Dog Psychology...

[fix]

Even now a few days later, when one of the fam shows max their wounds and says look what you did max, his ears flatten a little and he heads the other way to look for a place to lay down...He remembers all right.

Sounds like you've got a smart dog. I don't think you'll have these type of problems anymore. People more qualified than me would disagree, and probably discredit my arguments by touting their experience, but there are some dogs who...just get it, for lack of a better term.

 

[brownie0486]

Do you want to take the chance of another incident is the question left for the owner.

The next time could be worse than this event. Who will feel guilty about their decisions then? Who would suffer the most?

What if it's the kid next door next time? Could end up losing the house and at the least costing mucho donero to defend. Homeowners insurance will have a field day as it is a "second" event.

As much as I love dogs, they are not to be trusted at that age once they have turned [ for any reason ].

Glad I'm not in those shoes having to make the decisions on this one. My decision would be to get the dog a new home with no children or find a someone who lives alone and can work with the dog by themselves.

Dogs respond to voice inflection quite nicely, determining the speakers attitude and demeanor. Cause he was ears down when another sais "look what you did" doesn't mean he knows what you are talking about, it's the tone it's spoken in he is responding to.

I had a shutzen trained shep that was at the highest levels of training right from germany. At 3 years old he had to go unfortunately. That or suffer potential lawsuits which wasn't about to happen at my location.

It's hard to make the decision, it will be harder for everyone concerned if and when it happens again.
Brownie

 

[W Turner]

I agree with Brownie on the ears flattening. My wife and I got our first GSD mix(Samson) right before we got married, added a full blooded female GSD(Sera) six months afterward, and recently when Sam came up missing, we adopted an app. 9 mo. old male GSD from the local animal shelter.

Sam was the best dog I have ever had, I could look at him and say words of praise to him, but if my tone of voice and all over demeanor were intimidating, his ears would go down and he would not meet my eyes. On the other hand I could dog-cuss him in the nicest tone possible and he would respond well to it. The dog is responding to the scolding tone rather than actually making the connection between the wounds and his behavior. Compound this with the fact that he understands that the dominance situation that he is used to is changing/has changed and he is probably confused anyway.

I am glad that you are looking for information before you remove the dog form the situation. From what I have seen, when a historically stable dog is involved in an incident like this, the cause is usually related to a screwup on the part of a human either at the time fo the incident or prior to it.

Mino

 

[igor]

Edward, your folks don't seem to be getting it yet anyhow. But in the spirit of your thread subject:

the dog for dang sure doesn't "remember" jack from what happened. It is a very clever social pack animal that lives entirely in the moment: us humans just have the power of fantasy to attach all sorts of human-world meanings to the dog's behavior, gestures and such. That's how dog eventually evolved into a symbiotic being with man - but they didn't develop a perception of time or linear sequence of events as we know it in the process.

Seriously, if your folks are at that level with their understanding and relationship with the dog, it might be a better idea to get rid of it. Without some serious training the risk remains. And this means mostly training on the humans. Sending the dog away to be trained, which seems so popular in that part of the world, does nothing to the social structure the dog lives in, nor adds anything to the insight the humans need to have into the dog's frame of reference.

I feel like a total arse to make such a 180 degrees turn from earlier on, but it seems that I read more into your description of the situation now than there was. My mistake, I'm sorry but still wish for the very best.

 

[J. Garand]

I have a 90lb black GSD. That dog of yours knows dam well he made a mistake. trust your gut. you got home and he was saying i screwed up, he knew. As for the ass kicking he got, he had that coming and knew that to.
He knew.
I relate to the dominance issue. my dog only has eyes for me. my wife tries to correct her and always wimps out and gets bulled by the dog. the dog minds her and protects her but does not snap to like she does for me.
GSD 's have guarding issues. They are also or can be very bullheaded as you already know. they want to get thier way. dont hurt your dog. he was doing what he thought was right. get some training. that cant be trained after 4 years old is a load of opinion. you know how smart that dog is. the trick is to bring it out in them, a good trainer will train you,,and your dog.
good luck and as a german shepherd lover, thank you for not killing your dog right off the bat. that reflects well on you.

 

[brownie0486]

The dog knew from their raised voices and the inflection and tones that soemthing was amiss, not because he remembered 5 minutes later that he bit the wrong people.

The dog thought it was doing the right thing, the reaction by families members is the only thing the dog reacted to, not his cognitive skills and thought processes that he screwed up.

Thats not to say dogs are not very intelligent, it also doesn't mean the dog therfore can have a thought process about cause and effect a few minutes after the event either.

Look, I can take any dog and scold it with the "sweet" voice in a soft cuddly tone and it will respond to me accordingly as they are prone to do. I can also then speak to the dog in an agitated, raised voice with no correction at all for anything it may or may not have done and it will respond accordingly with ears down, tail between the legs, etc.

Dogs to not have thought processes, they respond to us through voice inflections and gestures. I wave my arms like I'm telling her to go lay down like she did something wrong but instead ask her if she wants a treat and it will confuse the dog as the two signals are counter productive and she has not had to deal with that before.

She's reacting to the gesture and bad tones but hears treat and gets confused. Doesn't know what I want from her. No thought processes, just a reaction to me.

Their attention span when you are "working" them is not long and training needs to be often but short sessions accordingly. They feed off our emotions and tonal ques as well as visuals with hands, etc.

Yes, the dog reacted 5 minutes later to the owner and thats all it was doing, thats all dogs do without a brain to process good and bad on their own. They need stimulus from outside sources to react in a certain way.

He got the stimulus when the owner got home and 5 minutes later I'm sure the house was still quite hectic and not normal to the dog who then decided it better go lay low, not because it thought "damn, I just did something wrong" on it's own.

Brownie

 

[Edward429451]

You're right brownie. I tried the inflection thing you spoke of and you're absolutely correct there. But the thing is though that the day it hapened and I came in, the dog was in the basement far away from the other fam, oh wait, dog ears. Touche'

Scolding him in a good boy voice, praising him in a bad boy voice and he responds like you said he would. He picks up on key words here & there and looks confused though. I'm still not totally convinced that he remembered not though. When I walked up on him in the basement that day, I didn't say anything right off and he looked mighty guilty & worried. Isn't it feasible that the behavior you describe is the rule but not the exception? This dog is smart and (seemingly) has been on his best behavior ever since the incident. Can dogs have exceptions as fitz suggested or am I just deluding myself with wishful thinking? I don't agree with absolutely everything you said but realize you're trying to help and I appreciate it, thanks. I remain open minded on the subject.

We even went as far as to set the dog up. I was in the other room and instructed the fam to begin yelling and screaming to test his reaction. He layed down and was quiet. (Because alpha was in the other room or he has learned and responded appropriately?) The fam wasn't keen on trying it with me away understandably.

Excellant links posted above, lots of good reading there. Forget who posted the links, but thanks. We've been doing the yielding thing suggested and the dog responds favorably to all but resists a little with my son.

Max shows promise and the fam has reversed their stance to get rid of him so we'll continue to work with him more and probably take him to a pro training session. One more incident and he's gone though. Thanks to all for giving their insight into the matter.

 

[brownie0486]

My guess would be that the house was in "disorder" and confusion/panic tonals with the injuries where the voices reflected that.

He heard you interacting with the family about what had occured when you got home and the signals were that alpha [ you ] was now home and involved.

As long as a family member was still inflecting panic, concern, etc and alpha was home now, Max would connect there was a "problem" and act accordingly in a submissive manner to alpha upon his physical presence [ usually waiting to see what alphas manner was and deferring to alpha and feeding off the "vibes" given one way or the other.

My guess, and it's only a guess as each dog is a little different [ they have personalities like us which vary from breed to breed and within their own breeds themselves ] that as long as there was commotion/panic/raised voices etc coming from family members he was going to defer to alpha and play the "wait and see".

Though you did not speak immediately to Max, he was painfully aware there was still a problem due to the tonals of the others. They get very submissive if they even "think" alpha is upset.

Most do not realize how well dogs can hear. As an example, my own Akita [ though no longer with us ] could be at the park and off lead playing a good distance [ say 50 yrds ] away and I'd call her name. She would keep her nose to the ground like she didn't hear me. As a test several times, I would call her name and she would not respond in the slightest manner to her name. I then would open a waxed paper bag like I was getting a doughnut hole out for her and she heard the bag rustling when opened and came running [ from 50 yrds out ]. The bag was hidden from her view, it was sound alone that got her attention.

She could hear the bag open but couldn't "hear" me call her name. Ya, right.

Once she had been to the park for any length of time, she knew when I called her we were going home. She didn't want to go so she ignored me like she didn't hear me.

I solved the problem by calling her once, if she did not respond and look up for further direction, I walked to her and put her on lead and in the car with a correction on the lead so she knew I was not happy about it. After several times of this at the park, she would look up and wait for the next signal/command. If I called her back, she started in my direction immediately.

She would play the game and try to make me call her twice [ to see if I really wanted her attention ]. That got old so I would call her once and if no response immediately, I'd start walking to her. As soon as I did that, she would come running [ unfortunately, too late as I continued to her and put the lead on with the correction so she knew I was unhappy ] and into the car. No words were spoken.

She would play the games until she knew she couldn't get away with them and would lose her freedom to roam. I would call her back and when she got there, let her go run again repeatedly everytime at the park [ daily ].
I did this so she knew that when I called her, she didn't necessarily get put into the car and go home.

She learned well over the years and I never had to touch her in anger. She knew with no words spoken I was displeased with her if I had to walk to her or move in her direction because she did not respond.

Dogs want/live to keep alpha happy once the rules have been established.

I think you are on the right track here. I would suggest this if I were in your shoes, but it's only a suggestion to consider.

Have the family go to a park with you [ or anywhere you can have some family time ]. Call him from off lead. Do what I did if there is no immediate response to you. Once he is "good to go" with you, have a family member call him. Same scenario, no response, go get him on lead. He'll learn pretty quick that he needs to pay attention to others in the house besides you.

I wish you all the luck with Max sir. I hope it all works out for you and the family. There is nothing like having a dog in your life if you like dogs at all. My Akita [ Akasha ] brought so much joy to my wife and I in so many different ways. She now rests on the mantle of the fireplace and will always be with us.

Respectfully

Brownie

 

[gyp_c2]

Good...

Sounds like you've really been workin' on this!

...don't for one second get all warm and fuzzy enough to forget what he's capable of.

Not a scare thing...a be aware thing and get to it thing...Follow up on his training...and you'll all live happily ever after, just don't let it slip to the back burner or lose its' priority...Good Luck and hang in there, He sounds like a good dog and will be a great one once he's trained...g2

 

[one-shot-one]

$0.02 more

note that dogs do not sense only tone of words, but also smells, faking a confrountation may not always "fool" the dog who may smell that the actors are not for real.
also note that at least some dogs do learn words and there meaning,
my dog loves for you to spray the garden hose into the air for him to chase you can ask him "wana play hose" in the gruffest of tone and he will still be ready to go but tell him "bathtub" in the sweetest tone you can muster and he will hide from you!

 

[Edward429451]

...don't for one second get all warm and fuzzy enough to forget what he's capable of.

I hear ya'. I was thinking about that. The incident lasted around 20 seconds and they were all on the floor. Can't say good dog, but efficient dog for sure.

note that dogs do not sense only tone of words, but also smells, faking a confrountation may not always "fool" the dog who may smell that the actors are not for real.

This occured to me and is a very good point. Maybe should try it again, hope the neighbors don't call in on us.

Lotsa good advice here, kudos to all who responded!