Help Needed With Aggression Problem

[cklks]

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my family and i have a 2 yr old female blue merle border collie called rosie. within the last 6 months or so she has started to show real aggression but only towards me. she is fine with our older dog, holly, whom she completely respects, my mum, dad, my older brothers and my younger sister, but when it comes to me it is a different story.

Even though i walk her in the afternoons, i feed her, i play with her and i have done all her training, something has gone wrong in her head.

if i look at her under a bed she will start growling and snarling, showing me her teeth and being really nasty, so if i try to go and grab her i know i would probably get bitten.

she can turn aggressive at any time, even if i have just come back from a walk with her and i go to take off her lead, she will start showing the aggression for no particular reason.

she will show all the aggression if i approach her when she is cuddling my mum , dad, sister or any of my brothers, as though she is protecting them from me, and sometimes i only have to make any move near the other person ( e.g. go from kneeling to standing up ) and she will start growling.

then other times i can be cuddling her and i only have to touch her head, nose or back and she starts to growl, snarl, show me her teeth, etc. the furthest she has come to biting is when she snapped at me and one of my fingers ended up between her teeth, but she instantly let go and jumped off, turning around to face me and continuing to snarl and growl and show me all of her teeth.

virtually every time she is aggressive with me she will run off and hide, but if i go to find her she will continue the aggression.

she will not come to me much in the house any more when i call her, though she responds fine to everyone else.

the really weird thing is that she is fine with me outside of the house on a walk, and i can stroke her, etc with no problems.

she has always been aggressive over her food bowl, which we think is because she is copying the older dog, holly, when from when holly will be nasty towards rosie when rosie will try to approach holly eating, but with rosie only being aggressive towards me is really puzzling everyone in the family. seeing as i have done all the basic training with her, i take her for her 2nd walk each day (my mum takes her for her walk in the morning), i am the one to give her treats. etc, i dont know why she is doing this. i dont want her to continue this but i dont know what to do. i have tried ignoring her, i have tried to be nice and reward her with treats and toys when she comes to me and lets me stroke her without aggression etc. but she will suddenly turn aggressive even when i am being nice with treats, etc. so i dont understand it. i have even tried ignoring her aggression in case she is attention seeking, but nothing is working!

i dont know whether she see's herself above me in the pack order or what but i really need to stop her aggression towards me as soon as possible.

please can you help me? i dont know what else i can do

from

catherine.

 

[Strike Whippets]

Without actually seeing her and the way she's behaving, my only suggestion is ....

Blue Merle Collies are the hardest type of Collie there is ......They seem to have on average, more fire, dominance issues etc .... I would suspect as you do the most with her she's just going straight for the top ...If she can dominate you then the others in your family will be really easy .....You need to go back to basics ...including your other girl as its not acceptable for ANY dog to be food aggressive ....... I'm just running around after a litter of pups so I'll email you some training tips later :thumbsup:

 

[jinnyfizz]

Hi Catherine

My heart goes out to you, it is very difficult when this happens and collies do become very set in their ways.

I have owned a blue merle rescue (many years ago) and he had issues with alot of things so I learnt about their characteristics at close quarters. Since then I have had another two collies, one who was perfect in every way but unfortunately died from a brain haemmorhage at 4 years old and another rescue who, like yours, showed aggression if she wasn't getting her own way.

I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs here, but collies do need to have "a job" and if they don't have one they will create one for themselves. It sounds as though your girl has decided to take on the "job" of protecting the rest of your family from you and she is challenging you for the position of pack leader.

I agree with Helen that you need to go back to basics with her and start right from the beginning again, ensuring that she understands you intend to stay as pack leader. In addition to this, can you invent a "job" for her? If you can engage her brain and introduce her to complex puzzles, such as seek and fetch with a special, favourite object (just an old rag will work or a ball), you will be half way to gaining her interest and respect again as she will start to see you as a pack leader she wants to be with rather than someone who provides food and treats.

Here are a couple of links to organisations who will give you advice and training tips specifically for border collies................

http://www.bordercollierescue.org/

http://www.wiccaweys.co.uk/start.html

Good luck, keep us in touch with what happens :luck: :luck: :thumbsup:

 

[FeeFee]

I'm really sorry you are having these problems, but I'm afraid this sort of aggression issue isn't something anyone can really advise about over the internet without seeing the dog and the various interaction in the family.

I'd suggest you get a good behaviourist in as soon as possible to advise. If you let me know where you are I may be able to get a recommendation for someone in your area.

Good luck, I hope you manage to get some help and get this sorted out :luck:

 

[em21]

This is really sad I hope you manage to get it sorted :luck:

I think the advice given is very good :thumbsup: Collies are so intelligent they just need to be stimulated, like Jane said, he needs a job. I/my family have had a colliex for 11 years now and when he was younger he used to get very destructive if he was bored, cost us sooo much money :- " Even now at 11 years old he still needs that "something to do" and has bags of energy (w00t)

I really hope you get this sorted, get some professional help like Feefee said :thumbsup: lots of luck :luck: :luck: :luck:

Emma xxx

 

[cklks]

hi

she does kind of have a 'job' to do - she loves to pester, stare at and chase our 3 cats. also, as she is a ball obbessed collie, i will happily throw a ball for her to play fetch with when she is not being nasty.

 

[em21]

Do you take her to obedience/agility/flyball? Anything like that? Maybe she just needs abit more than what she has got at the moment? Have you had collies or other breeds before?

If you have any photos of her, would be nice to see her :thumbsup:

Emma xxx

 

[cklks]

hi

she has been to 2 lots of training classes, so she knows all the basics except walking to heel for which we have just brought one of the new non-pull harnesses for, which seems to help.

we are planning on starting agility with her within the next couple of months as soon as we have found somewhere good (now that the summer hols etc are over for a while). on walks she loves to walk along walls and she also loves to jump over an obstacle both inside the house or out on walks, so i am looking forward to starting agility as i think she would be real good at it.

i like teaching her different tricks, though so far she has only learnt to do tricks like speak on command and roll right over on command. she will also jump over an obstacle on command quite happily, especially if the reward is for a tennis ball (her favorite toy!)

i am thinking of maybe starting flyball with her once she has settled into her agility classes, but im not sure if there is a flyball class near where i live at the moment. i think she would love flyball given half a chance as it does combine her 3 favourite activities - running, jumping over jumps and, the ultimate reward of a tennis ball!

i will definetly have a look into possible flyball classes once we have started agility classes though.