is there hope for a dog once it bites and shows aggression?

[Anonymous]

Do not rehome her and make her someone else's problem. It's dangerous for the new owners and unfair to the dog.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The gathering was at my parents' house. The dog has been there a lot and is very happy there. (There's a lot of room to run.) It's out of town so the only other option would have been to kennel her. The difference this time was the volume of people. My dad yells to me informing me that the dog was inside the house (everyone else was outside), and then a few minutes later I hear yelling about the bite. Apparently someone let her out of the house. If there is a "next time," we will have to keep her locked up where someone can't casually let her out. She hates the crate but we may have to start using it regularly. We'll see what the behaviorist said. My family has had several GSDs and this is the first biting incident for any of them. They are a real handful and I would never get one again unless I lived in a very different environment.

Please think about the dog's quality of life if she is going to be crated, isolated, muzzled, etc. on the regular. I'm not anti crate (we use one) but dogs are social and you are talking about a dog that can't be trusted around people or other dogs so what is her life like day to day? Keeping the dog alive is not an objective good: her experience matters.

[Anonymous]

I would hope that all dog owners have the sense to keep away. crate, lock away their dog when they have people over. No, I do not care if your dog is friendly or if we are related. I do not want to be licked or bitten by a dog. I don't want your dog sniffing at the food. It is gross.

[Anonymous]

I had a somewhat similar incident happen with our shepherd. He was in an unusual situation that wasn't planned and that he wasn't used to--an extended family trip out of town. He was out of sight for about 2 minutes, and ended up nipping a young relative, necessitating an ER visit for a couple of stitches. I also worried he'd have to be put down, but the young relatives parents did not insist on it.

He has always pretty much been put away when we have company--but now, we wouldn't even think of ever letting him out when our kids' friends are over. He goes into the basement and we lock the door (he's a Houdini and has sometimes opened unlocked doors). We also have trained him to go to his mat when the doorbell rings. He's a great dog with us, but he's wary with others, which is typical for the breed.

OP, your dog is younger than ours, so I would absolutely try the behaviorist and do everything s/he says. At least you could say you tried before considering euthanasia. And, I would not bring him to any more family occasions--leave him home or doggy day care (if they'll take him given history of aggression). Dogs are unpredictable in general, and shepherds, if not socialized well early on (wish we'd done more), can be especially unpredictable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A pet behaviorist will help, because there is a lot you are doing wrong. And yes, there is hope.

If your dog is anxious, it should not be at a family gathering around a lot of people she doesn't know outside her home. Why take her?

She should be separated and not allowed to roam or chase people when the repair man is there. Tether her to you, crate, or put in her own room.

She needs door training and leash training.

You have an anxious dog and her aggression is not her destiny.

But you keep putting her in situations that bring out her worst. Almost setting her up to fail.

Get help immediately.

I agree with all of this.
You did not train her correctly from the beginning & now you're playing catch up.

You have so much work to do, but out sounds like you may be ill equipped or just unwilling to do them.

German Shepherds are a wonderful family dog, but they are also known to be protective & territorial and it sounds like you've done none of the training to prepare her for socializing which should have been done YEARS ago.

As the pp said, you're constantly setting her up for failure.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am agreed that you need to stop letting your dog have access to other people and dogs immediately. Get a behaviorist on board as soon as possible who can advise about how to safely manage your daily situations. As much as your dog may “hate” the crate or being boarded, these are far preferable to a human being traumatized or injured. Every time a dog successfully bites or otherwise aggresses, it reinforces the behavior. Do not let the dog have these opportunities, ever.

You should immediately journal the incidents where your dog was aggressive. This includes growling and lunging, not just biting. What were the commonalities? Was it territorial? Fear-based? Resource guarding? Keep this list for future vet and behaviorist visits. Now avoid those triggers for your dog entirely. Do not attempt to retrain on your own.

Here are some resources for you:

Humane Rescue Alliance has group classes for “reactive dogs.” Classes are very inexpensive and are offered on weekday evenings or weekends.

Brittany Fulton is a DC and MD-based behaviorist who has worked with HRA. She knows a lot about reactive dogs and is non-judgemental. http://www.dancesdogs.com/

Nancy Williams is a behaviorist who is amazing. She helped to evaluate Michael Vick’s dogs for rehabilitation potential. She lives further away, but is worth it: http://www.dogswithissues.com/.

The gold standard is to see a veterinary behaviorist. There are two who work in the DC area, and one practice at UPenn. Wait times are up to six months, and you don’t have another six months to wait with your dog’s situation. Also, fees run into the thousands.

[Anonymous]

My neighbor's dog bit me and they put it down. It was my hip area - if it was my kid, or a neighbor kid, it could have been their jugular.

Dogs like this don't belong around people. If you can't train an aggressive breed, don't have one. And why on earth would you bring her to this gathering???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any story that ended well. The only difference is how many bites before the owner realized what needed to be done.

It’s awful and I am so sorry. But you have tried everything and your dog is not happy like this either.

Exactly. People need to get honest.

[Anonymous]

This happened to us, when we first got together we adopted an an insane practice baby from the pound; we couldn’t have loved this animal more. We had him for 8 years and One day while leaving he bit me in the leg and drew blood.
By this time we had our first child, he was just beginning to crawl and we did everything we could to keep them apart, nothing bad happened but we both walked around nauseous because we knew that what happened to me could easily happen to our toddler.

It was during Christmas week and we decided that we had to put him down – it wouldn’t be fair to bring him back to the pound or to push him off on someone, it was much more humane to just end it for him.
A few days before New Year’s I gave him a hug before I went to bed as I had done every night for eight years except this time he bit me in the face three times. I have scars on my four head and cheek; they cover up really easily with hair and if I wear even a little bit of make up you can’t see them but I know that they are there.

Before we decided to put our dog down I read something and it hit me, it was somewhere online and it related to dangerous dogs and is very simply said that management always fails- you can have locks, gates, procedures and all different protocols but one of them will fall short and the consequences could be disastrous.

It’s been 13 years since we put the dog down and a few years ago we got a sweet lovable puppy who has grown to be the sweetest most amazing gentle dog ever but in the back of my mind I am always aware of what can happen for no apparent reason. These are animals, they don’t think like us, they can’t reason like we can and they have outlets that we will never understand.

It is going to be absolutely gut wrenching to put your dog down but in time you will realize that you did the best thing for everyone concerned including the dog. Once enough time passes you can adopt another one but you will be a far better dog owner for having done this.

[Anonymous]

You don’t bring this dog around people anymore.

Yes, training May help.

[Anonymous]

My aunt had a side career training dogs. She had to also put down a young german shephard whose aggression was not manageable. It was a heart wrenching decision for her, and there were NO young children around. But she could not trust the dog and she'd tried everything.

I'm sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. The gathering was at my parents' house. The dog has been there a lot and is very happy there. (There's a lot of room to run.) It's out of town so the only other option would have been to kennel her. The difference this time was the volume of people. My dad yells to me informing me that the dog was inside the house (everyone else was outside), and then a few minutes later I hear yelling about the bite. Apparently someone let her out of the house. If there is a "next time," we will have to keep her locked up where someone can't casually let her out. She hates the crate but we may have to start using it regularly. We'll see what the behaviorist said. My family has had several GSDs and this is the first biting incident for any of them. They are a real handful and I would never get one again unless I lived in a very different environment.

Good grief OP! Its rude enough to bring a non-anxiety prone and non-aggressive dog to a family gathering but you decide to bring an aggressive dog anyway?? Why? Because you didn't want to pay to board the dog and now one of the kids was bitten. You seem to think this is the fault of whomever left the door open?

It was very entitled and poor judgement on your part to bring the dog to the family event. If you go out of town, you need to board your dog. You can not bring it to a gatherings again even if you THINK you have solved the problem.

[Anonymous]

Talk to your vet, Op. Maybe some selective tooth extraction would limit the damage done if your dog ever gets freaked out again to the point of biting.

I agree with the other posters - stop putting your dog in these uncomfortable situations. Your dog is panicking and freaking out and getting defensive because your dog is scared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]I don’t know any story that ended well. [/b]The only difference is how many bites before the owner realized what needed to be done.

It’s awful and I am so sorry. But you have tried everything and your dog is not happy like this either.

Exactly. People need to get honest.

Correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to your vet, Op. Maybe some selective tooth extraction would limit the damage done if your dog ever gets freaked out again to the point of biting.

I agree with the other posters - stop putting your dog in these uncomfortable situations. Your dog is panicking and freaking out and getting defensive because your dog is scared.

So pull the dog's teeth because it's living in the wrong environment? Wow. And I'm not even a dog person.