MYRA...THE AGGRESSIVE SHEPHERD
This is a testimony about a three year old female shepherd who walked into my office with a muzzle on and every intention of biting me.
Myra's owner called the other day and told me that he had a three year old female shepherd who did not like anyone except those she had known from puppyhood. He said that she had bitten twice and that he needed to come and see me right away. When I got out of my car in the training school dooryard, the young man was walking the dog toward me and she was pulling on the leash and growling through her fabric muzzel trying to break loose and charge me. I determined from the looks of Myra that my course of action should be one of great caution because she looked like she meant it.
But!!!! The first thing that I noticed is that the young owner's hand was petting her and the second observation I had was that he was trying to soothe her with his voice. This was an immediate clue to why Myra was acting like she was for I had learned about unintentional training the hard way. We went into the training hall, I had him sit down and I told him to not let Myra come over to me. I kept my eyes from looking into her face as I started to explain to the owner about accidental or unintentional training of dogs (especially smart dogs).
I told him right away about Shep, the 8 year old Shepherd who had bitten his owner's fiance' when the owner had tried to introduce them. And that because Shep was a very intelligent dog and because his owner was not willing to give up, there was ultimate success. Shep was rehabilitated to the point that he lived his life out happily with the owner and his new wife. Then I started to explain to the young owner (keeping a close watch without eye contact of Myra's actions) about unintentional training. I asked him if he had ever seen the cartoons where the owner is telling the dog to do something and the bubble over the dog's head says something like "blah blah Ginger blah blah blah Ginger" I told him that it did not matter what the owner was saying that all Ginger heard was her name. I then explained that if a dog is chasing a cat and the owner yells "NO! Max COME!" that the dog actually thinks ( because of the adrenal rush) that the owner is saying "GO GET UM!!!" When this intelligent young man understood what I was saying, he gasped! "UGH!" I told him not to be upset and that it was a very common error for owners to accidentally and unintentionally train their dog to do something inappropriate. Myra was truly exibiting the behavior I call induced agressiveness.
What happened next was a true miracle. First, to be safe, I asked Shawn to attach another leash to Myra's collar and to keep the muzzel on but to hand me his leash. I carefully took the leash and told him to go ahead and correct her if she lunged at me but for him to say nothing if he did (I figured that Myra would be waiting for his words and his touch seeing both of these actions had everything to do with her aggressiveness). I was right! Myra did not lunge, in fact, she put her tail between her legs and stood there stunned that Shawn was saying nothing. She looked at him then back to me. Shawn had told me that Myra knew the command "sit" so I said "sit" and she sat down. Wow! O.K. now what to do? I moved slowly around the room and she watched but did not lunge. After a little while I told Shawn to remove the leash he still had in his hand and I slowly and cautiously worked Myra until she relaxed. Then I handed her back to Shawn. She seemed quite relaxed in fact she laid down. I told Shawn that he could remove the muzzle and he was shocked!
By the time Myra and Shawn left my office (about 1 1/4 hours), Myra not only was without a muzzle, she was working for me without it! Needless to say Shawn was happy and of course so was I!
I believe that the puppy training that Shawn did when Myra was young had a lot to do with her ability to start working for me so quickly. I used what she knew to make her comfortable. I cautioned Shawn to do only the exercises that I had told him and to not go ahead of me, that the dog is able to be rehabilitated; but, that much work is needed to complete her process.
This unique combination of dog and owner is a great joy to me and I am very grateful to God for sending them.
Carlene Wheeler
4/5/01 |
