lovelovelove3
New member
I posted in this sub at the beginning of the year when my big reactive border collie lab mutt (3y) bit my little chiweenie (10y) for the second time since we’ve had the big guy. I asked for advice and didn’t necessarily receive anything helpful other than the indirect suggestion to do BE.
Well, my partner and I didn’t do that. Our big dog, G, has bitten multiple times, multiple dogs, and has also bit my partner once. He would have been extremely hard to re-home, so we invested in a dog behaviorist with the help of his parents, thankfully, because it is very pricey. It has been beyond worth it.
I would say that our main challenge was financial, which is why we didn’t seek out a behaviorist sooner. We did one on one training when we first noticed G’s issues, but it only got us so far. He is like a new dog now. We’ve met with the veterinary behaviorist twice since the incident. She’s given us a protocol and advised us to make some modifications with G’s arrangements at home. (I.e. keeping his bed in a low traffic area)
We work with him on walks and his reactivity has tremendously improved. He’s become friendly with a neighborhood dog and actually wags his tail when he sees that dog now. He used to be so afraid that every interaction with a dog led to him lunging and aggressively barking.
He has only growled at home a handful of times since we have had him back. (He was at my partner’s parent’s house for a month after biting the little one while we researched our options.) His main issue has always been around food, so we are still working on that. This is the only time he shows aggression at home, and none of it has been explicitly directed at the chiweenie. Obviously, that has been my main concern, and while things aren’t perfect, I am so fucking relieved.
All this to say, if you’re having major issues with your dog and don’t know what to do to fix it… hire a veterinary behaviorist. They are super legit and worth every penny.
Well, my partner and I didn’t do that. Our big dog, G, has bitten multiple times, multiple dogs, and has also bit my partner once. He would have been extremely hard to re-home, so we invested in a dog behaviorist with the help of his parents, thankfully, because it is very pricey. It has been beyond worth it.
I would say that our main challenge was financial, which is why we didn’t seek out a behaviorist sooner. We did one on one training when we first noticed G’s issues, but it only got us so far. He is like a new dog now. We’ve met with the veterinary behaviorist twice since the incident. She’s given us a protocol and advised us to make some modifications with G’s arrangements at home. (I.e. keeping his bed in a low traffic area)
We work with him on walks and his reactivity has tremendously improved. He’s become friendly with a neighborhood dog and actually wags his tail when he sees that dog now. He used to be so afraid that every interaction with a dog led to him lunging and aggressively barking.
He has only growled at home a handful of times since we have had him back. (He was at my partner’s parent’s house for a month after biting the little one while we researched our options.) His main issue has always been around food, so we are still working on that. This is the only time he shows aggression at home, and none of it has been explicitly directed at the chiweenie. Obviously, that has been my main concern, and while things aren’t perfect, I am so fucking relieved.
All this to say, if you’re having major issues with your dog and don’t know what to do to fix it… hire a veterinary behaviorist. They are super legit and worth every penny.
it was also nice to do it that way because we were able to show her our living situation and what he reacts to at home. So she made recommendations to move his bed out of the high traffic area we had it in, asked to watch him when he was barking, and even got a sense of how we handled him during these conditions.