Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi, we have a dog named Bucket she is HW positive and is aggressive towards other animals. We have had her for about 6months. She has had 2 different fosters that have had to return her due to her behavior. Other Heartworm positive dogs have came and gone and still we have her. She is our pop up as soon as you log onto our website we post her on our Facebook page. I need help on what else I can do for her. It breaks my heart to watch her sit here. Any information is very much appreciated! Thanks. 

Hi PHS Foster Coord, Without seeing Bucket I'm not really sure what her behavior is.  Can she be corrected quickly with a firm "NO"?

Have you ever heard of the 2 second rule?  It means we have 2 seconds to correct a dog's unwanted behavior.  After that they aren't really going to hear us. 

For example we had  German Shepherd who had a lot of challenging behaviors and when we brought her into our home, with out 2 other dogs I had to correct her quickly.  This was for the safety of our other 2 dogs, who we had already had for years.  So much as a dirty look directed at our oldest dog (who was a German Shepherd mix and a lot smaller than the German Shepherd) was corrected immediately.  I did this with a fast, firm, no nonsense "NO" and an angry look on my face.  It worked for her every time. 

On the other hand when she did something that was a wanted behavior we praised her to high heaven, letting her know what a GOOD girl she was.  And I made sure she saw the happy expression on my face.  She was eager to please, so this made our work easier.  Plus she also learned wanted behavior from watching our 2 other dogs.

I hope this is helpful and wish you the best with Bucket.

I came across this article, didn't read all of it but you may find it helpful.

http://www.dogtrainingme.com/how-to-stop-dog-aggression/