Dominance help

[Buddy44]

Hi my name is Lindsay. I joined because I have a serious problem. I own a 9 year old golden retriever named buddy and a 4 year old great Dane named jasper. Jasper used to be a very timid dog and buddy would touch him and he'd fall over submissively. But a year ago while I was out walking we were attacked by two boxers. He cowered and I fought them off of him. We were lucky and didn't have and major injuries. But it changed him. He is now wary of new dogs and feels the need to let them know he's the boss by growling and standing erect, tail and head high and hair raised. He will then jump on them growling and try to force them to the ground. He also does this sometimes to buddy who is a perfect boy and just ignores him. But today when they were chewing on antlers(a common thing at our house) he jumped up and attacked buddy. He grabbed onto buddy's ear and if I hadn't been there to grab him I think he might have ripped buddy's ear. The way he did it makes me think he felt he needed to dominate buddy because the toy was there.This was a first for him and he used to have some food aggression towards buddy that I mostly worked out of him by only adding wet food when buddy was near. But this I'm stumped on and it makes me scared to leave them home alone together. Buddy's a sweet boy and I'm worried he won't stand up for himself and could be seriously injured in his older age. Any helpful advice would be amazing.
Thanks.

[OnceInAWeil]

Hi Lindsay, welcome to the forum!

Jasper's behavior isn't out of a desire to be dominant, but it could be fear. If Jasper was already a timid dog and had a traumatic event like an attack happen to him, it's likely that his fear has been amplified and he is now of the philosophy that the best defense is a good offense. "Get them before they get you" sort of thing. Many fearful dogs will give displays that look very scary, bold and "mean," but they are really just trying to scare away whatever has them on edge.

If Jasper has a history of food aggression towards Buddy, that is most likely what the attack was about. Now that Jasper is even more anxious than before, he is being "louder" about his emotions. To allow him to relax, consider feeding the dogs' meals in separate rooms and only giving high-value items like antlers, bones, stuffed kongs, etc. when Jasper and Buddy can be separated until the goodie is finished. This means either one inside, one outside, dogs in different rooms, dogs behind baby gates, dogs in their own crates (which should ideally not be close to each other), etc. I also think you are right to be concerned about leaving them alone together, and from now on I would separate them with a barrier of some sort while you are out.

For now, I would not introduce Jasper to any new dogs or take him anywhere that a dog is likely to run up to him. Walk him in quiet areas and/or at odd hours when not many other people will be out.

How is he on walks when he sees other dogs?

[tylerthegiant]

I just wanted to agree with everything OnceInAWeil said. Please try and get the idea of Jasper being "dominant" out of your head, because looking at Jasper in this way will not benefit you in seeing what this really about, which is fear. Being dominant gives most people a negative feeling I think, but we can all empathize with feeling fear.

Same thing happened to my Apollo (who is a boxer), he got attacked, was a shy dog by nature, and the combination culminated in the same response as your Jasper. What really may need to happen is that Jasper may need to learn to see other dogs as positive things through counter conditioning rather than scary things, and you will have to utilize the management techniques OnceInAWeil suggested. The more Jasper practices being reactive the more ingrained the response will become and you don't want that. And Buddy should not be subjected to Jasper's displays of insecurity (which I feel for the Jasper-being anxious is no way to be) at his age. One day Buddy may just have enough of it, and you don't want a real fight on your hands.

However, this is manageable, and trainable. First step is making sure it doesn't get any worse and implement the management that OnceInAWeil suggested.

[Buddy44]

Jasper has a crate he sleeps in but buddy doesn't. Buddy was crate trained but he never liked it so now he runs the house, he's extremely good with rules. There have been no more incidents. I forgot to mention some things about jasper in the first post. He is obsessive compulsive, he chews on his toenails, spins In circles until he falls over dizzy and barks at everything. We had him diagnosed by our vet and he has a hard time with training. He doesn't learn the way most dogs do. You can repeat something hundreds of times and it will never click for him. But if he sees buddy do something or one of us then he coppies it. I tried for over a month to teach him sit when we first got him and he never understood until we brought buddy over and he saw buddy sit. Within moments he got it. He bites doorknobs because that's where we grab when the door opens. And to answer your question about how he is with other dogs, he's fine if he knows them and is off leash. Our neighborhood has a huge area of just open fields and we call it our dog park. All the dogs go off leash up there and they all know eachother so there are never any fights.

Do you have any suggestions about jazzy's eating? About every two months he stops eating his breakfast. He'll eat treats and his dinner but not his breakfast.