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I have an almost 4 yr old mutt (Staffordshire bull terrier 65%, Australian Shepherd 20%, white Swiss Shepherd 9%, australian cattle dog 6% mix) who’s always been cautious of strangers and other dogs, but last year he went through a trauma with me (my ex attacked me with him present, he has been more aggressive since then). we’ve been in a stable place where he has his own space for about a month now and he was doing better but our neighbors are outside often and leave their dog tied up outside (he can see him through the window) and he has been getting food aggression with our other dog (18 yr old chihuahua who he normally LOVES and has had no problem sharing with in the past) and he has just recently snapped at my roommate. i’m at a loss of what to do. i play with him when we go outside and i play with him inside often so he gets plenty of stimulation (he also has an arsenal of toys). He’s a very skittish dog and i’m not sure if that’s contributing to the aggression or not. i have also been working on getting him muzzle trained (it takes time, especially since he’s so skittish and cautious of the unknown). Any advice would help, i’m at a loss and im afraid he might snap and hurt the older dog or my roommate.

Hello, please be gentle with me.

My girl, 3 year old mini aussie, has a sonic boom of a bark. I’m not kidding, I’ve had a lot of dogs throughout the course of my life and she has the loudest bark I’ve ever heard. She trumps the Great Danes I’ve owned.

To the point – she goes insane when my partner and I come home from work, or when anyone comes over. Rapid fire barking, nose to the door. She does not stop until she goes outside.

There’s clearly things I’m missing, which is why I’m here.

I tried working on a “place” command with her for around a year, and she would follow it EXCEPT for this situation. It’s like her brain shuts off and instinct takes over.

We ignore her when we come in, no eye contact or petting or noise until she stops barking. Does not affect anything. She loves to bark as loud as she can.

I’m sure I’m missing details in this post, so sorry in advance. My brain is frazzled.

Any advice is welcome, please be nice to me. I am doing my best.

For context, my mom adopted a Great Pyrenees mix about a year and a half ago. They think he is around 6, and clearly didn't come from a very happy background. When they got him, he was terrified of people, wouldn't let you approach him unless you very slowly backed up to him with your hand facing out, and would run away if you made eye contact. Luckily, he has been doing much better, is much more confident and now forces you to pet him (he will slap you or force his head under your hand).

Over the last couple of months, he has started some pretty destructive behavior, but only does it when he thinks nobody is home. He has been peeing in the same few spots in the house, despite being let out right before they leave and only being gone an hour or two, getting into and ripping apart all the contents of the trash, opening cabinets (that were zip tied shut to keep him out) and stealing everything in them (for some reason he keeps stealing the same two two refill bottles of hand soap and hiding them in his little hoarde?). He has also gotten onto the kitchen countertops and has stolen loaves of bread, butterknives, and other random things. They have done all they can think of to prevent him from stealing when they are gone (giving him toys/bones to keep him occupied, keeping him in one room, etc.) other than crating him because any time they have tried, he gets really scared and runs away or shakes and gets really anxious if they make him go into the crate.

They are working on building a larger kennel in their garage so it's more like a room than a kennel in hopes he will be less fearful of it, but until then, don't know what to do. The behavior is slowly getting worse and more frequent and it is clear that he knows he isn't supposed to do it and snitches on himself before they even see anything he did just by acting guilty. They are working on getting a camera set up so they can monitor him, but has anyone else dealt with this issue and was there anything that you did that worked? He is otherwise, a very sweet, normal dog who just seems to have had a tough life before adoption.

Hi everyone! First post in this sub 🙂

First of all, thanks to all the mods and posters here, I was super nervous on seeking advice on this and getting responses that might be harmfull to the pups, but having read the rules and some posts here I'm feeling super secure! Awesome comunity, haha <3

For some context, the area where I live is becoming increasingly more dangerous, ie home invasions (for theft). I've had dogs for 'protection' since I was little, but the circumstances this time are a little different. I've had 3 GS's (2 households) that were great for what I consider guarding — barking at strangers and being scary looking for long enough to scare people off/for me/family to do something, and still being socialized. All of my girls would stay alert and bark at strangers, but never bit guests when they were with family. None of them were professionally trained, and honestly It's a super lucky streak, our first girls in each household were great, we worked with them for what they needed corrected, and they passed that to the others.

Now, I have one of those 3 GS's, a senior lady, and another adult female. The new female barks alongside our senior, but is too much of a sweetheart to do anything on her own. Since my family and I don't believe in the common training methods for protection dogs and don't have access to professional alternatives, we've been thinking of getting a new puppy of a bigger breed (mostly livestock guardian pups of mountain-y regions) while our senior is still with us, but were not sure if she could handle a new puppy — I don't think she'd harm it, but I'm scared It'd be too much energy for her to handle.

We've been thinking of a bigger breed for the 'scare' factor and the hope that the personality will hold up to their name, haha. Ofc, the puppy will not stay alone with our senior until we're sure about it, and we will properly introduce them and hire professionals if needed.

I know I rambled quite a lot, but my question is, could this work without too much stress on our senior? And if not, what is the alternative without fear or punishment based training?

I'm fully aware this could be a gamble, but with the success we've had in our family, could it be worth it? Tysm everyone! Feel free to ask questions or scold me in the replies!!

We have a one year old border collie and I've recently noticed inappropriate behavior toward my seven year old male mix breed. The border collie will growl or snap at my older boy if he approaches me or if I'm giving him attention. If I call my older boy, he gives him a kind of hard stare so my older boy won't approach me and will turn around and go the other way. They used to be just fine with being in the same space as me and even used to lay together on the couch sometimes. The BC would lay in my older dogs crate with him and sleep/play with toys together. They literally slept next to each other on the bed with us and our BC was laying with his head on our older dog. With this recent behavior our older dog is mostly isolating in his crate (he's older and likes to sleep in there most of the time anyway, but he's staying in there now during times when he'd usually come hang out with us, like after dinner). He will come out and hang out with us if the BC is crated, and last night he laid next to the couch we were on while the BC and beagle were in the couch.

This behavior does not apply to my five year old beagle, I can pet both of them at the same time and interact with her as normal with no interference. He still cuddles with her and plays with her as normal. He does sometimes get jealous when my husband is petting her but not as severe as what we are seeing with our other male dog.

Is this gender related? Is it something to do with dominance? Our BC just turned a year but both he and our older dog are neutered. Our older dog does not engage in any aggression with our BC even though he is bigger and could objectively put the younger boy in his place if he wanted to.

From what I've read online, I understand that it's bad to either try to reassure my BC (as this could reinforce the guarding behavior) or to punish him for it. I am having a hard time finding anything on this specific type of situation since it seems to be primarily directed at my older dog, not all dogs at large. To be clear, I do intend to consult on this with a coworker who is a certified dog trainer, but I won't be able to for a few days and I am hoping to gather more information in the immediate to make sure I am handling this situation thoughtfully and appropriately. I really appreciate any constructive thoughts or information anyone is able to share with me.

My older dog is ~70 lbs and is generally low energy, but is prone to zoomies.

Our younger dog is ~15 lbs and still growing.

We’ve been noticing that whenever both dogs are able to play off leash, the older dog gets so excited then starts zooming, and runs over the younger dog. If she escalates in excitement she’ll start mouthing too and I have to step in and stop the play. The pup seems to love it but it doesn’t seem safe at all.

Same deal if they’re on leash and I take them for a run, the older girl gets overexcited and tries to play excessively rough wit the pup.

My concern is that this happens frequently, and doesn’t seem to be decreasing in frequency at all despite play always ending whenever she gets the zoomies. I’d like them both to be able to play off leash, but I’m struggling to come up with a game plan for teaching her to not bully her little brother. It’s been 8 months now with her being put on leash and play ending whenever she bulldozes her little brother and it doesn’t seem to be affecting her behavior at all.

Both of them play well with other dogs and are receptive to corrections from other dogs, but they don’t ever correct each other so they are absolutely insane when playing together.

We own a large dog (50kg) that is a rescue from a abusive situation where he was both hit by humans a lot and dominated by another large aggressive dog. This has made him really anxious and submissive a lot. We also own a puppy bull mastiff about 6 months old. Recently we moved back in with our parents and one of their dogs is a beagle about 2 years old. The beagle and the bullmastiff get along well and love to play in the backyard. Recently however after the large dog has gotten a bit more comfortable he has started to get aggressive at the beagle when he sees them playing, and we assume he is misinterpreting the play as aggression and going to protect the young pup which he has known most of her life.

What would we do about fixing this situation and teaching him the difference between play and aggression as he was barely socialised as a puppy.