Reactive Territorial Fear Aggressive Dog – How Flower Essences Helped

Marvin is a sweet, shy Boxer mix that missed out on some early socialization. Add some scary experiences and onset of adolescence, and what showed up? Strong fear-based reactivity and territorial aggression. Marvin’s bad behaviors were all emotion-driven, and so were perfect for Bach flower therapy. This is one dog’s dramatic – and very encouraging – story of healing through flower essences.

Marvin is a 7-year-old Boxer mix. With his brindle striping, he looks a bit like a small tiger. Marvin’s owner, Sandy Stormer from Wisconsin, is one of the most dedicated and hard-working dog owners I’ve come across. She does not know the meaning of quit, or “good enough”!

This was crucial because Marvin developed some serious behavior issues as a young dog. He was impulsive, strongly reactive, and seriously fear aggressive.

Marvin is one of those dogs that had many “layers” of behavior issues, so his transformation has been a steady, long-term process. Of all the consults for custom flower essence formulas I’ve done since 2009, I would say that Sandy is the client I’ve stayed in most consistent contact with.

Marvin’s custom formula went through 8 revisions over 3 years, as we “peeled back layers” of emotion-driven behavior, and addressed what was coming to the surface at that time. Eventually, all those emotions stabilized, and since the fall of 2016, he has been doing very well on the same blend.

Marvin’s story illustrates how important early socialization is, and how bad experiences – including training experiences – can have tremendously negative effects on a dog’s outlook and behavior. Thankfully, Marvin’s experiences took a turn for the better.

Let’s hear his story!

Aldaron Essences: Sandy, thanks so much for talking with me today. Shall we start with a little about Marvin’s background?

Sandy: We bought Marvin at 4 months old from a breeder. Because we’d been shown video of Marvin taken in the breeder’s kitchen, we assumed he was socialized and raised as “part of the family”. But that was not the case at all. (We found out a year later, from an acquaintance who knew the breeder, that he was kept in a kennel in a separate building.)

So, when we picked up Marvin, he hadn’t been socialized at all for his first 4 months. He was fearful and anxious from the start.

We would take Marvin to the dog parks and, though shy and timid, he would actually do great with people and other dogs. It was only after Marvin underwent 3 surgeries, two for his cherry eye and one for his neuter, that he became fear aggressive to both people and other dogs.

Marvin became reactive to adults as well as children of all ages. Direct eye contact, people approaching, people reaching, and people walking on our sidewalks or by our car would all set him off. Marvin looked fierce when he reacted, but was also obviously terrified.

We tried sending Marvin to stay with a private trainer for a week, for “boot camp” style training. The day he returned he bit a person’s hand. I was mortified and so upset.

Marvin also was returned to us with no hair and sores on his neck, which we found out were from too many shocks and too high a setting on the shock collar the trainer used. (It literally caused him to have thyroid injury and he is now on thyroid medicine.)

We contacted the trainer immediately; he wanted to continue training Marvin. We didn’t know any better, as we never had a “reactive” dog before, so we continued. When Marvin only became worse, we stopped working with that company. We had no idea what went on there until a former employee of his told us that Marvin had been abused by the owner.

Aldaron Essences: What a nightmare! So, how did you end up contacting Aldaron Essences?

Sandy: It was in a health magazine, “Dogs Naturally Magazine” that I saw an article by you on flower essences. I decided to contact you. You (Julie) did an in-depth consult by email and viewed many videos of Marvin’s behavior. You’ve been customizing formulas for Marvin now since 2013.

Aldaron Essences: Can you describe the differences you’ve seen?

Sandy: Marvin is now happy and wags his tail. He no longer has the “violent, aggressive” outbreaks when people walk on our sidewalks, go past us on walks or in the car at a stop, or in parking lots where he sees people. He may bark which I feel is normal, but no longer the “teeth showing” aggressive behavior he used to have.

I feel all the training we’ve done wouldn’t have been as successful had Marvin not been on the custom flower essence formulas from Aldaron Essences. I communicated regularly with you what we were doing and how Marvin’s training was coming along, and you were able to come up with different combinations of essences depending on where he was at at the time.

Aldaron Essences: That’s so awesome, Sandy. I always like to ask if you used any other alternative therapies that helped?

Sandy: Along with the Aldaron formulas I incorporate TTouch massage for Marvin. He underwent some reconnective healing sessions also. Another change I made was making all of our dogs’ food – they now eat a raw meat, vegetable, and herb diet.

Aldaron Essences: What was the most helpful training change you made?

Sandy: You steered us away from the shock collars altogether, and toward more positive training. We now take Marvin to the trainer that used to work for the trainer we stopped using. (He’s on his own now). Marvin loves to go there and play with his dogs.

When we got him, Marvin was not food motivated at all. So, another very helpful bit of training we received was how to get Marvin interested in food! This was with the help of a trainer in Canada via Face-time videos.

Aldaron Essences: Any future plans with Marvin you’d like to share?

Sandy: Marvin gets to move up to Northern Wisconsin onto 20 acres we purchased and are building a new house on. Marvin will not have to worry about a lot of dogs or people around him. He can finally learn to be leash-free on our land. Of course, there will be wild animals but Marvin does not wander off or leave our side more than a distance of 15-20 ft away and he does have a good recall. I work with Marvin every day as consistency is the best training for our dogs.

Aldaron Essences: Any words of advice to people experiencing similar issues with their dog?

Sandy: My biggest word of advice for people is: don’t give up on them too quickly. Do your research and contact Julie for a custom formula for your dog.

My husband has said if it wasn’t for us Marvin probably would not be alive to this date, because there are many people that do not want to put in the time and research.

But Marvin, once he gets to know people, is the most loveable and cuddling dog ever. Marvin also loves to work for treats, he loves to play fetch, hide and seek, etc.

We have learned a lot about dogs and dog behavior over the past 7 yrs with Marvin. He has taught us a lot and without him, we could have never learned as much as we have.

We know and are smart about what situations Marvin will be able to handle and what type of situations he has reactions to. We never expose him to situations where he could potentially react and bite someone or another dog, either.

Marvin has 3 “cousins” now and he has learned to deal with them as they grew from puppies to adult dogs.

One cousin is his favorite though and that is Wrigley, a pug. Yes, we had to change some of our lifestyle to accommodate Marvin but it has all been fun and for the best.

We also realized that there are a lot of dog owners out there that seem to think ALL dogs are friendly, etc. They do not even think that another dog could have “stranger danger”, fear anxiety, etc., etc. Those are the people we have extreme caution with.

Also, it is not always the breed or the owner’s fault that dogs have behavior issues. You can never know what may have happened to cause a behavior problem.

Thanks so much, Sandy, for sharing Marvin’s story. Marvin has come so very far. He’s a lucky pup to have landed in such a wonderful home.

Aldaron Essences’ online store closed permanently on May 31, 2023. I no longer sell flower essence formulas directly to customers.

Instead, I’m focusing on developing the Aldaron Essences blog into a premier resource on flower essences for dogs and other animals. I’ll also be expanding my dog training website, Train2Behave.com, as well as my Etsy store of mostly dog training- and breed-related apparel and gifts.

In the coming weeks, you can expect new pages on this site that will detail some of my most popular flower essence formulas for dogs. These pages will replace the old links to those products on the store. Thanks for your patience during the transition!

Best,
julie