Fear Aggressive Dogs

Fear aggressive dogs are probably the biggest challenge for trainers and behaviorists because they are much more unpredictable than a dominant dog. The main factors that cause fear aggressive are shyness, sharpness (reactivity to new things), less than sound nerves and bad environmental upbringing (abusive and/or puppymill).

A dog can be quite well obedience trained, but if she was abused by a man, she may not do well with children, and "turns into Cujo" when she's brought anywhere or any stranger (especially men) are on her property or in the house.

Since you want to have her be less reactive with the man in the home, he needs to act like an aloof, benevolent dictator, but he also needs to be the one who feeds her (by hand for the first few weeks), walks her, plays with her, everything. So combining a NILIF (Nothing in Life is Free) program with one where he is the focal point for all good things will likely start to get you headway within a week or two.

So from now on, no free feeding (only scheduled meals once or twice a day and the bowl goes up after 10-15 minutes), she has to do some obedience like sit stay or down stay for her food, she has to sit before a walk and stay before she's allowed to go through the door, etc. Basically, you want the man to be the head dog and her to be a subordinate. When he says jump, she says "how high?" She will also need a TON of exercise with him almost exclusively. A tired dog (both mentally and physically) is a well-behaved dog that is less inclined to exhibit obsessive behaviors.

Private obedience lessons with an experienced terrier-savvy trainer will also be helpful (at this stage group lessons do not focus on working on trust). For the nipping and barking, Fold your arms across your chest and turn away and always always always have your dog on a drag line (a nylon leash with the handle cut off) in the house. If she starts barking obsessively, she goes in a crate or other area for a time out and is ignored.