Just as the title says really. Our dog was out with our walker, had just left the house and was down the road when she attacked another dog as it came around the corner. Walker brought her back to the house and as she was unlocking the door the other owner walked past with the dog and she launched herself at them again. I got to the door as our walker got hold of her again and took her in and locked her away whilst our walker took off after the other owner to talk.
I'm horrified, everybody was shaken up, she's never done anything like this before and whilst she's started getting a little barky at other dogs when on the lead very recently, we were told (informally but by somebody well trained) that this is normal for teenage stage and to keep on with what we were doing and continue to socialise, no other even hint at aggression. The only thing I can think of is that she was spayed two weeks ago and this is the first time she's seen the walker since then, so she was extremely excited and jumping around so maybe she's hurt herself in the moment?!
We've informed the police, popped a note through the other owners door with our information and contacted our insurance. Our insurance is saying that they won't cover it third party because our walker had her at the time. So we let our walker know but our walkers insurance apparently expired last year and she forgot to renew it.
I'm now sat waiting for the other owner to get in touch (I didn't go speak to him at the time as I have two young children and our walker went, and frankly, I was completely and utterly confused by what was going on until the walker told me that my dog had attacked his and she was going over to talk to him). We knew that we had some training that needed addressing but nothing like this, more lead pulling, recall and snatching food from the kids type thing! The things that we didn't address well being novice owners and accidentally ending up with a 'Lockdown puppy' (so ended up unable to get classes until she was an older puppy). Ironic that we purposely waited until the first Lockdown ended to get a dog as we didn't want to be one of 'those' people but apparently we are.
We were already in the process of sorting a trainer to come visit and will see if they can come sooner now, but now I'm all unsettled and wondering what to do. We have two young kids, she's usually with us all day and hangs out with us in our living room but at this moment I don't feel comfortable doing that, she's our family pet and whilst I'm always aware that she could snap at the kids because she is a dog at the end of the day, I'm now actually worried about it because she was just a completely different dog and was properly going for the poor creature. We have a ring doorbell so I have watched the second attack back.
What do we do? She's a GSD so a big and strong dog who could easily cause damage, we're lucky that she didn't do worse to the poor other dog. We did our research, waited until Lockdown ended to put a deposit on a dog, sourced her from a lovely family home that we visited repeatedly and followed the sires very active social media and could see that they were from people who know what they are doing, took her to puppy training when space became available and tried to train her at home. And now I'm wondering if i can trust her with my kids.