2 aggressive labradors

[Anonymous612890]

We have 2 labs that both have fear based aggression. The black lab was rescued from a farm at 14 weeks and has displayed fear based aggression from the get go. We have tried a dog trainer and a behaviouralist but nothing has ever helped. The younger fox red lab has just learnt by example and she is exactly the same. If a stranger comes into our home we have to put them away otherwise they just bark and lunge at whoever it is, even if it is one of our children’s friends. We live rurally and therefor they don’t see that many people outside our house but if we are ever caught off guard and someone is walking past the dogs have on occasion run up barking aggressively and lunged at the person, yesterday they went as far as biting our neighbour. They were in our front garden not on a lead as we had checked no one was around, but were obviously wrong. We walk them in our local forest which is usually very quiet and they are on a lead but will still try and lunge at anyone who walks past. They do go to a dog day care and have been going for past 2 years and because they know everyone there they are great and the staff can’t believe that they behave the way they do with strangers. In our home with our family they are the sweetest most loving dogs. The neighbour they bit yesterday is obviously livid and wants them both euthanised. I’m at a loss as to where we go from here. Any advice would be very welcome, I’m an emotional wreck over it they are both young dogs and I love them dearly. I’ve been in contact with a few reduces and they’ve all said they wouldn’t take on dogs with any aggression as they’re struggling to rehome friendly dogs with no issues at present.

OP, have you tried speaking to a different dog trainer? One who has experience with big dogs?

If you can I would urge you to consider this and perhaps a residential visit.

Your issue is not insurmountable.

I think 2dogs behave differently from one, more likely to disobey, get aggressive. Try just one dog

£150 per session is expensive, but so are vet bills. I do not have pets, because I know I cannot afford to potentially pay thousands in vet bills (given that a lot of conditions are never covered).

Many dogs aren't trained in a handful of sessions, it takes many months of consistent training and reward and daily demonstrating that you are in charge, particularly if the dog has any issues. You have small kids and training a dog properly is a huge time commitment around running a household, raising kids and working etc.

Being sued by someone that has been bitten will also not be cheap.

Some dogs are just born with something wrong in the brain, just as some people are. Another dog who spent it's first 4 months in the same situation as your lab, could react very differently. It is your dogs brain, or nature, that has made it respond to it's early months by becoming aggressive.

Your dogs have to be muzzled when out and secured in a large pen when people come round. Or rehomed with someone who knows the issues and can invest in training or keep them secure.
Or properly trained which may or may not eventually work. Or PTS. If they are not PTS make sure they are castrated so they cannot breed and pass their genes on.

My dog bit someone once, he had been perfect for the first two years despite being a traumatised rescue. There were no signs of resource guarding at all (he would happily eat around other dogs, cats, people etc.) and went to daycare with no problems.

One day his regular daycare had an emergency so couldn’t take him and arranged for him to go to a different branch of the same daycare. He came home a completely different dog, the alternative daycare staff were very cagey with what had happened when he went to them, but suddenly he started to guard food, was very fearful of men, flinching and shrieking if anyone stood up too fast. The alternative daycare woman had a husband who was there on the day, I dread to think what might have happened to my poor boy because he changed literally overnight, and bit his regular daycare lady when he went back to her a few days later because she walked close to him while he was eating. All that damage to my dog happened in one day, and we are still fixing it three years on. However, we have invested in intensive behaviourist input and he is almost back to the happy, confident dog I knew but he will never be the same. He will need to live by strict rules for the rest of his life to make sure he never relapses again.

You have to put the work (and, unfortunately, money) into dealing with these issues or they will continue to spiral and your dogs will seriously injure someone. Labs might be the typical ‘family dog’ but they are also very large and powerful, so are capable of doing terrible damage if they are so inclined. If you can’t/won’t fix their behaviour, you either need to PTS or rehome them separately to an adult-only home who will work with them.

I think you’ve picked me up wrong the money isn’t the issue we would pay whatever we had to to help the dogs. I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s not realistic for the average person to pay £150 let’s say fortnightly for the next x amount of years. We simply couldn’t afford it. We’ve put so much time energy effort and money into them and as I said previously we’ve learnt a lot on the way we know we’ve made mistakes and haven’t always done the right thing through lack of knowledge. But we are now in the situation that we are in because of this. The dogs were in our back garden, jumped the fence and the man was at our front gate that they can get through while my husband was cutting the grass.

Thank you everyone for your input we’ve a lot to discuss and think about

I can't stand people who would kill dogs without a second thought.

Shouldn't this thread be in the Dog House section rather than Pets? Might get missed.

You PTS. Whether it's now and gentle or by compulsion/because they've killed somebody (or because you live rurally and somebody does it for you) is something you have control over.

Agree with this. 90% of the dogs which have bitten or tried to bite me have been labs (mainly black). There needs to be a zero tolerance to aggressive dogs and I am struggling to understand why you have them living with your young children.

If two fully grown labs attacked you while you were walking along the road to your house you would want them PTS. It must have been absolutely terrifying for your neighbour and I am pretty sure the fact he got away with minor bites is not a huge comfort. He has to live next to you knowing your dogs could attack him or his family when they leave the house (as they are clearly able to escape your garden). Put yourself in his shoes for a minute - how would you feel? Would you be happy for your 3 year old to live next to dogs like that?

The number of times I see, "we only let him off the lead when no one's about."
Yet in my Park, I see people appear from around a hedge and there's panic to leash their aggro dog as someone else is there.
Either walk them in a basket muzzle or leashed at all times.

OP, if you want to try and manage it, rather than PTS, could you get them wearing a muzzle in the garden. Also I've just seen while reading advice from a bite history dog rescue, is speak to your local Labrador breed club as they know the traits.

Op, whereabouts are you based? I know an excellent trainer who specialises in aggressive/reactive dogs. They're based in Cheshire

This is the thing about dogs. Those who had bad experiences with dogs in public places are expected to put up with them and "understand" the circumstances even if they got jumped at, lunged at and even worse bitten. The fact that OP said along the line of the biting wasn't serious as it did not cause any open wounds, is pretty telling.

If a dog can't be controlled, put the dog in leash. If a dog has a tendency to bite, put a muzzle on. It is not very hard to do.

Can I tell you my story of when I had 2 reactive dogs that I was besotted with and thought with my heart and not my brain over, and how that was a mistake I won't ever make again?

Paid thousands upon thousands for rehabilitation for these 2 dogs, they were walked and walked and walked every single day, I spent hundreds on equipment to tire them out, was often up at 3am to start their daily routines and prepare stimulating activities for them and work one on one and then two on one with them and gradual introduction to reactive stimuli.

Things genuinely did seem to get better and it really seemed all worth it.

Then one day, it was back to square one except I was stuck in between two dogs who had both been spooked by something I couldn't identify and I was the closest thing to them so guess who got the brunt of it? Me.

I was so lucky to not have any significant injuries but I got both breasts punctured by teeth and bruising that stopped me from walking for a week.

I had to open the cellar door and boot them down the steps, I honestly thought I'd killed them and I just sat in shock, in a pool of my own blood until my partner came home and found me.

He opened the door to the cellar when he got home and they were both stood there happy as Larry wagging their tails like butter couldn't melt, and my heart swelled with so much love for them that I had to realise that if I didn't put these dogs to sleep now in a humane way, peacefully while they knew nothing except love then there were worse things in store for them, and for me. It felt like a real Lennie and George moment.

I don't think these dogs were bad dogs I think they had some needs that I could not identify and the not being able to identify those needs after spending thousands of pounds that I didn't really have to spend is the bit that was the most dangerous thing because I could have spent thousands more and be worse off overall. I had given myself to them for their whole lives. I had done my research on the dogs, spent time vetting breeders and looking for the sociable signs of the right puppy in a litter, had multiple viewings, observed them eating near eachother to check for signs of food aggression and resource guarding etc.

It took me a long time to be around dogs again and when I was, I wondered why so many people just had dogs that were never naturally reactive in any way. I've spent a long time agonising over it wondering what I did wrong to make these dogs like this, but the truth is some dogs just are like this. It's part of their personality whether they were born like or or it was acquired, and they will never be a part of family life with a personality like that.

You can't keep your dogs away from people. They're large dogs. They need to be walked, they need to roam a garden. This has got a high probability of happening again unless you're willing to spend the rest of their lives isolating them from any one or thing they could harm and that is an exhausting and relentless, unsustainable, and unrealistic solution.

If I were writing this post asking for advice from you, what would you tell me to do?

I would tell me to put them to sleep.

@Anonymous612890 I would give this trainer a try, I think he would be able to help you.

This is a link to his facebook page:

www.facebook.com/share/v/1JpKGmeo1w/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Reactive dogs simply shouldn’t be able to jump the fence. Someone could be seriously injured or even killed in this scenario. Please take it seriously.

Jimmyneutronsforehead

thank you this has really helped me a lot. I knew people would be critical of me and what I have or have not done. I feel like I’ve done everything I can possibly do (with also caring for 3 children) maybe if I was childless I could manage them slightly better but would they still be a massive issue and still be really difficult to manage! And when they are so loveable and so loving to us it is truly heartbreaking and something I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over. I have one last rescue to try and I’m going to have a good chat with them and our own vet on Monday but I think I know where it is going.

It's possible you're using the wrong kind of behaviourist for your dogs. Some just don't actually know how to work with aggression that's already established. Positive reinforcement is great for training but not always enough to break down ingrained behaviours.

Labs are highly intelligent and your dogs probably believe it's their 'job' to protect you. You need to show them that isn't what you want from them at all.

This won't align with everyone's views but we have a dog that has bitten twice (not breaking the skin) and was very aggressive and anxious if anyone came to our house (lockdown pup!)

We had a 'balanced' behaviourist who uses a combination of reward and aversion. We used a noise aversion (banging trays together) at his trigger of someone knocking on the door. After 3 goes with the noise, he now just heads for his bed when he hears the door and lies down. I felt very conflicted at first as he was shaking with adrenaline after the bangs, but now he's so calm and genuinely unbothered by the door where before he was high on stress as soon as he heard it. In the long run it's been the best thing we could have done with him. We still have to manage visitors to the house, but as long as he's safely in the kitchen, we can have people in the house without him getting upset, and then we bring him to the living room and do appropriate introductions in a calmer way (all helped by the trainer),

Some people are very against aversive measures, and you have to pick your trainer carefully (ours was highly qualified and never touches the dog physically at all!) but we felt that for the greater long term good of our dog, it was the right thing.

I get what you’re saying, I know it is expensive. We tried a couple of behaviourists who came to our house every fortnight and it just wasn’t intensive enough to resolve the issues my dog had developed, as he wasn’t like it all the time, he would have ‘good days’ and then he would be horrendous again. We made the decision to send him to a residential behaviourist for a week (£700 for the week, he worked with him 8am-8pm every day) and it is honestly the best money we have ever spent. We got video updates every day and a completely transformed dog.

Yes, I have heard great things about residential behaviour camps for dogs.

A very good point.

I'm a vet nurse and in my opinion these dogs should not go to a rescue ,a dog with this history should be re homed directly by the owner to someone fully aware willing and knowledgeable with the situation , i think they should be separated and homed ideally in the middle of nowhere to adults with no children ever allowed near them-if re homing is what they are considering,obviously this would be extremely difficult maybe impossible twice over.
In a rescue there are too many possibilities for the full facts about the biting and aggression to be misunderstood confused diluted etc leading to potential worse case scenarios.
From what the op describes there is no way my children would be in an environment with an aggressive dog let alone 2 even though they are 'loving' at home.
These dogs may be able to be improved to some degree but they are unlikely to be 'fixed', sad though it is euthanasia may be the right thing to do.

Why are you getting another dog when you have problems with one. So irresponsible.

Isn't that because there's a huge number of them, rather than that they attack more than other dogs?

Op at the very least you need a fence your dogs can't jump.