I’m so down and shaken up all day from this.
Dp and I adopted our staffie from Battersea 2.5 years ago, she was difficult for the first year despite us putting her through rigorous training, she was aggressive towards other dogs (not reactive but started a lot of fights while playing). During the first lockdown, we saw a huge improvement in her or so we thought. I used to muzzle her but in the last year I’ve relaxed that as she’s been so good with other dogs (albeit rough and bossy, but good nonetheless).
Well she recently got thrown out of her daycare for pinning other dogs down, we put it down to the daycare being too busy for her so began fo work on training her around dogs (giving treats when she was polite around other dogs etc.). That was going well, her recall is amazing, everyone compliments it and says they wish their dog had recall like ours.
Then today all that changed, at first the walk was going well, I was practicing recall with her and our other new rescue dog (who is an angel), when next of all she attacked a dog out of the blue for absolutely no reason at all. I think the other dog wasn’t very interested in her as she approached rather impolitely, then they had a bum sniff and it seemed to be ok. I went over to put her on the lead as I didn’t want her to play while I had both dogs with me as it’s too much to handle. Before I had a chance to get her on the lead she just jumped on the dog and had to be pulled off by the owners of the other dog. No blood was drawn but I am really embarrassed and depressed by all of this. I thought we’d passed all of this behaviour. I think I might muzzle her from now on, we used to let her have the ball as she would hyper focus on that and if we didn’t have the ball, we’d just muzzle her. I think this is the best solution. We had two behaviourists when we first got her so I’m reluctant to find another one as they weren’t great tbh. One helped me with desensitizing her to things she was afraid of (people, bikes etc) but she was not great at dealing with aggression and seemed terrified of her even though my dog was terrified of her. The other behaviourist was more of a dog trainer and was very inconsistent/ lazy with her business. If anyone recommends a really good behaviourist I might consider it, we’re in london. Can you really change your dogs temperament though? She’s not a young dog, maybe 5 or 6 but is highly strung and OTT as if she’s still a puppy. She’s also incredibly smart and obedient when she knows I have treats etc. It’s really annoying me as I should be paying attention to our new dog so he can be trained properly. He’s the most chilled out dog and is completely unphased by anything. Strangely my staffie gets on well with him and seems very submissive around him, he’s about three times her size!
Please help, I’ll never rehome unless I really couldn’t handle her which I can when she’s muzzled or on a lead.