Last week we rescued an elderly dog. We knew he had aggression problems around resource guarding in the past and worked with a behaviourist to identify how we could manage this. Basically, when he has a high value item, leave him the fuck alone.
No other animals or kids in the house so no problem.
He got on fine with us in our house for the first couple of days but then started doing weird things. For example, he'd always been completely fine with dogs before he came to us but in the park on a couple of occasions he was very growly at other dogs.
On Friday, he was lying in his bed and I was standing in the room about 2m away from him. He jumped out of his bed for no apparent reason and snapped at my foot, then walked back to his bed. This shook me up a little bit but I went and sat down at the table where I'd been all day. A minute later he jumped out of his bed again and bit my foot shaking it really aggressively in his mouth. My DH threw some cheese on the floor to distract him but he didn't bat an eyelid.
I managed to swing my foot on to the table and he got back in his bed but he was giving the hard stare at my other foot as if he was lining it up to attack.
We slowly and calmly left the room and called the behaviourist. She called some of the RSPCA staff who came and picked him up. She assured us we'd done nothing wrong and he might not have been able to cope in a home environment. The liklihood is that he'll be PTS because they won't be able to re-home him. I feel so terrible and I haven't been able to stop crying since it happened on Friday. I know I've done the right thing- I can't have a dog in the house I don't trust and am scared off but, at the same time, he was so loving and affectionate when he wanted to be that my heart's breaking for him.
Sorry I don't really have a question, I'm just so devastated and need to vent.
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The doghouse
Had to give rescue dog back, please tell me I did the right thing [long]
11 replies
OikyBollocks · 30/11/2015 13:40
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