Help with anxious/aggressive jug

[willsandnoodle]

My dog is 7. We have had him, since 9 months. Toilet trained him, and gained his trust, all going well. We had a baby three years ago, dog doesn't dislike our 3 year old, they seem to get along fine. Also have two older children, dog gets along fine with these also.

We noticed after having the baby that the dog would bark when people left. We moved house a year ago and it's got so much worse, he is now attacking people when they leave. I will pick him up or direct him into another room but he is yapping away the whole time.

I take the brunt. Whenever I leave he will bite me if I don't block him. He launches, bites and then releases. I have lots of broken skin bites on my shins.

All other times he is great. I'm at my wits end. I'm fed up of being attacked. He sometimes goes for older child (14) but mostly just me.

He is currently on some medication from the vets, it's only been a few days so we don't see any improvement yet, it's supposed to calm him.

Vet said he isn't unwell if injured.

He's a jack russell cross pug (we think), has terrible recall and is really stubborn. We have taken to shutting him in the kitchen when we leave now (access to sofa and conservatory) but he's still upset.

We know that when we are out he rests, as we have recorded him.

Please can anyone advise?

Or he could be generally over aroused and stressed so is unable to eat. Something to discuss with the behaviourists

I would suggest you write down everything you and your family do in the run up to and while he is going bonkers. So, if you come downstairs from brushing your teeth in the morning, is he calm? When you pick up your bag, put your coat on, shoes on, etc, at what point does he realise that you intend to leave? It's likely you'll need to work on each thing, reducing the stress he feels at each stage one by one. So if it's putting your coat on, you'd put your coat on (and off) multiple times without leaving the house. Or he might associate a time of day, so you'd rearrange your schedule so it's less predicable (easier said than done).

But I'm not a professional and I'm glad you are getting one. Multiple bites really isn't good.

I'm going to set some time aside to write everything down today.
He hates when we put our shoes on, or grab the keys. I've started putting my stuff in the porch or car the night before so he doesn't need to see us gather our stuff. That works to an extent, but once I open the door to leave he's upset,
I've tried quietly sneaking out, giving him fuss as I'm leaving, coming down to his level when he's upset and stroking him with calm words - this works but as soon as I'm up again to leave he's reactive.
He seems to like the whole family staying together.

One thing to consider is desensitising each step there. Pick up the keys randomly and put them straight down again. Do things like this all the time, extending how long you have them in your hand until he stops reacting to the keys.

It's not the same, but it's how we desensitised our dog to us leaving the house without her as she has terrible separation anxiety. It's always worse for her in winter because it takes longer to put on a coat, boots etc than just walking out the door in summer. Unfortunately we have a stupid open plan house so I can't stick her in another room