[Lovelymuffy69]

My 7 mth old americanbull dog bordercollie mix reacts with barking and growling whenever pur next door neighbors get home. I work from home so I usally run down and tell him to quiet down. He will hid under the dining rokm table and today, I attmepted to pull him out. He then flipped out on me and snarled abd snapped at my hand as I went to get his collar and broke the skin in one spot. This is the 2nd time he has reacted this way and the1st time was with my boyfriend. We have contacted an animal behaviorist but she wont be out for a couple wks. I am so uset.. My othet dog was completely different than this one. This one seems to have an overly protective drive as well as no gentleness. I don't want to give up on him; but he has never reacted this way to me before. I am terrified he will do it to friends or family members.

 

[CptJack]

The dog was freaked out about the neighbors, ran and hid, and you reached in after him.

This dog did not bite out of any desire to protect anything but itself.

This dog was FEARFUL.

Behaviorist is a very, very good idea. They'll help you understand what's happening and give you a plan for handling it appropriately. Just understnading will help a lot.

 

[Kathyy]

How scary! Don't pull him out. He's hiding because he's afraid. Sounds like afraid of your yelling at him. Why do you need to have him come out from his hiding spot? Have you tried keeping him in the house for the hour or so when the neighbors generally come home?

I hate my dogs barking at the neighbors too and they have to come inside if they start up. When we are gone the dogs are in the house so if they do bark at least it's muffled.

I have little yappy dogs, see my avatar. A dog's original job was to bark to alert to something going on so I've worked to get the dogs to come to us which stops the yapping. A couple alert barks are allowed but nothing more than that. Change your thinking from dog is being scary to dog is announcing. Dog is praised to the skies for the alert AND coming. Unsure which the dog thinks the praise is for, one is never quite sure how the dog mind works. Yesterday the dogs caught a squirrel. I blocked off the dying animal and called them into the house. They happily came for a cookie which they richly deserved for coming away from a super fun toy. If they hadn't had all the rewarding for coming in for barking I doubt they could have left something as exciting as a squirrel. Neither dog has particularly high prey drive but still.

The way it works best here is when I'm moving around the door is open for dogs to be outside. When I sit back down the dogs come back inside so they are allowed outside about half the day. This means if barking starts up I'm already up so able to get them inside to stop the barking faster and they must miss plenty of fun reasons to bark when inside.

 

[Lovelymuffy69]

Thank you... After my initial shock of his reaction and me reacting to his reaction...which was to put myself in my office and close the door... I do realize this was a fear reaction. He is a fearful pup and we def are doing the best to help him. It is good to have this forum to help talk me off the ledge as well. I gave him some cuddles and then the ups guy showed up but I did the distraction thing with a treat and a shhh and he barked a little but back to his tail wagging happy self. It's just recognising it everytime..

 

[Lovelymuffy69]

Rory was inside but the windows are opened and I've heard my neighbor remark how scary he sounds and how she is 'afriad' of big dogs... He is 70 lbs now. He does go outside, but he prefers to be with me all the time.. (We are working on that too) and during my lunch; we just had a fun frisbee game. He is mastering catching the frisbee.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

If you have a suitable fence for the dog you have, I wouldn't worry about your neighbor and what they think. Always focus on working with helping Rory to move past the situation yall find yall selves in. You can't undo what happen to cause it, you can't change the reaction, but you can know enough about Rory to move him forward and out of it on to new things. Does he like cookies... my guys about to get into a scuffle with each other.. "Hey want a cookie as I say it and walk away",, come with me.. lol they break like nothing was happening trotting together with each other , skipping and jumping all the way to the cookie jar back at the house... Dogs can be complex in some ways but they super , superficial simple minded easily distracted with the right motivation in other ways.... Hang in there... be creative...