Going from two dogs to none ...

[Contraryish]

We currently have two dogs. One is an eleven year old, who is the kindest, gentlest beast. Everybody loves him, even self-confessed dog haters can see that he is a really good specimen. But he's poorly. After being fit and active his whole life, he's been diagnosed with liver damage and pancreatitis. He's on a cocktail of drugs and seems well in himself for the moment, but the long-term prognosis is not good.

Last year, as we knew no.1 dog was getting old and would not live forever, we got a new puppy. Also a lovely dog, albeit a bit more skittish, but he's young. We have put a year of love and hard work into him and come out at the end of it with a well-trained, beautiful, affectionate dog. The trouble is, on two occasions he has snapped and bitten. Once my son, now recently my husband. So we feel we have no choice but to find him a new home. If it were just me and my husband, we'd keep him, but we can't take the risk of him biting our children or their friends another time.

So it looks as if in the not-too-distant future we will be down from two dogs to none. My husband is adamant he does not want another as we cannot go through all this again. We are in bits. How are we going to cope?

Typical doghouse response coming up.
Can't feel sorry for you because my sympathies are with your 2nd dog. He's faced with a bleak future if you don't want him and he's labelled as a biter .
He must quite young if you got him as a puppy a year ago. Were they serious bites needing stitches? Or puppy nips that didn't break the skin? Did dog bite with no warning or during excited play? Is your husband looking for an excuse to get rid of the dog? No need to answer, just wonderings.
A behaviourist could help you sort this out.
In your position I'd be doing everything I could to keep the dog and make sure children were safe around him. Behaviourist, training, possibly muzzling around children or physical separation to stop the biting behaviour.

Have you actually sought any advice on the snapping? What were the circumstances? It seems ridiculous to leap to rehoming rather than look at why it happened and how you can prevent it.

In both cases they were quite serious bites to the face which drew blood but no stitches required. In both cases, the dog was lying down, apparently relaxed and happy and just snapped when stroked, with no warning. He's done it twice in six months. We have spoken to the vet, who has said a behaviourist may be able to help, but they think it's unlikely as it seems to be an instinctive snap out of fear or something.

Definitely not an excuse to get rid of him. It is breaking our hearts to do this, and we would much rather keep him.

In both cases, the dog was lying down, apparently relaxed and happy and just snapped when stroked, with no warning

The phrase let sleeping dogs lie comes to mind.

Never, ever, ever stop fuss a sleeping/laid down, relaxing dog. It is golden rule number 1. Some dogs will tolerate it. Many will not. Always call the dog to you, or wait for it come of its accord.

Also vets are not trained in behaviour issues. Fear aggression is very treatable.

There will be have been a warning too, there always is, it's just that this warning isn't often growling. There would have been lip licking, yawning, gaze aversion etc.

I really wouldn't rehome your younger dog, there is no need, speak an APBC registered dog trainer and educate yourself. That is all that is needed here.

Get a good behaviourist in. Not saying you should necessarily keep the pup but you really should do all you can before re homing to give him the best shot going forward. As he's your dog it's the least you can do. Your vet may be right but the best person to decide is someone with training and experience in the area.

Rehoming a dog who has bitten is dodgy imo, if he can't be retrained then he'll be pts after he's gone through all that trauma (new home/kennels/strangers etc) it would be far better for the dog to be retrained first then either kept or re homed as a reformed biter or found he can't be retrained and pts by you.

One of my pet hates is people re homing when they know the animal will probably be pts, if that's the case have the courage to do it yourself, don't put the poor animal through more than it needs to.

I'm also wondering why your son's and husband's faces were so close to the dog's mouth?

Can you describe exactly what happened? Were they leaning over the dog? Where was the dog laid down?

A crate would be a good idea and make sure everyone knows that when the dog is in its crate it is to be left alone, let the dog have the crate as it's safe space. You don't have to shut the door, just make sure it's cozy, quiet and the dog that the crate is his space.

"One of my pet hates is people re homing when they know the animal will probably be pts, if that's the case have the courage to do it yourself, don't put the poor animal through more than it needs to."

Very well put todayisnottheday, just thought it was worth repeating .

I'm struggling to agree with the concept that you cannot stroke a dog who is lying down. The dog was not asleep and suddenly jerked awake, he was awake, friendly, responsive and then snapped.

I would never be anything less than honest about our reasons for rehoming and think he would fit in well with people without children, for example.

I suspect his behaviour could be managed but I don't want to have to give any visitors lessons in managing the dog at the risk of being bitten. I want my dog to be part of the family, and as such to be able to trust him. He is still young, yes, he is just 15 months. But how can I risk this happening again while we try to get a handle on it? What if next time it is worse and somebody needs stitches ...

D0oin's advice is spot on. Immediate action is no one touches the dog when it is sleeping/resting. It is not uncommon for dogs not to tolerate this.

Do not leave your own children with them unsupervised. When you have visiting children who might not follow your instructions, dog goes behind a baby gate or in a crate (once crate trained) where they can feel safe and are away from grabby little fingers.

A lot of vets have very little up-to-date behavioural knowledge. They are experts in physiology, not behaviour so take their comments with a pinch of salt. A properly trained behaviourist will be able to assess your dog, give much better advice as to prognosis, give you a behaviour modification program to work on and help with management strategies to use while you work the program.

The fact that the snapping occurs in a predictable and easily identifiable situation is a good indicator that you can work on and manage it.

I wouldn't rehome him if I thought it meant he would be put to sleep a few months down the line. I agree that would be dishonest and disingenuous on our part. But I don't think being put to sleep is inevitable, indeed I very much hope that it isn't.

You don't need to manage guests, just tell them to leave the dog alone, unless the dog comes to them. It's not hard. My home is filled with 6yos most days and they manage it just fine.

Me: "Don't touch the dogs unless they come to you, they don't bite but it's not nice to disturb them if they are resting" kids: "Okay, Mrs Dd2's mum. Can we have a ice pop now?" Done. Sorted.

Agree with DOoin, I think I might grumble or lash out if I were dozing and a great big (to the dog) face appeared out of nowhere . You know what it's like when jerked out of a sleep!!

My vet is young (early 30's), with a modern outlook, but readily admits his training in behavioural was woeful to say the least, and that he lacks any real, in depth knowledge. I think it's a real shame tbh, as the vet would be the first point of call in many many cases.

Please try to find a behaviourist that is APDT accredited, your insurance may even cover this so you might not even need to pay

Clearly you have better-behaved children coming to your house than mine! ;-)

Sorry - I didn't see the post about the dog being awake. Which is what you get when sneaking onto mumsnet at work!

Meant to say, thanks for the advice. We're not making any rash decisions and it's useful to get some input.

Can I stress that he wasn't jerked awake, he wasn't asleep. He was just lazing in the sunshine. He wasn't shocked, that's what's made it so difficult as we just don't get why it happened!

X posts. Dogs are not just a generic lump. Your dog does not tolerate it so don't do it!

Have you had them thoroughly checked over for any issues that might be causing pain? If it's not pain related and dog is alert when it happens, I would put a reasonable amount to of money on them having given off a lot of signals that they were uncomfortable with that handling before resorting to snapping.

I find your perspective hard to understand. I absolutely get that having to manage this issue it is what anyone ideally wants. But if you care about your dog in the way you say you do then I'd expect a bit more compassion for them not being happy and a bit more willingness to make some basic modifications to keep them and the people I the house safe and happy.

No, we just have lots of ice pops

Do as I say and you have free access to the freezer. Upset me and I will send you upstairs to play. There are no ice pops and no TV upstairs [evilgrin]

They very quickly realised that doing as I asked without question was much better than making me "manage" their behaviour. I don't do managing other people's kids, I only do out of sight out of mind

Ah, ok, cross-post needsastrongone!

One of mine is very possessive of his sunshine. You must never, ever steal his sunshine. You can call him away from the sun, but don't you dare try and share it with him

Whether or not the dog was asleep or surprised is irrelevant. He was relaxing and did not want to be pestered or fussed.

However, I would still think that the dog would have given you some form of sign that it was uncomfortable. They include, yawning, licking lips, averting their eyes, crouching, some are even more subtle and are easy to miss.

If you google 'calming signals' for dogs, some excellent material will come up, some child friendly.

A baby gate can help, or if your dog is crated then that can be the safe haven, even placed upstairs while you have visitors.

My oldest dog has snapped a couple of times but that's when he gets resting/sleeping.
if you were startled you wouldn't be happy!

if you're that worried about him that you need to find a new home, how are you going to so this with a conscience? what if he bites his new owner's child?

Think the most responsible thing would be to advise everyone to leave well alone whilst he's sleeping and possible training if he's still a bit unruly!

Can you not muzzle the dog when you have visitors with a basket muzzle.

My dog was a terrible biter for no reason we could see. He bit quite a few people, badly enough to draw blood some of the times. We took him to a behaviourist and have worked hard over the last year.

At the time I had a thread on MN with aout 300 posts telling me to have him pts and another 200 telling me I was awful for considering having him pts. And a lot of posts telling me I couldn't/shouldn't rehome him via a rescue as it wasn't fair on stretched rescues to dump a biter on them.

Touch wood he hasn't bitten anyone in about 10 months, not even snapped. I don't even have to muzzle him anymore. He's like a different dog with everyone apart from dh who he still hates with a passion but now constrains himself to snarling at rather than biting. Our behaviourist said its fear aggression so work can be done to modify the behaviour a lot.

And by the sounds of it our dog was a lot worse. I'd never have described him as affectionate. He was 24/7 lunging at people. I was terrified of him. Within two minutes of him being in the house on his first day he bit dh.

Also all dogs use calming signals differently depending on their breed and personality. My terrier does huge jaw breaking yawns, averts his body, let alone his gaze, and goes so far as to lick his nose. The whippy, who we think maybe crossed with a collie somewhere down the line, seems to believe a slight flick of her tongue and looking down for a second is enough. She gets really pissed off when over excited, bouncy labs don't listen to her

You need to learn universal doggy language and then apply to your own dog, he'll have his very dialect The more you learn about it the easier it is to spot, you'll soon speak fluent canine.

If we were to go down the rehoming route, we would research ourselves and via the dog's breeder (who is a good friend) to find a suitable new home for him, get them to meet them at our home, etc. and explain in full all our reasons. I know this is a process that could take some time. We would not simply be dumping him at a rescue centre.