New behaviour...

by **Rachel33** Sat Aug 31 2013, 20:47

SO.. as you all know, Biscuit has a few doggy friends that she socializes with regularly, but since moving to Devon we've had to leave her friends behind and unfortunately haven't as of yet managed to make any new ones so she's been majorly lacking in socialization.

She is a very mixed up little lady and can be selective with other dogs, meetings very much have to be on her terms and she doesn't like dogs sniffing her back end or chasing her in play.. she is very much the bossy ex breeding bitch and though she has NEVER put her teeth on another dog, if they overstep the boundaries she has been known to try and pin them. Where I walk Biscuit is a very quiet area, but when we do see dogs there, they're generally off lead and 9 times out of 10 will come running up to her. She has lived with other dogs without a problem, and accepts "family" very well, just isn't keen on unknown dogs invading her space.

Where as before she would just act terrified and react accordingly (often with barking, rearing up and trying to get away) since her confidence has grown she's carrying out a new behaviour. As soon as she sees another dog now she will lie down and freeze, almost in a collie kind of stalky way, she won't break eye contact with the other dog and when they get close enough she will dart forward, in what I can imagine is a chasing them away kind of movement. There was an incident a little while back with an idiot dog walker that wouldn't call his dogs off and they ended up pretty much surrounding her, she just froze and wouldn't take her eyes off of them. When she gets like this no matter what I try to distract her with she will not budge. If she's not muzzled I won't let her meet other peoples dogs as she is so selective and so bloody strong, and we all know what would happen if anything went wrong. Anyone that's seen her do this has said it's a good/calming behaviour, but she's just so tense and still I see it as more of a stalky behaviour. The thing is she does really like other dogs company and I think part of it is frustration too that she can't meet, but the few times that I have let her it's either gone very well or she's pinned their dog and we've got a bad name for ourselves! Any help or ideas of how to work with this?