We have a 3 year old JRT who I've posted about before. Up until he was about 6 months old he was a lovely pup who was happy to see everyone. Then something suddenly changed and his behaviour deteriorated. We reached a point where people he previously had no difficulty with couldn't come into the house without us shutting him away to avoid the barking, growling and snapping. He will only tolerate certain close family.
We hired a behaviourist who gave us techniques to try but these involved having different people being willing to come to our house to be barked and growled at in an attempt at counter conditioning. Needless to say, few wanted to do this and it tapered off, so we now live with a scenario or either meticulously planning visitors so that the dog can go and stay with relatives or shutting him in another room and leaving him to bark.
He will bark at the slightest noise outside. He will run the fence in our garden if he sees any other people or dogs. He goes crazy at the doorbell. He is aggressive on lead when walking to other people and animals. He can be aggressive when disturbed on the couch or if we are above him, try to groom him, pat him etc and this manifests itself by him flying at us, teeth bared. This has increased recently however to him literally flying at us when we barely move on the couch. He is obviously now banned from the couch.
If someone sneezes or drops cutlery or makes a sudden noise, he runs away.
He is out with a dog walker 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with doggy pals and he loves it, so it cant be a lack of exercise (though they have been on holiday)
We now have an almost 2 year old toddler and I'm finding myself very stressed at the prospect of something happening.
I want to have him fully health checked by a vet in the new year (which will be difficult unless they knock him out as he doesn't tolerate the vet) but I honestly don't know what to do if they say there is nothing physically wrong. There's no way he could be rehomed and I couldn't put him in a shelter. The only other thing I can do is have him euthanised and that breaks my heart.
Can dogs have mental problems??
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The doghouse
Dog aggression becoming worse
59 replies
Ginger1982 · 31/12/2018 20:15
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