Isabel and the Demon Dog

From the very first time that Isabel experienced the sharpness of Prince's bite, she was convinced that it was her duty to protect everyone from him.  Each time he tried to sniff Nikki or Charla, she would literally place herself as a barrier between them, raise the hair on her hackles and snarl as if she meant to tear him to pieces.  Even when he grew to be 20 times her size, she continued to stand up to him, valiantly defending whomever she suspected he wanted to accost.

Her protectiveness did not just extend to Nikki and Charla...it also included myself and my boyfriend. Prince's attempts to approach us when one of us was holding her resulted in her launching herself off of our laps and attempting to attach herself to the nearest part of his anatomy in a fit of rage.  Sometimes it was his body, sometimes his chin (whereupon he would shake his hand and send her flying).  This never deterred her, however.  She would simply race back for more, barking ferociously and hurling herself at the nearest part of him.

Sometimes Prince would tire of her attacks (especially when they involved food) and would simply pick her up in his mouth and move her.  Other times, however, he almost appeared to enjoy it, racing past her with his ears down and leaping over the gate separating the kitchen from the living room so she couldn't pursue him.

"She's so mean to him," I marveled to my boyfriend, who was Isabel's most special person...and the one she defended from Prince most ferociously.

"That's because she's scared," he said.  "Of you and your demon dog."

I had hoped that the two of them would be friends someday...but it appeared that was not to be.  At least not in my presence.  My boyfriend claims sometimes when Prince is asleep, Isabel will lie on top of him...but I have yet to see it with my own eyes.

German Shepherds and Other Dogs

When I brought Prince home at 8 weeks of age, I had three small dogs at home...Isabel, my 1 year-old Chihuahua; Nicholas, my 10-year-old Shih-Tzu, and Charla, my 10-year-old toy poodle.  Having the high opinion of German Shepherds that I did, I never expected him to have any problems with them...and, in actuality, I turned out to be somewhat right.  He never actually had any serious problems with them...but there were a few personality conflicts.

Charla, my toy poodle, was the queen of the house...and had been for many years.  Since her earliest days with me, she had an established method of showing her dominance, i.e., flipping anyone new who came into the household (be it a cat or a dog) onto their back and nipping at their belly furiously.  Usually she only had to do this once, because they got the message afterwards and never challenged her again.  When I brought Prince home, he was actually almost the same size as she was...but for some reason which I never did truly understand, she never tried it with him.  Instead, Charla simply gave him what I called "the eye."

The first and most significant time she did this was the first night they both slept with me, on Prince's first night home.  Charla had always slept on my right side, next to my pillow...and little Prince considered taking her spot that first night.  At the first sign of this defiance, Charla sat up, snarled at him in warning, and gave him "the eye."  In spite of their being newly acquainted, Prince knew what it meant, because he stopped in his tracks and began barking at her furiously.  Charla simply continued to give him "the eye," whereupon Prince backed off, went to lie down with a last defiant bark, and stayed away from the head of the bed for the rest of the night...and every night thereafter..

Nicholas had an entirely different method of handling Prince...he simply ignored him.  No matter how much Prince barked at him or danced around him, Nicholas simply stood there staring straight ahead, waiting for someone to rescue him from Prince's unwanted attention.  Considering Nicholas' advanced age, and his dignity, we always responded in the manner...by picking up Prince, gently correcting him and carrying him away.  After a while, Prince gave up on trying to make friends with Nikki...but he never gave up on Isabel.

Isabel was exactly the same size as Prince...and she ran when he chased her.  At first, she seemed to enjoy the attention...until the first time he tried to chew on her.  Isabel reacted with outrage...for the first week, anyway.  By the second week, he was twice as big as she was...and their relationship began to progress in an entirely different manner.

Sometimes Punishment Works

After my uninspiring conversation with Tim's boss, I continued to walk Prince on a daily basis, in spite of the increased ferocity of his attacks.  By this time, they had escalated to the point where they resembled a child's temper tantrum...the fierceness of his nipping and my struggles to stop him literally resulted in our being propelled off the side of the road.  One day, a friend of my boyfriend drove by and saw us in the middle of a large area of shrubbery.  Of course, the instant his truck appeared, Prince stopped attacking me and simply stood there innocently, as if we had somehow wandered off the road and found our way there.  When the truck was gone, he continued his assault upon me. I was so furious that I actually contemplated tying him to a tree and walking home by myself.

"This is it," I said, when he had finally calmed down, and I stalked back home, practically dragging him with me.  Once I got there, I considered all of the options that so many professionals had provided to me (none of which had worked) and then I considered what my father would have done.

My father had trained German Shepherds in the military.  When I asked him once what would happen if he ordered a dog to do something that it did not want to do, he said it would do it regardless....because it would be afraid not to.  While at the time I was affronted, at this point I wondered if there might not be something to this advice when it came to German Shepherds, and I grabbed a newspaper, rolled it up, and hit the wall with it as hard as I could..

"No!" I shouted.  "No!  Don't you ever bite me again!"  Each time I yelled it, I hit the wall with the paper, while Prince stared at me with something akin to astonishment.  Then he did something he had never done before.

He put down his ears, and slunk away from me.

I've heard that there is no point in correcting a dog unless you do so immediately, but obviously Prince knew exactly what I was scolding him for, because he never nipped me again.

Sometimes punishment does work.

After Tim recommended that I have Prince neutered at an early age, I went to talk to the veterinarian that he worked for.  The first thing Prince did upon meeting him was jump up in delight and hit him with his left front paw, leaving an enormous red welt down one of his cheeks.  I could see that the veterinarian was both annoyed and intimidated by my extremely large puppy, but he tried to keep a stiff upper lip.

"What you are dealing with is a potentially extremely dangerous dog," the veterinarian said.  "One day, he will more than likely attack you."

"But I'm his owner," I pointed out, thinking I had never heard of a German Shepherd that actually attacked his owner.  (Nipping was another matter entirely.)

"One day, he will attack you, even though he loves you, to punish you," he said.  "And with a dog this large, someone could potentially be seriously injured.  Then, you will be coming back here and I will have to put him to sleep."

"I'll think about it," I said, and went home, where I actually did think about it.  I had always intended to neuter Prince eventually, because I believe there are already too many dogs in the world that nobody wants.  Yet I wanted to wait until he was mature, and I knew, from past experience, regardless of what any veterinarian would tell me, that dogs neutered early do not develop the same way as dogs who are neutered later.  And I was, already, a little bit vain about my dog's looks.

I wasn't entirely to blame for this.  Every time I complained about his bad behavior to people, they would murmur in sympathy and then add, "But he's gorgeous!"  Which made me wonder if even good looking dogs (like good looking people) tend to be excused for their bad behavior more often.

In the end, I decided to wait.  Sooner or later, I thought, he'll grow out of this bad behavior, and I'll be glad I did.

What I should have known is that the apex of Prince's bad behavior was about to arrive, and I was going to have to deal with it in a manner that I never thought I would.