I adopted my dog when she was ten weeks old. Socialized her, trained her and took her to puppy obedience classes. She went from puppy obedience to puppy agility and now we just do agility. Well something happened to her last fall to make her aggressive. She was fine with other dogs and people and I'd take her to the dog park and events etc. Now I wouldn't dream of taking her to the dog park. She growls and snarls at dogs and no one can pet her except my family and my husbands family. We are working hard to correct this, but I'm just not sure what I can do or what caused this. Here are some things that happened at the time she started showing this behavior... -Husband and I went on a week long vacation and left the dogs with his mom. Who spoiled them, walked them and took good care of them. -After vacation we had a wind storm that knocked power out for a week. -After that she had dental surgery where they took two of her front little teeth out and cut her bottom k9 in half as it grew into the roof of her mouth causing infection. Those things all happened in September which is about the time she started her aggressive attitude. Do you think any of those could have caused her to be aggressive? Or maybe it is just adolescents as she will turn two this July? Thanks for any tips!
--------------------
My dog went through something similar. She was a very healthy, happy and friendly pup and then one day, between her 1st and 2nd parvo vaccine, she developed parvo. It was such a horrible situation for all of us. She was in pain, very sickly and bleeding all of the time. We took her to the emergency vet hospital after about 12 hours of vomiting and that's when we found out that she had this. Well, we had her treated inpatient for 4 days and then on an outpatient basis where she went to the vet each morning to have fluids injected under her skin and antibiotic shots for 7. Because she was so weak she just let all of these doctors do what ever. BUT...as soon as she started getting better (some puppies actually die from this) she began showing signs of aggression. She started having to be muzzled when we took her to the vet and could no longer walk her in public areas. She wouldn't even let company in the house if she didn't know them well. The vet said it was because she was associating her pain and illness with strangers. Because of the fact that she had been left at the hospital and then taken everyday to have things done, she is basically letting people know that she will not be hurt again.It's a defense mechanism and her only way to communicate that she did not trust strangers. I was told that she would eventually grow out of it if she is corrected when she growls or tries to snap. It takes time and patience. For us it was about 3 months before Angel began accepting the fact that no one was going to hurt her and now she is pretty much back to normal. On the flip side, my Mothers dog, a German Shepard, never did learn to trust again after being boarded at a commercial facility where later we found out they were neglecting and abusing dogs. I think it lies in how you handle their behavior. They trust you, therefor your reassurance that it's ok and your firm, quick response to her bad behavior will probably produce results sooner than doing nothing at all. Good Luck!
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment