Hello,
I have two dogs - a four and a half year old male beagle/bassett hound named Bailey and a two year old beagle mix named Daisy (she looks like she might be part German shorthair pointer). I have had Bailey for three years now and my fiance and I adopted Daisy just over a year ago. When we adopted her, the adoption counselor told us that Bailey was the dominant one in the household, however after reading several resources, including your book, it appears that Daisy is, in fact, the dominant dog. She goes through the door first, Bailey takes cues from her, he licks the inside of her mouth, etc. I think the fact that we have been treating Daisy as the subordinant dog may have something to do with her recent behavior problems.
Since we adopted Daisy, we have tried to socialize her as much as possible. We often took her to the dog park and she did very well with the other dogs. She and Bailey would often "play fight" at home, but she never seemed to do this with other dogs at the park. During the winter, we don't take the dogs to the park so they had about a five month break. However, during this time, Daisy was still introduced to new dogs, but always in the household and she did fine with them. After the five month break, I took them back to the dog park and Daisy did fine at first, but about an hour into the visit, she joined in with some other dogs and started aggessively barking and ganging up on a smaller dog. I took her home, thinking she was just being influenced by the other dogs.
For the next few visits, it was hit or miss. Daisy would sometimes do very well and other times she would begin the barking/bullying while chasing the other dogs around (or trying to get them to run around). She didn't seem to have a particular breed preference or anything. Soon, it became a constant so I began leashing her, still allowing her to socialize, but under my control. She did wonderful on the leash, but once I took her off, the aggressive behavior was actually more intense than it had been previously. She also does fine when greeting other dogs or people during walks on her leash and does not display these behaviors in or around the home. She's actually a very sweet, calm and loving dog at home. I'm not sure whether this is important to note or not, but when Daisy acts aggressively towards other dogs, Bailey generally behaved appropriately and did not join in, or would immediately stop if I spoke to him.
I have been working on leash training the dogs together - they are generally good separately, but seem to disobey once they're together. I have also been reinforcing the basic commands on a daily basis. My fiance and I have been letting the dogs sleep on the beds and furniture, so I have been working on controlling this habit and only allowing them on when they sit and stay and then are invited on. I also never thought about letting the dogs walk through the door before me, but now have been adament about having them sit and stay and then walk through. However, my fiance is not often around during the day and I feel that these commands might need to be reinforced by him as well. I have also been wary of "play fighting" and have been trying to get them to discontinue this as well.
Though I know Daisy has made progress, I am still not confident about taking her to the dog park and letting her off her leash. Do you have any suggestions about what else I should be doing?
