Introducing Peter Pan!

Peter - The Fox Terrier x Russell

Such a cool Chap .... just shows how much pictures can disguise the truth! Top tip -don't judge a dog by its cover ... their breed, coat, face appeal can all mislead us when choosing a dog. First and foremost their "personality", as we humans call it, is gained partly from genetics (instinct) and partly from their early environment, this makes up the dog. Afterthat it's all about learned behaviours - good and unfortunately bad.
This is actually a dog with "Fear aggression" towards other dogs, NEVER humans.


With Peter, like many dogs, this fear reaction came about during the socialisation stage of a dog's life - 6 to 12 weeks approx. This is one of the most critical periods in a dogs life when they learn so much, social skills with other dogs, people, all about their world and how to react. He was very ill and could not be socialised outside of the house, he learnt that to keep the other dogs away from him, thus not causing him anymore pain as he did not want to play, he would snarl at them and snap if they came to close. This reinforced his belief that when afraid he could keep other dogs away by being aggressive. This led to inter-pack dog aggression as he grew up - he had learnt the act of aggression. As he matured he took on the behaviour of dominance aggression over the other males younger than him in the pack - he would fight them to gain dominance over them. He also attempted this behaviour with the older males, but he could not dominate them so this scared him, with them he returned to his previous behaviour of snarling and backing away. We had to rehome the males who were younger than Peter, for their own safety as it was not practical to have them separate within the house. So this removed the inter-pack dominance aggression, but is not a cure!


So what is fear aggression?
Now at 3 we are left predominantly with his fears and aggressive reactions. He is the little dog who never grew up - Peter Pan, in his case he grew up but remained a scared pup in his head, he's a 6 week old in 3 year terrier body! When he is scared of other dogs (not those in our pack) he pulls out his learned pup behaviour and goes into a "blind rage" - growling, bearing teeth and straining to attack, only his lead holding him back. When he's in this state his eyes glaze over and it's very hard to get him to hear me - instinctive aggression takes over and he can reach this state within seconds of seeing another dog. Let's say he can go from level one - being in a calm state enjoying his walk, to level 10 - total aggressive behaviour. Aggression in dogs is not a natural state to be in, they learn this to protect themselves from perceived danger, it's not a balanced state which dogs prefer. When in danger dogs have options - fight, flight, avoid, submit. Peter uses fight. Due to his severe reaction to fear we did consult the vets, who diagnosed "rage syndrome" (as it sounds - the dog flies into unpredictable and uncontrolable rages) and perscribed medication accordingly. However, a year further on he has been off the meds for a year, using behavioural therapy to resolve his issues, progress has been significant proving that he does not have this syndrome afterall. People have commented that he seems so much better. Just plain "fear aggression" is his problem now which is limited to knwon triggers, with a touch of dominance and territorial aggression thrown into the mix!

Perceived fear of danger to himself and the pack provokes an "attack" behaviour in Peter - for example when he is scared by fireworks or a dog walks past the house. If you saw the look of pure terror in his eyes when he's in this state you would want to fix it - so I did what many of us humans do when presented with another human or animal who is scared - I'd comfort him, cuddles, stroking and soft talking. However this made no difference, on further reflection, through studying dog behaviour, I now realise that with dogs this is the wrong reaction, only serving to make matters worse. In effect I had been communicating to him that it was good to be scared and that his reaction was acceptable. Oops - wish I had known this 3 years ago, but as I've said in previous posts, this was not common knowledge to me/dog owners and therefore not part of my common sense. I have to accept that I have made Peter's behaviour worse and move on, just as a dog would do! To get Peter to move on however is a much longer term job. This behaviour is ingrained as he's been practicing it for so long and I have to draw him out of it slowly. We are beginning by not reinforcing his belief - no more cuddles when he is scared, I ignore this reaction and correct him if he acts aggressively so that he's clear - aggression is no longer acceptable. He can't "un-learn" this behaviour but he can "learn new reactions" which should replace the old, becoming second nature in time. He is being reintroduced to training school, to learn how to behave around other dogs, it's a method known as "flooding" - facing his fear of other dogs in order to recover, more recently called "expsoure" when dealing with human fears. Taking this slowly, carefully and most importantly learning how to use positive techniques such as rewarding wanted reactions with treats, only correcting aggression which must be done at exactly the right time and with a calm, firm never physical attitude (absolutely not using anger) - this is imperitive to success. Incidently do you know what FEAR stands for .....Face Everything And Recover!!!

Thanks to my new study course on Canine Behaviour, I will be learning how to change Peter's reactions so he can be that balanced, happy dog he wants to be. Calm submissive is such a wonderful state for a dog to be in, you know they do mirror us too - ever noticed that when you're sitting down calmly in an evening watching tv the dog will relax and rest quietly ....that's because you are giving off calm submissive energy and so they pick up on this and do the same, it's not just that they are tired (this I have proved by my pack doing just this on days when they haven't been out yet have behaved this way).

He's a mixed up muddled up dog with his head all over the place - I've sufferred this myself - this was my expression of how I felt, so suffer is the right word and it's no state to live in, so we're going to show Peter the way to serenity. Follow Peter and I as we learn to change our behaviour and eliminate this problem. I love this dog so much, turns out my love was hurting him, making him worse. I need to learn how to help him as a dog needs it - which is not the way humans help eachother....it's a dog thing! I've made many mistakes through ignorance, thanks to dogs living in the "now" we can move on together. I know now that when I show him affection it's for the right reasons at the right times..and he just laps it up! Having owned dogs for many years, without insight into their psychology, I know all about mis-reading signals, putting up with "bad" behaviours, thinking problems are just "quirks of the dog", so I can understand most issues you may come accross as owners ...I've probably experienced the same!
Read our diaries of "Peter's Recovery" - following Peter's journey to balance and "Dogs - Let's communicate" - my journey to becoming a Dog Behaviourist ...... maybe we can spread the word on how to overcome this problem and not intensify it. We can "talk to the animals"!!!!!!!!