Dog walker or daycare?

[PotNooodle]

My dog currently goes to daycare in which she always receives good reports for behaviour with the other dogs. Yesterday during a group dog walk she attacked another dog (played fine with the other dog but singled out these one female).

It’s been recommended that a dog walker will socialise her more than daycare as it’s a more natural environment.

AIBU to ditch the day care (even though she lives it) and send her off with dog walker every day instead?

I run a doggie daycare and boarding. What kind of 'attacked' are we talking about? We need more information in order to help

How old's your girl? Is she spayed?
What about the other female?
How was she when she got home?
Is it out of character?
Has she met the other bitch before?

And I run a dogwalking business... But would be asking exactly the same questions as @farmmumtomillie !

I have a fabulous dog walker - they pick up my 2 spaniels at 10am, take them out until 2:30/3pm depending on how long I’m at work for. They’re out in the morning, and then go to their house for lunch and a nap, and then out for the afternoon.

They also take them to the local uni to raise awareness for mental health, and the students get to spend a couple of hours with the dogs.

That suits them down to the ground because they want to be out and fussed all day long if they could!

Have you had a vet check to see what caused the aggression? Is she in pain? Coming into season? Been spayed?

My girl is 6 months old. The other girl is 7 months old. Neither are spayed. Not totally out of character ... my dog has history of picking on weaker dogs. She was absolutely fine after incident. Other dog fine also. She’s met the bitch a couple of times and has always been fine but have only ever met one to one. This time the male was there also.

I prefer to use a dog walker. I can take my dog to work most days but on the days I can’t, I prefer a dog walker as she took time to meet all the dogs she walks and then puts them into groups for their walks during the day. He has his friends that he likes to bounce around with and I think her grouping prevents any dominant behaviour, like what you’ve encountered at doggy day care, where they can’t pick who your dog interacts with.

Because there are usually at least five different group walks going out every day, we can keep dogs who have issues with particular other dogs apart. Your girl does sound like a few we've walked over the years who are very 'gung-ho'. One of them became worse rather than better as she grew older, and despite much work with a good well-known locally behaviourist (who had had fantastic results with many other dogs to my personal knowledge) eventually we had to terminate her walks as she had run out of dogs she could go with. The others however are all still on our books, with notes in their files about which others they shouldn't share a walk with.