German Shepherd/Blue Heeler possible fear aggression?

I've had my six month old German Shepherd/Blue heeler for about 3 months now. He is a very beautiful and healthy 45lb pup that is very friendly and smart. Unfortunately, the first 2 months of his life weren't the best start for him. He was bred by a irresponsible and ruthless farmer, from the stories I hear about the place (I was never there) there was a lot of larger dogs that were mean to the puppies. They shot the dogs they didn't want and were cruel to the ones they kept.

When I first got him home, he was very timid and scared. He would cry when I picked him up and absolutely would not like me put a collar or leash on him. Over the past 3 months i've worked with him and he has made a remarkable turn around. He loves going for walks, almost all his shyness has disappeared and for the most part he is a normal puppy. The only evidence of his past is extreme submissiveness to people (including urination- but this is getting much better and should correct itself) and he is also shy around multiple dogs. He doesn't mind being around just one other dog, or dogs his size, but as soon as I put him in an environment with more than one dogs, especially large ones, he freaks.

I've been taking him to the local petsmart and letting him play with the other dogs in the neighborhood and he is also getting better, but I have noticed a few things that I don't like and want to make sure this won't be a problem in the future. When he is afraid or just doesn't want other dogs to bother him, he has learned that insted of trying to run away he can just snap to get rid of them. While this is not a common occurrence (most of the time he runs) I have seen it happen more and more. Usually his hackles are always up, infact they come up almost every time he is around another dog until he gets comfortable. Please note he is not like this around all dogs, there have been plenty of situations where he has sniffed and played with no problems, as long as the dog is his size or smaller and that’s the only dog around.

From what you've heard, would you call this behavior fear aggression and is there a possibility that as he gets older and bigger (I.E. more self confidence) the problem could worse? If so, what should I be doing now while he is young?

Opinions? Comments? Suggestions?

Oh, and this is my first post. Nice to meet everyone :)

Welcome to Pet Talk. It is a great community and I hope you stick around for a while.

Now to your reactive dog. It sounds to me like you are doing everything correctly in trying to resocialize your dog. It is not an easy process and it is going to take a great deal of time. One thing stands out at me. You say that your dog usually will flee when he is approached by another dog that he doesn't feel comfortable with and only lately will occasionally growl and snap. My first question is whether or not in those instances if he feels that there is no way to flee the situation? Is he always on a leash when this happens? Most dogs feel more cornered when they are approached by another dog when they are leashed. Another possiblity is that he is starting to feel more confident in your care or possibly more confident in your ability to protect him so he doesn't necessarily feel the need to flee as readily.

I also wouldn't worry about it unncessarily. Growling and airsnapping to a dog is the equivelent of us saying "Back off - you are bothering me" as opposed to running and hiding every time we come across someone we don't like.

There are a couple of books I would recommend:

Patricia McConnell's "The Cautious Canine: How to Help Dogs Conquer Their Fears" which you can get here or Ali Brown's "Scaredy Dog! Understanding and Rehabilitating Your Reactive Dog" which you can get here

What I would do is when you see him get a little tense around a particular dog, that you stop just at the point that he is getting uncomfortable and feed him really good treats (pieces of chicken, liver treats, or something else really good). What you are trying to do is have the dog associate other dogs with something really good, e.g. other dog = Bar's Open. When the other dog goes away, stop giving him treats, e.g. other dog is gone = Bar's Closed. If there is a particular dog that he is showing a reaction to and you can recruit that dog's owner to help you can use this exercise on a regular basis. Every few sessions, get just a little closer to the other dog. Make sure that you don't go too fast as that could cause too much stress. You want to decrease your distance a little at a time only to the point where he is starting to feel uncomfortable.

Good Luck

Thanks for the quick reply Clara. He is actually excited to see other dogs, and this only happens when he cannot flee. Both the times it has been when he has not been on a leash, once when he was playing at petsmart when some bigger dogs trapped him in a corner, and another time when two of the neighbor dogs started playing a little rough.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Pat

Thanks for the quick reply Clara. He is actually excited to see other dogs, and this only happens when he cannot flee. Both the times it has been when he has not been on a leash, once when he was playing at petsmart when some bigger dogs trapped him in a corner, and another time when two of the neighbor dogs started playing a little rough.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Pat