Teaching a Dog to Snarl on Command

[snooks]

According to a trainer friend just the SIGHT of a guard breed is the BIGGEST reason bad guys just pick ANYONE else. A good intermediate step is teach to bark on a verbal or hand signal. Goldens don't inspire much fear...but a barking Golden inspires uncertainty. Teaching my 2yo to bark on cue also taught her to be quiet on cue...neat side effect.

I like the idea Biggi describes of maybe a small treat between fingers of a flat hand and click ur dog for trying to chew/nibble it out (albiet softly) and ignore or don't reward tongue. Opposite in principle to take treats soft with tongue and no teeth.

Catching a dog chewing something like itch or such randomly with a clicker works well too. Thats how I got my shy from Chisholm, she was pawing her nose and the clicker was near a was a can of squeeze cheese. :dogtongue2:

 

[tigerlily46514]

I taught my dog to growl on command. The cue word for this is "Cheney". He will growl if a say any sentence ending with the word "Cheney"...lol!! Such as, "buddy, what did you think about Cheney?" He will growl!!

I have since dropped the trick, as my dog is dog-aggressive, and figured it probably does him no good to be doing extra growls..wasn't sure.

HOw i taught him:

If we play tug o war, he sometimes growls, so i take my clicker, tug his toy, if he growls, i clicked and treated..I added in cue word, "cheney". Buddy figured this one out very very quickly.
It took a long while to get him to do it without tugging a toy, but we did. Sometimes if i say "cheney" to Buddy, he runs and brings me his tug toy, lol!! But, over time, i was able to get him to growl to cue word "cheney".

but, like i said, i did drop this trick from his repetoire, hoping to reduce all aggression triggers..not sure.

Odd lil quirky side effect: Buddy no longer growls at me during tug o war, but continues to growl with Craig during tug o war...?? i think this is odd. Craig and Buddy wrestle and roll around and play much rougher than i do with Buddy anyway, which Buddy dearly loves, is almost like having another dog i guess, lol!!
But it struck me as odd, that Buddy never ever ever growls at me anymore during tug o war..? (unless i say Cheney.)