From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

This is Part 7 in the Crazy Bitch series about our Akbash/Lab mix Venus. She has Canine Compulsive Disorder (CCD) with aggression. Links to the previous episodes can be found at the end of this post.

Akbash Awakening

Psychoanalyzing a dog’s obsessive behavior can lead to – well – obsession. It’s all about perspective. It’s easy to get caught up in the psychological aspects and forget we’re dealing with dogs. While it’s true that Zeus and Venus are thinking dogs, they think like dogs. Not like humans. That’s why understanding breed characteristics is so crucial. It keeps us focused on dog behavior. Breed is all about genetics and temperament.

We had Venus all wrong.

Our friends, Karen J and Anthony have known Venus since we adopted her. They used to own a purebred Akbash named Powder. For 2 years they told us time and again how much Venus reminded them of Powder.

“She looks like him. She even acts like him,” Karen said. “Although Powder was more aggressive. And totally unpredictable.”

That was before Venus’s meltdown.

We had never heard of the Akbash breed. Karen told us about three Akbash dogs that tended the sheep along the Cutoff Road to the Buford Road. We had seen those dogs many times and just assumed they were some sort of Great Pyrenees mix. We’ve always thought they look a lot like Venus.

Last July, Karen and I were having lunch and she insisted that I look up Akbash on the intertubes. “I am one hundred per cent certain Venus is part Akbash,” she said.

When I went home I googled Akbash and clicked on the images. I was shocked at the photos. One after another looked strikingly like our Venus. The sleek head, long legs, and curly tail were unmistakable.

Two purebred Akbash -- male (l) and female (r)

Here's Venus. She looks almost identical to the Akbash except for her tiny webbed Lab feet.

Then I googled Great Pyrenees and clicked on the images.

Venus doesn't look anything like this

Great Pyrenees don’t have sleek heads, long legs, or curly tails.

The description of the Great Pyrenees’ general demeanor as “quiet composure, both patient and tolerant” was definitely NOT Venus.

I looked up Akbash temperament:

Because of its strong independent nature, it thinks twice upon receiving commands.  Not recommended for first time dog owners, or people who do not wish to have a serious guard dog. Companion dog owners should be prepared to spend a fair amount of money on good fencing and a lot of time on socialization and maintaining the humans pack leader status over the dog. The Akbash dog needs a firm, but calm, confident, consistent owner.

Hey, now that’s our Venus.

Last summer we spent most weekends camping at Meadow Lake on the Flattops. The weekend after Karen prodded me into considering that Venus might be part Akbash, a large herd of sheep covered the hillside across from our campground. A sign at the campground warned campers to stay away from the sheep and keep their dogs away. To paraphrase, the sign said the Akbash dogs guarding the sheep were trained to guard the sheep and if left alone would not harm anyone but could be vicious and attack if approached.

What an amazing opportunity we were given to watch the life of the Akbash from a respectable distance. To SEE them at work. To hear them barking at night to warn the coyotes to stay away. It was an incredible experience.

At the same time we were with Venus. We saw how she reacted to the Akbash and their sheep. She was alert and listened. We were her flock. She was at work. She showed us who she was. We saw the Akbash dogs with their herd two weekends in a row. Perhaps those experiences awakened some ancient Akbash guardian spirit within her.

I told Karen, “You were right about Venus. We saw the Akbash. We watched them work. She’s definitely Akbash.”

When Venus’s meltdown began in September, Karen and Anthony shared their Powder stories with us and encouraged us to stick with her. Sometimes I think they believed in her more than we did. Their understanding combined with actual experience with the Akbash breed has been our lifeline. On top of that, Venus has known their two Labs, Seek and Fern since we adopted her. Together at the park, our dogs make a stable pack which has been essential to her rehabilitation. She is mostly calm with them.

Okay, so Venus is part Akbash, which is a low energy guardian dog. She’s also part Lab, which is a high energy hunting dog. Both are working dog breeds, but the low energy mixed with high energy seems like a recipe for obsession. Yet obsession is what makes the Akbash a perfect guardian for a herd of sheep. The dogs must simultaneously keep track of the sheep while looking out for predators. Perhaps the combination of low energy and high energy breeds has intensified Venus’s already obsessive nature. That could also explain why she was calm one minute then snapped into aggression mode the next.

A working dog needs a job to do. That’s probably why the new office routine has been working so well for her. It has given her another job to do and has broken up her routine so she’s not bored. 

From learning about the Akbash breed and watching Venus, we’ve figured out that she’s a checker. A Rain Dog. When she comes in the house, she checks on Zeus, she checks on the cats, she checks her food dish. Then she settles down. When she goes outside, if Zeus is out, she checks on him first. She probably has a whole nother yard ritual after that. We can allow that kind of obsession up to a point. We’ve had to teach her to leave Zeus alone. No nose bopping, no nipping, no pawing, no throwing toys at him. She can look but she can’t touch. He doesn’t like it. 

The Akbash are guardian dogs, not herding dogs. However part of the guardian dog’s job is to keep the herd together, so he will nip at a sheep when he needs to control it.

But Zeus is not a sheep. He’s a purebred Alaskan Malamute. Malamute temperament is not as easily describable as other breeds. In general Malamutes are intelligent, social, good-natured, and communicative. Some Malamutes are high energy working dogs. Some are low energy companion dogs. Each individual dog’s temperament is a reflection of the way he’s raised. Even though they are not considered guardian dogs, a Malamute will protect his owner. Above all else, Malamutes are loyal.

What matters most is how Zeus has responded to Venus. After all, the question is no longer whether Venus can be rehabilitated. The question is whether Zeus and Venus can live together under the same roof. Zeus’s behavior has been fascinating.

When we started watching the Dog Whisperer, Zeus couldn’t help but notice that our walks had turned into training sessions. He also noticed that we were training Venus to leave him alone. In mid-December he started watching the Dog Whisperer, too. I realize how bizarre that sounds – but it’s true. One episode in particular captured his attention. It was the one about a 1-year old female Pit Bull named Justice. She was undisciplined and out of control, and had begun to act aggressively toward the family’s 6-year old male golden retriever mix. Cesar expressed enormous empathy for the older male having to put up with the “crazy bitch”. He showed the owners how the older more stable dog could be encouraged to train the younger dog. 

After that episode, Zeus began participating in her training. He showed her by example how to walk properly on the leash and how to behave toward barking dogs and strangers on our walks. To encourage him, we made a special point to watch episodes that included using the energy of the calm, stable older dog to get the younger messed up dog to follow commands. Zeus paid attention. When we told Venus to sit, he sat. At Dogland he showed Venus how to greet other dogs. Sometimes we let her off leash at the park if there’s no one else around, or there are dogs she knows well. When she wandered off, Zeus found her and brought her back to us. Now he just shows us where she is. If she charges up to another dog, Zeus runs interference and blocks her. All of these things he learned from watching Cesar.

In another episode, Cesar showed how one dog will discipline another dog with one growl or one nip (or bite), or a combination of both. That is not dominance or aggression. That is one dog telling the other one to stop the bad behavior. Right after we saw that episode Zeus tried it out on her when he didn’t know I was watching. The dogs were in the yard and another dog walked by. They always get excited when a dog walks by, which is normal. With Venus it can become obsessive, escalating into the anxiety dance with ferocious barking, which it did that day. Zeus did a combination growl with a nip on her. I held my breath. A month earlier she would have snapped and snarled, jumped him and pinned him down. That first time she looked shocked for a second. Then she lowered her head and backed away, and eventually calmed down. 

That was a pivotal moment for Zeus and Venus. It even felt like a pivotal moment. The most amazing thing was watching Zeus actually control Venus’s behavior. As we trained Venus, he saw how much control we were gaining over her bad behaviors, which gave him the confidence to participate without fear of her attacking him.

That can-do attitude in Zeus is the perfect example of Malamute behavior. Like Cesar says, “dogs don’t rationalize” but Malamutes do tend to think through things. They handle challenges with patience, perseverance and intelligence. Sometimes Malamutes think too much. When Zeus kept his distance and ignored Venus he wasn’t being true to his breed. He was feeling sorry for himself. He was being a big baby. We’ve learned to encourage the Malamute in Zeus to be the calm, stable example to Venus – the Teacher.

By Christmas we saw the beginnings of a healthier more trusting relationship between them. We gave them both pink blankets. Pink represents balanced energy. We had figured out that Venus’s anxiety was caused by confinement and punishment as a puppy. We learned that obsession is an Akbash breed characteristic, which is intensified in Venus because of the hi-lo energy of her Akbash/Lab mix.

But where did her aggression come from?

In every Dog Whisperer episode about aggression Cesar emphasizes and illustrates how unbalanced or bad external energy that comes from humans or other animals can turn an anxious dog into an aggressive dog. In other words, show Cesar an aggressive dog and he looks for the source of bad energy in the dog’s life. Medical researchers concur that “stress, frustration, and/or conflict” in the dog’s life can trigger aggression.

So where in Venus’s world was the bad energy coming from?

Stay tuned for Part 8

Part 1: Tale of Two Dogs

Part 2: Dog Bomb

Part 3: Sick Puppy

Part 4: Torn Between Two Dogs

Part 5: The Dog Whisperer

Part 6: Panicky Pup

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