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I would refer to the explanation in the attached Q&A why, technically, per coursework, there is no documented evidence to consider this pup socially aggressive. Some notes:
– from body language unit: besides the lips (can see the molars), the corners of the eyes, ears, and brow are pulled back which is polar opposite of a dominant communication. Lips can always be pulled back even further in a truly terrified dog, but need to look at the whole face and if the dog was standing could get an even better diagnosis.
– Even though the dog happens to be on a bed, the history refers to the aggression when grabbing the collar/taking off collars and not necessarily general reaching over the pup and even in that case we would need to see if the pup was truly giving a dominant posture or a fear related posture.
– besides the resource guarding triggers, all of the other triggers involve anticipation of aversive experiences: going into the crate, asked to sit (with an association to ecollar), even taking off collars can be aversive if associated with the temporary tightening of a collar to remove it or an association with being dragged into a crate or similar.
– border collies are very sensitive to aversives, many responsive even to just angry tones. An ecollar would be considered extremely aversive to a border collie and a pup for sure would avoid a stim if they knew how vs challenge it with aggression. EDIT: I also notice a prong collar on the pup which I would never recommend as a starter phase 2 collar for any pup in the coursework for this same reason.
– also considering that it is a pup that doesn’t seem pampered, it is very unlikely that the pup has a reason to think it holds a higher status than adults in the household.
– The danger of misdiagnosing the pup as social aggression is that it may lead to more physical punishment for the aggression which is interpreted as a challenge when in reality it is a fear-based type protest. This can lead to side-effects, which it looks like we are seeing.
A lot of dogs that have a low threshold for showing aggression for ANY reason (such as this pup) can of course, be prone to dominant aggression if the environment leads to that conflict and the body language and triggers also reflect it, but resource guarding and fear based protest/aggression/biting is something need tp be careful not to overlook. I can post a bunch of video examples of both sides if needed, but here is a classic fear-based protest that much of the internet would call dominance aggression. The owner would be hospitalized though if it was dominance aggression (on his dog the most obvious thing is the pulled back ears and smooth top of head Hope this helps:
https://youtube.com/shorts/t9qYLz0v9T8?si=Somu1F5njX_iWF5B
