Can You Help Me Make Her Nice?!?!?!

I-Love-My-Fluffy-Puppy!! · Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:44 pm

Hi everyone!!! First off I wanna say this is a great site and you all know a whole lot about chows. I adopted my first chow last year . . . like me, she is a Katrina victim. I found out she had heartworms a few months ago but that's all taken care of (thank God!!). She loves my boyfriend and I but will growl and bite at everyone else. I love her a lot and I'm not gonna get rid of her, but I hate not being able to invite anyone in or let her near anyone.

Another problem is her attitude towards other animals. She looks at cats like they're big chew toys! I have 3 cats of my own. I have a town house so I keep the cats downsairs and the dog upstairs, and I feel bad because she only has 2bedrooms and a bathroom to run around in. As far as other dogs go, she can't be around them. Where I live there is a leash law and I ALWAYS abide by this law. One day, Baby Girl and I were out on a walk and my neighbor (who always has her bulldog off it's leash) came out with her dogs. Her bulldog nipped Baby's tail and before I could react she turned around and had half of the dogs face in her mouth. It's not as gruesome as it sounds, she didn't draw any blood but it could have been A LOT WORSE!!!!! On top of that, my neighbors still let their dogs out w/o a leash.

Another one . . . sometime when she has a chewy/bone, and i come near her she growls and acts like she's gonna bite me. She never has bitten me and I don't think she will. After she growls and I tell her 'no' she always comes back and paws at me like she's tryin to say sorry!!

One last problem . . . she doesn't play with toys and she always seems bored?!? What's with her?

Sincerely,
Naomi

If you guys think theres anything I should know or do please let me know!![/img]

Post by **chris** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:32 pm

First things first... Your Chow turning around and putting the other dogs face that bit her tail would be a natural reaction. that should have been expected. Not that it's acceptable.. but Chows are not going to sit there and take it. They will react.

you may want to socialize your baby with the cats slowly and supervised... she will eventualy get used to them.. at least you want to hope thats what will happen. When someone comes over.. introduce your chow... do NOT let the person try to pet her...let your chow decide if she is going to LET that person pet her. Another suggestion is bribery... we had a friend that would come over with treats in his pocket.. every time he came over he would give our first chow a treat...and he would have more in his pocket. Before you knew it... they were best friends.

I never had a food agression thing with my chows... at least with ME taking the food away from them.

The others will chime in here and welcome to the board... and thank you for adopting.

I-Love-My-Fluffy-Puppy!! · Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:57 pm

Thanx for the info!! Here's wat i left out, she's 3 yrs old and I beleive she was abused by her previous owner. Do you think it's going to be hard to break her nasty old habits???

Thanks,
Naomi

Salandra · Post by **Salandra** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 12:17 am

Welcome to the board.

IMO, I think the most important thing to concentrate on atm is the growling at you when she has a chew bone. That is unacceptable. She needs to know you are the Alpha, not her.

My girls don't growl at me but will growl at each other. When that happens, all chew bones and toys go up for a day or two. And they know why.

The key is to not be afraid, as she will sense it if you are. Grab her mane behind her ears, tell her stop growling, "no growl" and take the bone away from her.

Others will have more advice for you, maybe better than mine.

chowfrnd88 · Post by **chowfrnd88** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:04 am

Chris is right, carfeul socialization is the key. You can do the same thing with people and other dogs. Make sure the dogs are all on leash and allow them to meet to smell, you wnat to build up as many positive experiences as possible so that she has possitive associations with other animals. With people, also make sure she is on leash, let her show interst in them. They could crouch down to her level and then she could sniff them, eventually (after many positive encounters with people) they can offer her treats in their open palms so again she can approach and just take the treat without coming into much physical contact with the person. Just keep doing things like this slowly and she should repsond. What worked for us in terms of having people "allowed in" our apartment is going outisde to meet our guest, then you all (including Baby Girl and the guest) all come inside at once. This is the technique we used when we first got Special and it worked. If someone knocked, he would be antsy if we let them in but if we all came in together, he was accepting. Then slowly you can work on having her allow people who knock or ring the doorbell in. What we did was once Special was comfortable with certian people, we had them ring the doorbell and then they he saw that people who knock, etc. can also be good, people he wants to see.

We've had food aggression issues with Special D only with certain treats). Sally is right, this growling need sto be stopped before thinsg get worse. I misundertsood his growl as a play growl and got nipped. We got help from Melanie (Iliamnasquest) and saw a behaviorist. The most important thing to remember is please do not get physical, no grabbing by the scruff, no shaking, no alpha roll, none of that what so ever. You could be in for serious injury if you do that. You're essentially taking an excited animal and raising the level of negative excitement and it could quickly get to a dangerous level. You want to establish that you are a positive thing around her food. You are only a giver, never a taker. You could try to ask her to sit or give you a paw or something before you give her food (this is part of the NILIF technique-nothing in life is free). Once she is eating, you could call her name and once she looks at you give her a treat. You're giving her something even better, this will show her that when you are near her food, you are not there to take anything away. You may wnat to start doing this from a few feet away. Once she looks at you when you call her name, toss her the treat (don't throw it at her though!

), then you can closer once she's relaible with this. Don't treat her if she growls. I still do this once in a while with Special, he is happy to stop eating even the most prized treat to see what other goodies I have. You can also teach her the leave it and drop it commands, these will help out a lot too. I know this is just a brief overview of a lot of techniques, please pm me if you have more questions or would like details about how to do certain things. The thing to remember is don't get angry, you want to remain calm and make all of this positive for her without letting her get away with growling. If she growls and is allowed to keep eating she learns that it works and it's okay to do that, so you wnat to remove any perceived need for growling. Good luck!

Post by **chris** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:40 am

http://www.kippsdogs.com

This is Melanie's web site. There is also alot of information there for you. She is really good with training.

I-Love-My-Fluffy-Puppy!! · Sat Apr 28, 2007 9:18 am

thanx so much for that site it rocked!! I printed so much info my printer ran outta ink lol

Naomi & BG

monicaxyz · Post by **monicaxyz** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:53 am

hi,
welcome to the board. my suggestion is for dealing with agressive behavior toward people entering your home. when someone is about to come over, but before they enter your home, put your chow on leash and tie the leash at least ten feet from the front door, but within sight of the door. when the doorbell rings and your chow starts barking, give her a treat and say something like: "It's ok, I'll take care of it." then put more treats on the floor in front of her where she can help herself, walk away and open the front door and greet your visitor. tell them to completely ignore your chow, who may continue barking. for the rest of time that your visitor is in the house mostly ignore your chow. if the visit lasts a longish time, go over once in a while, pet her, give her a treat, tell her everything is ok. for safety keep her tie until the visitor leaves, then untie, take leash off, give more treats and lots of praise. you may have to do this for a while, but eventually she'll figure out that it's ok for her to let you be in charge. hope this helps.