My smallish dog has, in the past month or so started to display what I think is fear aggression.
He’s just about to turn two, and has in recent weeks seemed to escalate. He’s super friendly with dogs if his own size - and dogs he is familiar with but there have been 4 instances over the past month or so where we had been fairly aggressive towards larger dogs.
Previously this has sort of manifested as barking and growling at dogs say across the road or similar while on the lead (and tbf - some that are fairly aggressive themselves previously).
But in the past couple of weeks he has
- “Gone for” a Labrador who he has previously seen at the park with no issue”
- With no warning started growling at an American bulldog who was minding its own business.
This is a new thing and I’m really worried and unsure what the steps to tackle this are. He’s honestly not shown any aggression before, and it does seem to be larger, darker coloured dogs that he takes issues with... however for example when “going for” the labradors today, he was happily waking around with golden retrievers and a very large collie.
Any ideas - am thinking behaviourist. Also he is still intact (getting him done in two weeks) but babe heard mixed advice on whether this is likely to actually make this worse or better