Schnauzer, aggression and fearful

About a year ago I came across a lovely woman called Enna and her Schnauzer, the Schnauzer was 10 years old at the time, female..neutered..

As they approached us the dog was barking and growling and was straining on the leash, she apologised and explained the dog has always been like that with other dogs in its 10 year history....

After a chat she agreed to let me help, I asked her to remain calm no matter what happened, she agreed, I asked her to give me the lead which she did and we went for a walk, almost intermediately the dog was completely different with me holding the lead and doing nothing in-particular, this told me that the dog was just reacting to the owners tension / nervousness of what had happened in the past, I was so confident that I was correct I just put my dog side by side of the Schnauzer, now instead of before the dog was being social sniffing my dog and letting my dog sniff her....the owner was amazed......she could now see she was the cause of this so called aggression.....I explained that her dog was about as aggressive as a tomato.........

I showed her a few things to practice, remaining calm and forgetting the past being at the forefront and treating this as day one, she asked for my help in the future which I gladly agreed to and all she had to do was pick up the phone and ask me........

About a week later I got an message from her on the answering machine which I replied to leaving her a message and I never heard from her again.

Then today I saw her walking the dog, as we approached she gave me a warm smile and she had remembered my name and said hello, this time there was no aggression from the dog, it was calm...she apologised for not returning my call but explained she had received some very bad news shortly afterwards followed shortly after that some more very bad news which knocked her for six.

It was very sad to hear of her news, she did however tell me that she did continue to practice what I had showed her and now her dog isn't aggressive at all with most dogs, which was evident while we were speaking as we were approached by a young excitable border terrier and the dog was fine.

I had just finished my walk for the day, but asked her if she wanted to go on a walk and have a chat which she agreed, there was one issue still left with the dog that she hadn't managed to overcome and that was people on bicycles or large noisy lorries or trackers which she asked for my help, the dog would just go crazy at the sight of them, Enna has an on going serious health issue which doesn't make life easy for her, that just made me want to help her even more and the fact she is such a lovely charming person, however I did explain that feeling sorry for her on its own as I do will not help her and the dog and that I honestly believe that her practising being calm would help her own body fight the health issue as stress can cause toxins in the body and it will give the body less to deal with.......

As luck would have it a large tracker and trailer came into the field where we were walking heading right for us.....I could now see the behaviour for myself, she went crazy pulling jumping and barking, I took the lead and got her to sit, we now stood our ground as the tractor got nearer, each time she showed some fear of the tractor I gave her a little sideways tug of the lead and instantly relaxed the lead so it was loose, after doing this twice she just sat there as the tractor went past about 3 feet from us, I could tell she still wasn't keen on it but was a massive improvement, the tractor stopped about 20 feet from us with the engine still going and I walked towards it with the dog, she went to act up a couple of times but the intensity of it was much lower than before, she sat next to the tractor for about 2 minutes before the tractor set off again, I then showed Enna how you can use speed...direction....control as another option by just turning and walking the other way or in any direction you want to snap her out of focusing on the tractor......

I mentioned that if we can find a quiet road one day we can set up stooge situations with someone coming up and down the road on a bicycle and practice the same things as with the tractor to get a positive outcome.....

I am very keen to help her if I can as she may get a lot weaker in the future and won't be able to hold on to a lunging dog....

As the dog is 11 years old now and spent the first 10 years being unsocial to other dogs it yet again shows me that the saying 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' is a complete myth and yet again a so called aggressive dog is not aggressive at all and that a dog that isn't socialised with other dogs can be even very late on in life.....

Also Enna very much impresses me with her positive attitude considering all she has been through and the on going fight, with all that going on she is still trying to do the best by her dog and has improved the situation a lot mostly by herself with a little help from me, when it comes down to it after all its her that has to make it work, I can only show her how, she is a true inspiration.....

Here is a couple of pictures of them below....