Too submissive Anatolian Shepherd, 9 months old

[BeccaJoVon]

We are raising our first LGD, an Anatolian Shepherd. He is not registered or fancy, but he did come from a farm of working dogs, and thats what I wanted. He is now nine and one-half months old, and Im sure we have done our share of goofs with him, but my biggest problem at the moment is that he is too submissive to us. If we go out and touch him in the neck area, he falls out on the ground and will not get up. Usually, if we are touching him in the neck area, it is to put a leash on him or to try to control him, i.e., not let him out the gate as we drive the auto through. This is really annoying, and most times it takes what seems like five minutes to get him to get up. Ive even had to drag him to get him to move.

He is the greatest dog in the world and we love him to death! He finally has stopped chasing the sheep. He has finally stopped chasing the ducks. He is now much more gentle around the grand children so that Im not so nervous about him hurting them he is just so much bigger than they are. Now, if I could only figure out how to deal with this submissive situation. Is this normal behavior or is there something I should do?

Thanks!

 

[ksalvagno]

It sounds to me like you are going to need work on "happier" things to do with his neck. It sounds like to him, every time you touch his neck, it is for a bad thing. So some good things need to be mixed in there. Not sure how to handle that but hopefully someone will have some suggestions for you.

 

[Southern by choice]

Question- has he always done this, or is this something "new". If so, when did it start?
Does he typically wear any kind of collar and if so what kind?

correcting this problem is different from non-lgd's and lgd's

also what basic commands have you taught him? Sit, stay, down, up, come. Most people will teach sit or down but very few remember to teach "UP".

when you say "he falls to the ground and won't get up" is he falling down and rolling over to bear his belly (in a playful demeanor) or laying down on his belly with head down to the ground. Or does he fall kind of sideways and rolling (playful-again)? Does he lift his front legs to "paw" at you?

I know it's a lot of questions but it helps to get a better understanding in order to correct the issue.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

I am just wondering if the pup was corrected a lot by grabbing his scruff and pushing him to the ground? This is partially, how correcting is done. I am just wondering if the pup thinks that every time the scruff is touched, that he needs to get to the ground.

 

[redtailgal]

This is a normal teenage phase for alot of dogs. His hormones are a little wonky right now, so he'll do some seemingly senseless things.

When you go to leash him......put the leash on and give a treat. After a few times, make him wait until he is standing to get his treat. Just take time to put the leash on, give a treat and take the leash off. Repeat it often. Then put the leash on and walk a few steps before the treat.

At other times, when he does the fall over routine, walk away and ignore him.

Be patient, he'll out grow this.

 

[BeccaJoVon]

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a good person to train a dog. I tend to do the basics and let the rest go. Max has been really easy to train. He seems to catch on fast, and so there has been no need for aggressive training. All of this falling down and rolling around started about four months ago.

Max knows commands like: 1) Sit. 2) Wait--while we dish out his feed and not to begin eating until we tell him "eat." 3) Let's go. 4) No. 5) If he has his nose to the ground, "Come here" is out of the questions.

Max always seems to enjoy the leash and going for walks with us, though he prefers to go off on his own more now that he is older. It's funny that we have 35+ acres fenced, but he only goes as far as we have walked with him, which is only the front side of the property. We can walk toward him, and he will automatically sit and wait for that pat on the head. Everything is great until we take hold of this collar, which he does wear at all times. Once we move to the collar, he will fall down on his side, usually, and he may roll onto his back with paws up. He has even wrapped his paws around our arms. Sometimes I have wondered if he is being defensive rather than submissive, or maybe a combination of both. Once the leash is on him, he is fine. An example is once when we were in the barn. I was ready to leave, but Max wasn't ready to go. I took him by the collar and he fell to the ground on his side, eventually belly up, paws up, and just rolled back and forth until I found something to attach to the collar and pulled him trying to nudge him to his feet. It took a while, but finally he did get up and walk calmly to the door.

My 14-year-old son admits to "tricking" the leash on by petting Max while slowly making way to the collar. Maybe it's my son who is being tricked.

 

[BeccaJoVon]

This is a normal teenage phase for alot of dogs. His hormones are a little wonky right now, so he'll do some seemingly senseless things.

When you go to leash him......put the leash on and give a treat. After a few times, make him wait until he is standing to get his treat. Just take time to put the leash on, give a treat and take the leash off. Repeat it often. Then put the leash on and walk a few steps before the treat.

At other times, when he does the fall over routine, walk away and ignore him.

Be patient, he'll out grow this.

I will definitely give this a try! Thanks!

 

[Grazer]

Dogs do go through several "fear periods" while growing up, if everything goes well, it shouldn't last long and it may go completely unnoticed.
With the last fear period being when they're around 7 or 8 months.
That is not what this seems to be IMO, it sounds more like someone maybe pulled on his collar too hard and he developed a disliking for it.
From reading this, I get the idea that he gets somewhat fearful when you go for his neck/collar and he seems not very trustful of your intentions.
Some dogs are very sensitive and need to be raised with a soft hand.

Btw, I'm not trying to criticize you
This reminds me a little of how our older dog started disliking small spaces after he had to travel in a kennel when he was 5 months (even though he was introduced to that travel carrier prior to the trip).
If we would try and pull just a little on his leash, he would drop down and freeze.
With patience and consistency he got over it within weeks.


What I would do is use his favorite food (like say a piece of chicken or cheese, depends what he really likes), and I would go slowly for his collar with my one hand, while I would feed him the treat with my other hand.
At first I wouldn't try to touch his neck, just hold my hand there for a little bit.
And then slowly but surely, by repeating this exercise every day (but not overdoing it either), I would touch the collar and praise him with a calm voice. I would also ignore any fearful behavior during this training and praise him every time he shows progress.
2-3 days later I would try to put my fingers under his collar, massage his neck and give him some more treats.
After that, I would let him smell on the leash, praise him if he doesn't backs off, put the leash next to his collar, but not actually attaching to it the first time.
Then if you like how he progresses (even if it takes several more days), you could try and casually attach the leash on his collar, without actually pulling on his collar.
And of course praise him and give him a good reward.

I think the issue here is that he needs to trust you more.
These things take time and patience, but eventually you should be able to touch his neck and collar without him getting fearful.

Being that he's still a puppy, he doesn't yet dares to investigate all the 35 + acres on his own. But there's always a chance that he's just not a very confident dog and doesn't have the right temperament for the job.
Only time will tell, but of course hopefully that's not the case.