Introduction

Hi there!

Here's where I tell you what this blog is, so pay attention - there will be a quiz!

What?

This is my baby, we're going to call him Monster. He's a beautiful Cane Corso male, and the love of my life. He's perfect: smart, handsome, funny - everything you could wish for! But he's also a monster...

He was born in the summer of 2010, and he moved in with me in the fall of the same year.

Happy and free...

We were going to conquer the world together! We were going to show all other dogs what's what, competing in obedience, tracking, maybe agility, and certainly dog shows...

And then came January, 2011. One day out walking, Monster suddenly started barking at another dog. No big deal, I thought: he was in an age to be a little loopy, overreact, try new stuff, whatever. I told him to cut it out and carried on with our walk. Next day, same thing. Day after that he did it again. By now I was starting to get a bit annoyed with this rude behavior, but I still didn't really see it as a problem. A week or so later he bit me for the first time...

Who, me!?

Here began a year of trying to find a "fix". I grew up with dogs, everyone in my family has dogs, close to everyone I know has dogs. I've known scared dogs, calm dogs, friendly dogs, bored dogs, clever dogs, stupid dogs, sick dogs, old dogs, hyper dogs, "dominant" dogs and I don't know what you are but you're weird dogs. I honestly thought I knew dogs... Hah!

I've tried the traditional leadership/dominance methods, I've tried the more modern reward-or-ignore methods, I've tried hybrids of these, and I've gone back and forth. I can't say I've definitely found a fix, but I have found something I believe in, and which has shown some positive results (some negative too). I have certainly found what doesn't work. I've met different instructors, I've read a bunch of books, and I've cried and cursed and tried it all again.

At his worst, Monster would react to the sight of another dog 500 feet away by going up on his hind legs, roaring and chewing foam, hanging himself at the end of the leash. When he couldn't reach the other dog he would turn on me. I have scars from his teeth I'll carry as a reminder long after he's gone. He weighs around 100 pounds, and his behavior was honestly quite dangerous, so I was pretty much willing to try anything to make it stop. Some things made it worse right away, other things made it better for a while only to give a nasty surprise eventually, and some things had no effect whatsoever. I have no amazing reveal of a wonder cure to give you, all I can say so far is that the last few months Monster hasn't bitten me once. Hopefully that is the start of a slow reveal of one way to effectively "fix" an aggressive dog, but I can't promise anything. After all, I don't know yet...

This was just a quick (all right, stop rolling your eyes back there) introduction to us, our issues, and what this blog is about. From now on I'll be writing about my thoughts on various methods and ideas of training dogs, as well as our successes and failures with Monster's aggression issues. If you have similar problems, check us out from time to time, maybe you can find something useful here. If you're a dog expert and want to tell me all I've done wrong and what I should be doing instead, feel free to leave a comment. I may not listen to you, but that doesn't mean you're not right. If you're just bored and want to laugh at the idiot who kept an aggressive dog even after it bit her, you're welcome too. And if you're a dog hater who wants to find even more reasons why dogs are horrible and should be outlawed, nothing I tell you will mean anything to you anyway so go right ahead. I'll just leave you with this, for now:

My Monster. He's wonderful.