I recently posted thie following in response to another thread. The other persons problem was that their dog bolts out the door, and then gets agressive when they try to capture it. This applies to your problem. This may seem harsh, but in your case, you need to get the dog not to bolt ASAP, for her own safety. My opinion is that this is a case to use some negative motivation in order to rapidly modify a learned behavior that you do not want. You don't have weeks or months to train a reliable recall using positive motivation. By that time, your dog could be injured or killed by a car (or shot by some idiot that thinks it is a raging pit bull).
Here is the post:
As for the bolting out the door, and then becoming aggressive when he is free, well that is a big problem. Actually, it is two problems. When your dog gets out and behaves in this manner, someone will get hurt. So you have to make sure your dog doesn't get out. I would work on the bolting problem first. Make it clear to the dog that bolting out the door is unacceptable. How?
If it were a pup, you could develop the desired behavior. But your dog is an adult dog and has already developed the habit of bolting out the door. So I am afraid you are going to have to modify this behavior.
One way to do that is through negative reinforcement, i.e. physical corrections. Get your physical correction tool of choice, and employ it (prong collar would be my choice, another choice I would consider is not to be discussed here). Make sure you know how to size it and put it on correctly, and make sure that you use it correctly -- specifically, make sure that it is normally loose, and then with a quick wrist, you snap it tight momentarily, and then it should return to the loose position. Don't yank the lead and hold it to choke the dog. It should be a quick snap and release. This should be more startling to the dog than painful. Put the prong collar on your leg and practice. When you administer the snap, the prong collar should tighten rapidly, then release completely. It should not pull your leg. It should simply tighten and release. Train your spouse to do it too, and then let your spouse deliver the correction to your leg. Notice how startling it is when you don't know it is coming? That is the idea.
Now, with the dog on this prong collar and lead, let the door open a little. When the dog bolts, administer the correction and say no. Make sure the correction is of enough intensity to startle the dog. He should look at you like "What was that?". If he ignores your correction, you were too weak with it. If he cowers, cowers his tail under him, then you were too hard. Most people prone to be too light. You want to refrain from using light corrections, because you will find yourself using several light corrections in a nagging manner. It should be one correction, of enough intensity to communicate to the dog that what it did was unacceptable.
Then, lightly guide the dog back through the door, and then praise the dog heavily (since he is back inside the house). Praise him to the point that his spirit is raised back up from the correction.
Repeat this exercise. After just a few times, you should see that your dog is hesitant to go through the door. When that happens, give the dog a warning because you can see that he is thinking about going through that door. The warning can be a verbal "Ahh!", or "Uh-uh!". If after that he doesn't go through the door, then praise him for making the right choice. Otherwise, correct him when he proceeds through the door.
Eventually, you will get this dog to not go out the door. The key is correction when he makes the wrong choice, praise for making the right choice.
When this is over, you will have another problem -- how do you get your dog to go outside (when you want it to) now that you have deterred the dog from going outdoors? Well, now you need to pick a word (such as "outside") and say that word when you are allowing the dog to go out the door. After the training above, you will probably have to coax your dog out the door while saying "outside" in a happy, reassuring voice that it is OK. Another thing you should do, is go out the door first, then say "outside" and allow him out. Get him trained that he is not to go before you through a doorway.
Now, you have to mix it up a little in order to make sure the dog understands -- he cannot proceed through that door unless you go first, and command him to follow. Go back to square one. Let the door open, and wait. When you see your dog thinking about going out, give him a verbal warning. If he obeys, then lots of praise. Otherwise, a correction with the word "No!", then drag him back in and give praise. You prbably don't have to correct so hard at this point -- a light correction might get the point across since this is really just reminding the dog what it should do. Repeat this until he won't go out the door again, and then you step through the door and happliy give him the command to follow you out. If he does, praise him.
Keep doing this until the dog never ever goes out that door unless you go first and command him to follow. Make sure everyone in the household follows this rule.
Note that the obedience training should not be approached in the same manner as my above description to correct the bolting problem. That type of negative motivation is used to correct problems in already learned behavior, not to force your dog into submissive obedience.
Also, although I am recommending a prong collar for this behavior modification, there are other methods that are just as effective. I have just described only one possible method. I would urge you to stay away from the choker chain though, as it is usually not effective on Boxers, and it causes more neck/throat trauma than a prong collar.
Also, an important key to any type of training is making sure the animal has a chance to achieve success. What do I mean by this? Well, for example, the first time you do the door exercise, don't stand the door wide open. The dog is certain to run through it, gauranteeing failure of the exercise and therefore a correction. Instead, start by just opening the door a little bit, and work the exercise until the dog doesn't run when the door is opened a little. The dog is less likely to bolt the less the door is open. You are increasing his chance of success -- meaning that the chances are better that he will decide not to run through the door, and therefore will receive praise rather than the correction. Over time, you gradually open that door more and more, until eventually you can stand that door wide open. In the beginning, we make the chances for succes in the exercise very great, and over time we lessen the chances of success to fine tune the training of the dog. Starting out with a situation that gives minimal chance for success is not fair to the dog, and will not be as effective.
Tom C
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