the dog is cured of it and may possibly react to the negative training with more aggression.

[sargboxerluv]

I'm so pissed! My book was supposed to be delivered today, but they didn't have the correct address info, so now I won't get it until tomorrow evening when I get home from work. I had planned on reading it while I was at work and bored to death! And with it being Easter weekend, I probably won't get to look at until next week.

[Sreed]

Originally Posted by sargboxerluv

I rescued a female boxer about 5 months ago, and she's around 1 and half years old. I have two questions about socialization.

She is terrified of men. I'm certain she was abused. How do I go about socializing her with men if she runs from them? And no, I don't have any male relatives/friends close by. We just moved here. I feel bad cause some of the guys around here want to come up and pet her, but she runs away. A few times she even peed on herself.

Also, she can be agressive with other dogs. I fostered a male for two weeks with the hopes of keeping him, but she was very mean to him. If he was sitting down she was fine with him. I even have pictures of them laying together. But the minute he got up to run around or play with toys, she would freak. She even took the rubber balls from him that she never even looked at for the 5 months they were sitting there. She never actually tried to bite him, but she would get nasty like she was gaurding a bone. She did lunge at him and sound as if she would kill him. It got worse as the two weeks went on instead of getting better. And it was not him. He was submissive to her - he had his own issues. But he never tried to fight with her, he would do that whining reach in to paw at her to entice her to play. I guess I wouldn't have cared in the past, but now I live in an apartment community that has dogs everywhere. She always wants to do a meet n greet, but if the dogs are to hyper or jump on her she gets mean.

I don't know where to start with her.

I would suggest having her socialized. There are trainers that can take her for a week or so and have her socialized with a pack. Treats contrary to belief aren't the answer and they just put a bandaid on any problem. A pack of thirty dogs that are trained to be FOLLOWERS can teach your dog more than any of us can.