My dog bit my neighbor and I don’t know what to do

[butterflies]

Copying and pasting my post from r/petadvice

I adopted my dog November 11, 2021 after I lost my previous dog at the end of May a week before he turned 12. My new dog is a hound mix of some sort and was about a year old when I adopted him and was able to be socialized fairly well during the first three months of havi g him since I was able to take him to work with me and he was able to interact with people there. Unfortunately, it was discovered that we actually aren't supposed to bring our pets to work, and so he's stayed at home and I take a long lunch to check on him now.

My neighbor has a hound dog close in age and we discussed having a play date for them since her dog was lonely without someone that could meet her energy level. Things were going fairly well between the dogs until my dog sat in front of my neighbor and looked up at her. Thinking he wanted to be pet, she reached forward and started to pet him, then leaned in a little more since he's on the shorter side even though he's a healthy 70lbs. Something in that lean must have upset him because he lunged up and attacked her nose and then her thumb as he came down as I called him off. I kenneled him back up inside, grabbed a roll of paper towels to help catch the blood fr her nose and thumb, and then we drove to the hospital in her car. She thankfully didn't need stitches, but she has a gnarly mark on her nose and thumb now.

The biggest issue is my dog. I adopted him with the intent for him to help me with my anxiety and depression. Without a dog, I have no motivation to leave the house other than to go to work. I have my cats, but they are firmly indoor only and I have no intention of introducing them to the outdoors and risking them having a want to run outside if the door is left open too long. I don't know if I want to keep him, but I don't want to risk someone else getting hurt because of him or causing further trauma to my dog. We started him on Prozac in February and have trazodone and gabapentin for when there is predictable stress coming up like new years with the fireworks or vet visits. Should I just try to muzzle train him and keep him muzzled when we go out from now on and give up on him being a psychiatric service dog and just keep him as a guard dog? Or should I try to re-home him to someone that would benefit from a guard dog?

 

[butterflies]

Further information because I realized this reads like I’ve just thrown medication at him to solve the problem: he is trained and we are going to be taking more classes in May. Right now, he can sit, stay, lay down, roll over both directions, shake, say hello, sit pretty, touch, give it, leave it, and poop on command (well, at least will make a valiant effort to go). He’s also kennel trained very well

 

[butterflies]

Also, I have no history from before he was in the shelter. I adopted him through work since I work for a large vet hospital that does discounts for shelters to mass fix animals. When I met him, he was very quiet and calm in the kennel and was over all a very chill dog. I thought I’d be getting a moderate energy dog, but that must have been just shelter and abandonment trauma since he’s a very active dog. We play around 1.5-2 hours a day

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@butterflies He sounds a lot like my dad's Aussie - she's not reactive and is generally very well behaved, but she does not like eye contact/leaning from strangers.

I would recommend muzzling out in public, but honestly you can live a very full life with a dog like that with just a muzzle and a do not pet patch. He wouldn't be a candidate for a service dog most likely, but an emotional support dog and family pet would be a fine role for him, IMO.

 

[adversa]

@butterflies This sub has great ressources to help you manage your dog.
However I feel like you are not fully committed to your dog; your dog is not a toy to throw away at the first hiccup. Either you stand by him and work on those issues together or you stop having a dog altogether.
I would think it through before doing anything else together. It's okay to not go through with it and give up on having a dog ans realize it is too much for you. This is not a toy, it is a full responsibility and a long term commitment.

 

[butterflies]

@adversa I know it’s a full term commitment. I drive 30 minutes each way on my lunch break to let him out and walk him and then drive the 30 minutes back to work so he isn’t stuck in his kennel. I adopted him because I need a psychiatric service dog. My anxiety and depression are debilitating. I thought he was going to be a good fit for me for that role. My anxiety is not helpful for a reactive and overly protective dog.

 

[tiernon]

@butterflies You are not being a frivolous, irresponsible person if you decide to rehome this dog after a serious bite incident. You came here to make a thoughtful, informed decision and no one should be trying to pressure you by shaming you.

When service dogs in training are "washed" by professional training organizations, they generally are rehomed outside of the program. This is because the trainer's skills are immediately needed to begin working with a new candidate dog. The rehomed dog isn't placed with the person it was being trained to assist either, because a service dog is a medical device, not a pet.

Working service dogs that have to be prematurely retired due to inappropriate public behavior are sometimes kept by their original owner but are also sometimes rehomed. Owners obviously bond with their dogs and just because a dog cannot officially work in public doesn't mean they stop tasking entirely. Yet having a service dog means that you are disabled and thus may not be able to properly care for more than one dog. It might be distressing to rehome a service dog that can no longer work, but if you need a service dog, you need a service dog.

Your dog would have been washed by its trainers and retired from service dog work the moment it jumped at your neighbor's face. They don't rehab reactive service dogs because a service dog must be 100% reliable at all times under all circumstances. They especially don't rehab dogs with major bite incidents because any act of aggression from a service dog endangers the entire concept. Service dogs are only allowed such wide-ranging public access privileges under the assumption that the dogs will not cause problems.

You should ask for advice on how to move forward on finding a suitable new dog on r/servicedogs, but don't ask them if you should continue your current dog's training. They'll tear you to shreds—and I can't blame them given how much damage has been done to the general reputation of service dogs by people making false claims. However, they'll give you tons of advice on how to avoid another failed adoption.

 

[butterflies]

@tiernon I have definitely given up any hope of him being a service dog for me after this. He could still be a decent support animal in the sense that he would be motivation for me to actually leave the house instead of staying locked up inside all the time, but he certainly can’t be a service dog. I have had to increase my activity levels to meet his since he’s a higher energy dog than I had before. My last dog was a Pyrenees mix and very low energy. We’d go on small walks and such, but he mostly wanted to just stay beside me and keep an eye on me. He wasn’t a trained service dog, but he had the instincts that he acted as one for me. If I started panicking, he would nudge me to sit or lay down and then would lay on me until I calmed down and would encourage me to pet him and focus on him instead of whatever had me freaking out. My dog initially seemed like he would be like that, but has become more and more active since then. The thought of rehoming is terrifying because what if he bites his new owners even though I warned that he can be reactive?

 

[tiernon]

@butterflies That's why you surrender this dog to a rescue organization or even a shelter. Let someone whose entire job is to place dogs with suitable homes take over.

But that said, the dog never tried to bite you and you weren't being exceptionally cautious, now were you? He bit a relative stranger who was doing some things known to make dogs uncomfortable. He bit her nose and thumb, yes, but he didn't resume the attack after the lunge or go after her ankles. It also doesn't sound like he was protecting you or his territory; I'd categorize this as basic stranger reactivity.

If someone isn't careful after hearing "this dog jumped up and bit a stranger on the face," that's kinda on them, IMO. You should mentally tattoo "HANDLE WITH CARE" on the side of a dog after that story. The face! Who doesn't let that influence their behavior?

 

[butterflies]

@tiernon Thank you for this. I’m going to speak to my work and see if they can help me find a good rescue to bring him to and continue working with him with general training until I can get him in. It would probably be better for my mental health to not worry about him attacking another stranger than to keep him even though I’ve gotten attached to him.