New aggressive BC pup

[GA628]

New member here.  Please don't judge me.  I'm sincere and trying.

I picked up a Border Collie pup a month ago.  He was 8 weeks at the time, so now he's around 12-13.  We run a large cattle operation and I thought I may could utilize him to help in the pens and with calves at times, but was going to be completely fine if he just turned out to be a farm dog.  After all, we live an active lifestyle, way out on a farm, plenty of room to run and play.  Surely, we can handle a Border Collie after 14 years with a laid back Golden Retriever can't we?  I have kids, 10 and 8, so I picked a pup from a split breeding between work and non-work, hoping that he wouldn't turn out to be super aggressive.  He is a Merle, which may or may not mean he isn't from serious working lines.  Well......It doesn't appear to have turned out that way! 

"Shep" is SERIOUS about herding at only 12 weeks.  He herds leaves, balls, kids, my wife, and even me at times.  Started out kind of cute, but now he gets very irritated if you don't turn around and starts growling and biting at the front of your legs.  Not nipping, BITING!  He's very vocal.  Growling and barking when he's "herding," and if you scold him, he just gets even more aggressive.  There is no backing down in this pup.  He's had both my wife and kids in tears, cornered somewhere, growling at them.  He's a big pup, 16.8 lbs a few days ago.

I'm not going to let this beat me.  I'm determined to help him become a great dog and part of our family, and I understand that his instinct tells him to herd at all cost.  I'm trying to find a good trainer in NC or upstate SC to work with him and channel his instincts, but until he is old enough for that, I HAVE to stop the people herding!  He listens decent to me.  We have a recall that I'd say is about 75% effective, and down command that he respects as long as it comes from me.  He could care less what my wife or kids tell him to do.  Obviously, I'll protect my family first, but I know that hitting him or anything physical is not the way to correct this.  In the heat of the moment, I overreacted and shoved him off my daughter once.  He didn't shy away, he came back harder.  Where do I start?  

We love him, he's beautiful, we respect his instinct and don't hold it against him, but we have to fix this aggression towards people.  I'll try to attach a cute, innocent picture of him and my son.  90% of the time they get along perfect, but that 10% get ugly real quickly.

[Riika]

To address one of the earlier points you stated, not necessarily related to your question, well bred working dogs are not aggressive. Confidence and bite on stock does not translate to aggression towards humans. I have a very tough and aggressive female, and her breeder has a male so tough I actually saw him topple an adult cow one time, but both are as friendly and delighted to see people, any person, stranger or not, as a Golden Retriever.

Second, the behaviors you’re seeing are not actually herding behaviors. All breeds of dogs does this to a certain extent. Something physical is the correct way to stop this. If he were mine, I’d start to break this immediately by having whoever he starts acting like this toward, pick him up by the scruff and shake him, saying “no!” in a growly tone. It’s a bit extreme, but it sounds like he’s being a bit extreme as well. Once he starts backing down, back down your punishment to the appropriate level for his level of attitude. His growl will shut off or turn to a whine very fast, and when it does, you’re at the right level, or can even back down a bit. 

Also, if you know that this starts at certains times/situations/when he’s tired, try to avoid it by crating him when you see it starting to come, until he calms down. But when it happens, don’t ignore it. 

You also need to get all the family members on board with training him, and get him to respect all of them. A simple start to this is 1. instead of just feeding him, train him using his kibble as treats, and 2. have the rest of the family take turns doing this as well. 

[D'Elle]

Agree with Riika in that A) this is not herding behavior, and well bred working border collies are not aggressive towards human beings, and, b) You absolutely must get all family members of all ages to agree to handle this issue in the same way or you will only create more problems. Consistency is the most important thing in training a dog.

What I would do if I had this issue is every single time, without ever an exception for any reason, that he behaves in any of these undesirable ways you have described, I would immediately take him by the collar, gently and without saying anything other than a firm "no" (not harsh, Not yelled, not angry), and put him in his crate. Have the crate in a different room, so that the result of his behaving badly is that he gets immediately separated from the entire family. Leave him there 5 minutes. Let him out, with no comment at all. No petting, no scolding. As soon as he behaves badly again, back into the crate he goes. This should be done as if it were a law of the universe, like gravity. Not with an attitude of punishment. If you do this every single time, his behavior will change. No young dog, especially a border collie, wants to be separated from his family. You must be patient and continue however long this takes. Don't do it for a week and then say, "that didn't work". It WILL work, but I can't tell you how long it will take. Remember the time will go by anyway, however long it is. At the end of those days or weeks or months you will have a dog who behaves well, or not, according to what you do with that time.

Welcome to the BC Boards. Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

[Mandy1961]

We have had a similar situation. We are a family of 4 adults and our puppy Harry who is 7 months old now, used to bite and growl at us. He got different reactions, from each of us, which in turn gave him mixed messages as to what was allowed. As soon as we were all in agreement that bad behaviour was not acceptable, we gave him time out in our conservatory and let him see what he is missing by playing ball, he only needs the threat of time out now if he misbehaves, which happens when he gets overexcited.

P.s. Harry was 16 lb at 16 weeks, so you are right, you have a big boy there.

[ShellyF]

I think you are describing what we have all been through with our pups haha!

We found the crate idea helpful except that on most occasions the crate wasn’t near enough to be effective. 

What we figured out with the help of others on this board was that this cranky unacceptable behavior (that looks like the most aggressive dog in the world) is usually tiredness and getting our boy rest time in his crate gave his brain time to switch off and relax. 

I agree that every family member has to be on board and don’t be afraid to use a ‘no’ if that’s the easiest word for everyone to remember. Arms waving, body movement, grabbing the dog - these can all seem like part of the game. What worked for us was giving an alternate command. Our guy knew how to sit and lie down but wouldn’t do this when he was excited. So, we quickly taught him to stand so that when he got out of hand we would say ‘stand’ and of course he did because he was standing anyway haha! But he recognized it as a command and we quickly followed it with another command and another and got his brain focused on training. 

He now only acts up when he’s stressed or tired. He might be stressed from being over tired, or from walking by a busy road, or too many people in a room talking or an animal smell or just coming inside from the cold and wanting to warm up. Depending on the situation I get him into training mood or hold him (not shake him) by the scruff in a calming way (think in terms of putting hands on shoulders to reassure a human). 

Consistency is important but I also find that different situations require a different technique (eg taking to a crate is great for when dog is acting up in the house but a different strategy is needed for in the field). One we use is ‘go find a stick’!

When in command mode I also stand tall with arms folded as much as possible and look ahead/aloof. Bending down/eye contact can seem like a play signal for pups in full on play fight mode! 

Provided you keep focused on your agreed strategy and don’t get stressed yourself it will get better. They do grow out of a lot of their nonsense!

As I type this our 8 month old has just come in from the cold. Hubby is playing with him with a toy and dog got over excited and play bit. Hubby said ‘ow’ loudly and took dog straight to crate with no other words. Dog does a sulky and noisy lie down in his crate and switches off almost immediately. He’s been up 3 hours and needs his morning nap even at 8 months lol! 

[jami74]

Oh goodness! Our boy was exactly the same at 12weeks. I felt like I'd made the biggest mistake in the world and that it would only be a matter of time before I had to make a very difficult decision. I laid in bed at night worrying what this little monster would grow into and whether I could keep everyone safe from him. I have to confess that probably the first 3 or 4 months with him were far harder than I expected. Your boy is a baby, you've had your own babies, think of him like a toddler child and how you'd approach unwanted behaviour. Ours is now 8 months and most of that behaviour is long forgotten, I don't think we've had a teeth incident since he got his adult ones through.

Our boy behaved the worse when he was tired. He might be lovely some of the time but then he'd get in this crazy mode where he was just horrible and would bite anyone and anything that moved and wouldn't take no for an answer. Once we realised this we stopped trying to 'tire him out' and encouraged more laying down quietly to sleep or chew on something.

Get the kids to teach him tricks if they haven't already. They should be able to teach sit, down, crawl, roll over, spin, touch, fetch, hide n seek etc. That'll make him more fun for them and when he does start misbehaving they can give him something to do instead.

No rough or excitable games! Our boy and our son were getting rougher and rougher with each other with snatching and tugging toys off each other, running around chasing each other, jumping, making lots of noise. Sometimes my son would just jiggle about or wave his hands for no reason and this would set our puppy off. Once he stopped playing fast exciting games within 24 hours the biting and 'controlling' reduced. I encouraged slower smoother movements and calm voices, if puppy started getting excited we assumed he was tired and ended the game. Both our son and puppy had to learn self control.

Is he still small enough that he can be picked up? Sometimes when ours just went a bit mad attacking our feet and legs in the early days if he didn't stop when we stood still we'd pick him up and put him away. A long toy like a scarf was a nice toy as we could drag it on the floor and it meant he'd play/attack that instead of our feet and legs.

Stick with it, treat him with respect and offer him different ways of behaving. He doesn't know he's being naughty, he is just behaving like a puppy.