Maria's Solution to Dealing with a German Shepherd

My mom has the dumbest German Shepherd dog I have ever met personally. He's still a puppy, but growing fast (~50 pounds). He lacks not only brains, but common sense - yet he retains all of the normal German Shepherd instincts, such as being protective, aggressive, and alert.

Trouble is, he doesn't know what to do with all of this information. So, when people come over, he barks at them, and acts aggressive. Lacking intellect, he can't figure out who is friend of foe, and lacking common sense, he can't figure out that maybe he should stop. So you can spend 3 hours there and he'll go through the whole day hating your existence, fleeing your touch and looking at you as though you have a hot poker in your hand.

Then one day Maria comes over to my mom and dad's for the entire weekend...

So Atticus barks and barks at Maria. He does this more when Maria is away from my mother (Maria's grandmother, obviously), so Maria turns around and pops him in the nose with her fist. He yelps and stops for a while.

Later in the day Maria leaves my mom again and Atticus decides to get aggressive with her, snapping at her. Rather than display fear, Maria hits him again and yells at him.

Atticus didn't bother my 10 year-old daughter again.

I'm sorry, but I consider myself a dog person, and snapping dogs give me pause. Quizzing my daughter on the story, it appears fear didn't creep into her mind because she knew the end result: she'd win. As a 911 operator told me, it's not that fear doesn't hit the person, it's that their immediate response is fight, not flight.

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