Chloe's snapping at the kids

[Giselle]

I don't like the "dominance theory". After speaking with several behaviorists about this topic in depth, I'm believe more and more that "dominance" issues are not applicable to human-dog relationships. Yes, dominance comes into play in dog-dog packs, but there are several glaring issues that stymies the belief that a dog truly believe s/he is dominant over a human being. Therefore, I don't believe that Chloe is dominant or trying to exert her dominance over the family members.

The three times that Chloe snapped, a person was taking away her resource. 1st incidence- Mother attempts to grab object from dog's mouth. 2nd incidence - Dog is in an enclosed space, eating food. Child attempts to reach for dog. 3rd incidence - Dog is eating food. Child leans over the dog. In all cases - dog had resource and snapped when humans tried to take it away.

I still do think it is fear. It is a fear of having her resources taken away and not receiving anything for it. She has not yet been taught "Drop it" or "Give" and that is the most important thing she needs to learn right now. As another testament to why I don't believe in dominance (especially in these cases), I have a Dobe mix. I am her sole trainer. Rarely does anybody else besides me give her commands. Yet, when my mother was home alone and Ivy had something in her mouth, my mother said "GIVE" and Ivy gave it up. True dominance is not easily fixed, and if a simple "Give" can rectify this situation, I highly doubt Chloe is truly dominant.

[crow_noir]

I never said anything about dominance. I'd think it would be more an issue of "I want, I want, I want." Not being taught that she can't have her way all the time.

[Giselle]

Oh, I know you didn't say it was dominance, but Blackrose said that she thought it was dominance, and I needed to dispel that myth.

Aside from these food deliveries, there appeared to be an ownership zone (Mech 1970) around the mouth of each wolf, and regardless of the rank of a challenger, the owner tried to retain the food it possessed, as Lockwood (1979) also found with captive wolves. Wolves of any rank could try to steal food from another of any rank, but every wolf defended its food (Table 6).

-From L. David Mech's "Wolf Status and Dominance in Packs" report.

Basically, my point is that it's not dominance, but it is an issue of obedience training and Chloe's perception of "what will I get in return for giving up my resources?"

[Blackrose]

I put "dominance" in quotes because I when I talk about dominance, I'm not talking about "alphas" and "dominance" and "being the master over your dog buy doing yadda yadda yadda".
When I think of dominance in a dog, I think it is more of a respect issue. For instance, I'll use my friend and her horse as an example. When my Sarah first got her Welsh Pony, she hopped up on him to ride him. She told him to walk forward and he backed up. She tried to get him to canter and he walked over to a tree and started eating the leaves. Every time she told him to do something, he did something else just to see what he could get away with. She corrected him, showed him that she meant business, and then he was a little angel.
But then when her less horse savvy brother rides Cody, Cody is a butt head just because John doesn't inforce, nor does he know how to inforce, anything.

From what I know about Chloe, I don't think it is a fear issue. She can be skittish around new things (skirts around it, then investigates it), but when she snaps at someone her body language is anything but fearful. And if she was truely afraid that her resources were going to be taken away, I don't think she would also act that way around me. In the situations I posted about earlier, I can do the exact same thing that everyone else did, and she doesn't care and listens. If the rest of the family tries to do that, they get snapped at and barked at. She is a dominant dog (and again, when I say dominant, I mean a dog that is constantly trying to bend the rules to see what she can get away with versus a dog who will listen to every word that comes out of your mouth like it's scripture).
Since I'm the only one who ever inforces anything, I'm the only one she'll listen too. Blackie and Rose are kind of like that, but they aren't as testing with everyone as Chloe is. Melanie, my six year old sister, can go out to Blackie and Rose and tell them to do anything and they'll do it. If Mel tells Chloe to do something, and since Chloe knows that Mel can't inforce it, Chloe just won't do it.

She is healthy as a horse. When she was spayed she had an infection and on top of that she had worms, but that has all cleared up now.

[Giselle]

A dog testing the waters is not a dominant dog. Like I said, from 6-10 months is the first rebellion stage. It's a completely normal part of puppy development. But aside from debating whether or not Chloe is dominant or fearful or disrespectful, the problem is that she's protecting her food. The only way you can successfully remedy that is to have a concrete "Give" or "Drop it". The best method is not to correct her when she growls but to prevent her from putting on the defense at all.

Give her a yummy treat and then take the resource away. Repeat repeat repeat. You, of course, will be the main trainer, but encourage your family members to help you every once in a while. Say, have your family gather together for 5 minutes once a week and help train her. If they aren't willing to help, warn them that Chloe's snaps could becoming skin-breaking lunges and that's not exaggerating. I made this same mistake with my first dog and he broke skin several times.

As long as you have a concrete "Give" and you practice every day, Chloe should listen no matter who's commanding and no matter what she has in her mouth. "Give" is the single most important command I've taught Ivy and she listens to my trainer, my parents, my friends, and she listens no matter what is in her mouth - even a raw bone. If crazy Ivy can do it, Chloe should breeze through it!

[Blackrose]

A dog testing the waters is not a dominant dog. Like I said, from 6-10 months is the first rebellion stage. It's a completely normal part of puppy development. But aside from debating whether or not Chloe is dominant or fearful or disrespectful, the problem is that she's protecting her food. The only way you can successfully remedy that is to have a concrete "Give" or "Drop it". The best method is not to correct her when she growls but to prevent her from putting on the defense at all.

Give her a yummy treat and then take the resource away. Repeat repeat repeat. You, of course, will be the main trainer, but encourage your family members to help you every once in a while. Say, have your family gather together for 5 minutes once a week and help train her. If they aren't willing to help, warn them that Chloe's snaps could becoming skin-breaking lunges and that's not exaggerating. I made this same mistake with my first dog and he broke skin several times.

As long as you have a concrete "Give" and you practice every day, Chloe should listen no matter who's commanding and no matter what she has in her mouth. "Give" is the single most important command I've taught Ivy and she listens to my trainer, my parents, my friends, and she listens no matter what is in her mouth - even a raw bone. If crazy Ivy can do it, Chloe should breeze through it!

I have no doubt that Chloe is possessive over high valued food items (she's occasionally been over nonfood items, but very rarely). The very first time I gave her a rawhide treat she snarled at me when I walked by her. I sat down and worked with her and it got to the point that I could have my han by her head while she was chewing on it, but she was very tense. I traded a training treat for the rawhide and she's not had a rawhide since.
I can get her to drop anything, no matter what the value, for a pea sized training treat, but that is the extent of it. I don't carry broken up peices of Begg'n Strips in my pocket 24/7, nor does anyone else I know personally, so this doesn't do me a lot of good. I can't seem to get her to understand that the command means the same thing even when I don't have treats.

How I tought Sadie to drop it was when I was playing tug with her I would tell her "Thank you" whenever I won the toy back. After she seemed to get the idea, I would tell her "Thank you" and then cease all playtime until she gave me the toy. Then she was praised and the game would start up again. It got to the point with her that I could tell her "thank you" in the middle of an intense game of tug and she'd let go of it. Her reward when she did that was that she'd get the toy back and the game would resume.

Chloe doesn't seem to get the concept of that. I was told it might be helpful to switch toys (dog drops one toy and immeadiatly gets to play with another) but she gets so focused on one toy, it doesn't matter what the value of the toy is to her, she won't play with any other toy other than the one she was playing with at the moment.

[Canis-Lupess]

The idea of dominance has now been thrown out by top behaviourists as twoddle. It was a bit of a pain changing the midset after years of being told these things were down to dominance. If you do a bit of googling, you'll probably find references on this subject.

I also agree that this isn't a fearful behaviour..defending the camera bag and all.
The aggression in that situation is simply down to defending resources from an individual who the dog doesn't have respect for.

Dogs do view their human owners as sort of mother/father figures but we need to set a good example and act as a guide. If we let the dog have too much leeway and then try to take something away from the dog that it is used to getting, no doubt that dog will try and defend what it already has to stop it being taken away and will rebel. It's not about dominance as such and rather about lack of respect for your guidance. Young children are the same in this respect although it is important to not anthropomorphize, small children do learn in a very similar way to dogs.
She doesn't have a go at you because you've been everything that a proper guide should be and she respects you for it. As the others have not, this is why she shows aggression.

With food aggression, the best way to combat that is to teach them that you are all givers and not taker. Get two dishes for her food. Put the one she eats out of on the floor and keep the food in the other that you hold. Call her over for her food and put a little of the food in her eating dish and let her eat it. Once she's done, put a bit more in and keep doing that until it's all gone. She knows then that there is no point in growling at you because you're going to put more in, not take it away. This was a technique advised by John Fisher a former top behaviourist who sadly died. If you can get various family members to all do it in turn at different meals although you should do it at first if her aggression is too dangerous for the kids to try and then the growling in defence should cease because she'll learn that she needs to let you stick around so yiu can give her more until all the food in the first dish is used up and get her used to being touched a little on her main body as she eats the food but only once she's stopped the growling to start with. It will be a bit of an inconvenience but once she's fine with that, you can gradually cut it out the feeding her like this and just give it all in one go and, by then, hopefully, her growling habit will have gone. It will be well worth the effort because food guarders are quite horrid at mealtimes.
As for cat food, maybe feeding them on a raised surface so that, even if chloe manages to get into where the cat food is, she can't reach it. Thats what we do. The cats get fed on the side in the porch... out of Jess's reach.

Also, for a collie/aussie mix, 45 minutes when you get home from school might not actually be enough for a dog thats a cross between two high energy breeds. When you say collie, which collie breed do you mean? There are four of them and they can be quite different.
I have Border collies for example, the most energetic of the lot. 45 minutes a day for such dogs isn't enough really and they also need the mental stimulation as well as the physical. Lack of either can also cause frustration leading to aggression and thats why a lot of Border collies end up in rescues and such. Apparently, they are the number one breed to have problems with and thats because of unsuitable owners, not the fault of the dogs. I'm not saying you are unsuitable and you've obviously put a lot of effort into her but you need to remember the high levels of stimulation these dogs need and not just the physical type.
Another thing is that if a rapport doesn't exist between her and other family members, they aren't really going to get anything out of her. Dogs being sociable pack animals need to identify with their packmates on an emotional level and wolves are always undergoing rituals to enforce these mental and physical bonds with each other for this very reason. This also needs to happen at home. Thats why it is important to only bring a dog into a household if everyone in that household wants the dog and is able to develop a rapport with it.


I didn't read all the post admittedly but where aggression is concerned and, especially with kids, it is much wiser to have a pet behaviourist come in person and see her with their own eyes around all members of the family and perhaps arrange for a visitor so they can see the dog with them.
Giving advice over the internet for a situation that you aren't 100% on can be quite dangerous, even though I've just given some...lol, and even top behaviourists won't do it. I doubt the advice I just gave would be enough to sort everything or all the other advice in the thread either because none of us has been able to witness the general situation first hand or had the full training needed to become a qualified pet behaviourist.
Hope you manage to find one and nip the problems in the bud now.

[Giselle]

I don't carry around Bacon Bits in my pocket all day long either, but teaching new behaviors always requires heavy treating for the first few weeks/months and then gradually fading it out to mere jackpotting every now and then. If Chloe only gives up her objects for food, don't give up and assume that the food will become a crutch. Furthermore, you're right. You can use the play with the toy as a reward, but you can't work up to that unless Chloe understands 'Give' well enough. If she's getting too amped up and won't give up her toy, stop. Just stand there and hold the toy. She will stop trying to tug it from you and will stand there with the toy in her mouth. Say 'Give', treat, resume play. Eventually, she'll let go when you stop playing, and you can in turn use that to cement your 'Give'. It's doable and it does require a lot of treating, but, in the end, you have a dog who *wants* to give up her items. And if Chloe wants to give up her items, there's no more reason left for her to growl or snap at people.