My dog hates the neighbors dog
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I have a 2 year old male poodle. He will be neutered in a few weeks.
I have never seen him react to a dog like our neighbors. I think the dog is male, he’s a pit bull and he’s pretty old. I’m thinking at least 10 years old. I used to be really scared of the dog because they used to let him off leash and he’d just trot right up to us if we were outside. It was frightening. They also would let him poop in the empty lot across the street and they did not clean it up. Nobody on the street really likes these people. Anyway, that was years ago, I’d say for the last 5 years or so I’ve never seen the dog off leash, and instead of letting him poop across the street they take him on proper walks. The first time my dog saw this dog out of our window he went crazy, barking, growling, etc. One time we were driving home and he saw the dog out of the car window and he was barking and growling louder than I had ever heard him. Occasionally we cross paths on our morning walk. This morning as I approached my house they were coming out of theirs and my dog lost his mind. Growling, lunging, barking, like he wanted to kill that dog. I have never seen my dog react like this to another dog. It took all of my strength to drag my dog up the steps and get him into my house. Once in the house he ran to the kitchen window and slammed himself up on my plantation shutters trying to get a look, still barking/growling. I sent him to “place” and he went but he ran fast as hell and could barely contain himself on his “place”. The other dog didn’t bark back once when this happened. He didn’t growl lunge, nothing. My dog and this dog have never been close to each other, never interacted, never “met”, never been close enough to sniff each other. I was mortified by my dogs behavior this morning. Does anyone have any insight why my dog is reacting like this to the neighbor dog? Is there anything I can do to fix this, or make it better? My dog gets along with all the neighbor dogs and they happily greet each other on walks, sometimes we stop by and chat with neighbors and their dogs while we’re out walks. I know this is long, thanks for taking the time to read it. |
Anonymous
| OP again; by fix this I mean stop my dog from having this extreme reaction to the neighbor dog. At one point I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get my dog inside the house. He’s only 60lbs which isn’t huge, but he was pulling against me with his full weight. |
Anonymous
| Territorial aggression is not uncommon for poodles. You did fine by sending him to his place to calm down. Neuter will likely not affect this behavior. If it were my dog, I'd keep him away from the window for a while. |
Anonymous
| Neutering will help. Do you know if the other dog is intact or is he neutered? |
Anonymous
| Get a Gentle Leader. Lead a dog by their head,. Not their neck. |
Anonymous
I have that leash, and he was wearing it. |
Anonymous
| Poodles are VERY reactive. |
Anonymous
I hit reply too soon. In order to get him up the steps and into the house I had to get my fingers underneath the part of the gentle leader that was on his back. Which took me several seconds to do. I couldn’t just pull the leash, he was thrashing/lunging too hard for that. |
Anonymous
|
The previous pooping and off leash info is irrelevant so not really sure why you shared it. This dog has not been aggressive to you or your dog so you need to work on your dogs behavior. I know you know that but all the history you shared seems to show you have a bias against this dog and its owners. Maybe your dog senses this.
|
Anonymous
| I have a dog who is super-friendly and loves all dogs except this one GSD who we occasionally see out on walks. They've never met or even been within 20 ft of each other, but my dog goes absolutely bananas when he sees that GSD. No idea why so we just avoid that dog. If we're out on a walk and see him in the distance, we do an emergency U-turn. Fortunately, that dog does not live next door to us (sorry, OP). Our trainer said that sometimes this happens and the best thing we can do is teach out dog to focus on us when walking. |
Anonymous
He barks a lot. If he sees the neighbors car pull up and they get out and walk to their house, he barks, if he sees someone walk down the street, he barks. From the living room window he can see the street behind our house, if he sees people walking down that street he barks. If he’s in the backyard and he hears voices (it’s a 6ft fence so he can’t see over it) he barks. If he hears another dog in the distance, he barks. If he hears someone walk by, he barks. But it’s only that one dog that I’ve seen such an extreme reaction to. Where he’s so worked up I can barely handle him. The two houses behind us both have dogs. Our backyards are separated by an alley, so it’s close. If he sees them in their backyard he sits at the window and cries, because he wants to go play with them. He knows those dogs. Maybe that’s the difference? I’m going to google territorial aggression to learn more about it. To the person that asked, I have no idea if the other dog is neutered. |
Anonymous
This is the first dog I’ve owned so I’m learning as I go, so to speak. Honestly, these are the neighbors from hell and I could share many non dog related stories about their terrible and dangerous behavior. I shared what I did just to provide some context. For the last few years they have settled down though and I don’t really think about them or interact with them. Do you have any advice on what I can do to work on this behavior with my dog? I hate that this happened and I really want to figure out how to teach my dog not to react like that. |
Anonymous
I do this as much as I can. I never walk by his house, but he always walks his dog by mine, I yes his route. If I see him out the window I’ll close my blinds so my dog doesn’t get a glance. If I’m about to walk my dog I always check to see if he is walking by. If he is I’ll wait until I know he’s down the street and around the corner, and I’ll go in a different direction with mine. But yeah, it’s hard to completely avoid them as they are 2 houses down from me. It’s not often that we both happen to be outside at the same time with our dogs, but it was really bad yesterday. I’m still thinking about it and I feel terrible about it. |
Anonymous
| I have two standards a male and female. The male has certain dogs he vehemently dislikes, the female barked at all dogs, but they both settled down around 3 - poodles have a long teen age phase. I also had to always have a pocket of treats of various values and put them in a sit before they lock on to the offending dog and give them a treat if they stay calm. It eventually worked. They are smart enough to control their impulses with training but some don't care to do so if the treat isn't high value enough. We use biscuit type for garden variety dogs walking by and the pill pockets for dogs they really don't like. I also avoid being on the same side of the street as other dogs if I can help it since keeping two under control is harder than when i just had one |
Anonymous
| Just adding that there are other dogs they love and can't wait to see. It really seems dog and somewhat breed specific |