Dog that bites?

[kirkton]

We got a springer from the dogs trust 18 months ago. We were told that he had bitten in the past. To start with he was hell, tried to eat the cat, husband, very nervous etc. Now he has settled down and is a lovely dog, 95% of the time.

We still have issues at the vet, bath time, clipping and when there is food about. But if we need to do something he's not going to like we muzzle him, ie hair cuts and flu jabs etc.

However, he is still manic around food. We feed him away from the other dogs and pick all the bowls up before letting him back in. But if he sees the other springer sniffing about the floor and thinks there is a whiff of a biscuit left he will fly at the other dog and attack him. It happened last night and OH tried to split them up and was bitten badly on the hand and foot.

It's like someone flicks a switch and he just snaps.

OH wants him PTS, says it's only a matter of time till he really bites someone badly. He's on his final final last warning.

Any help? He's 5 years old. Should I put him down? My other spaniel is now very scared of him, but the other 2 dogs e have don't seem to get attacked by him. It's definitely a food thing, you can't feed him anything by hand, if you place it on the floor he's happy but hand it to him and he takes half your hand off too.

 

[ChesnutsRoasting]

I would have chat with a pro behaviourist before PTSing. Ask your vet if they know anyone decent. I believe food aggression in dogs is usually an alpha problem that needs sorting, but who knows what the poor boy went through before you got him.

 

[Spudlet]

If you had him from the Dogs Trust, call the centre and ask to speak to their behaviourist. They were very helpful to me

 

[CAYLA]

Agree re a behaviourist, there is no point giving advice or taking it over a forum when it comes to aggression esp with humans, you need to work one and one and they need to see his behaviour first hand.
Him being naughty with the vet/groomers, to be honest most dogs that are good natured can display naughty behaviour at the vets and with the groomer, I groom lots of asbo dogs that have been booted out of most of the local parlours, you need to find a cimpetent groom.
I would definately contact the dogs trust and ask if you could have some time with their behaviourist.
I would not pts jsut from those 3 things, it seems like u have brought him a good way from how he was.

 

[kirkton]

Thanks guys, It's never nice when your OH tells you 'it's me or the dog!' I've looked on the Dogs Trust web site and they recommend the APBC for Behaviorists. I've found one in my area and will call tomorrow to book an appointment.

Fingers crossed

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Fingers crossed the behaviourist can help you and your dog by assessing the situation in real life.


E.g. if it only is the food that triggers it, why does he only attack the other Springer if he believes that dog has something edible and not the other two dogs? Doesn't they ever sniff at anything on the floor in his presence?


Personally I would not accept that one of my bitches tried to take half my hand off when I give them something edible from my hand, either I don't let go or if I accidentally do let go, I do my best to dig it back out again. But again, it is difficult to advice you how you should deal with your situation, without having seen your dog, without knowing if it is a dominance driven behaviour in him or not.

I.e. does he growl, if so does he growl out of feeling uncertain or out of trying to be dominant in the situation, how does he try to take half your hand off, is he just blind to everything but the food, what would happen if you put something sticky on your hand that he has to lick off to be able to eat, if you put your hand on the floor somewhere near the food what happens then, if you put a treat on a foot would he try to take half the foot off too etc.

A behaviourist will be able to assess your dogs both with and without food around, maybe there is different reasons for why he reacts as he does around food and humans and around food and other dogs?



But though what I've written above, I also think you have a responsibility towards your other dogs and I don't think that it is fair that one dog, through no fault of his own, should feel unsafe in his own home, in the long term.
Personally I think it is the owner's responsibility that their dogs life together functions smoothly, if you can't fix that, then sometimes we have to accept that we've tried our best but it still didn't work.

Though as I said in the beginning, fingers crossed.

 

[Spudlet]

If you can't make it work, please please talk to the Dogs Trust as I am sure they would rather take him back and find him a home as an only dog than have him pts.

 

[kirkton]

Spudlet, he was an only dog in his last home, ie the home that sent him to the dogs trust for biting people and being aggressive.

We'll see what the behaviourist says. I think it's my other spaniel that gets the brunt of his behaviour because he is a fairly greedy dog and is always sniffing about the floor looking for crumbs. If I'm cooking and drop something the other to dogs would not bother to get out of bed to race across the floor for half a mushroom, they know if there are 'real' treats going then they all get one. But with the spaniels they would both race to get the smallest crumb on the floor.

Trust me I'm not a quitter, I've spent the last 18 months trying to analyse this dog. And at £120 per session for the behaviourist I'm prepared to throw money at the situation. I also suspect that if he went back to the dogs trust he would be there for life, I don't think they would rehome a dog that has such a history of biting.

 

[kirkton]

..and Finnish Lapphund when you said "Personally I would not accept that one of my bitches tried to take half my hand off when I give them something edible from my hand, either I don't let go or if I accidentally do let go, I do my best to dig it back out again" I think you don't realise what I mean by an agressive dog. When he grabs your hand he means it, there is no 'not letting it go' or 'digging it back out' not unless you want a trip to the A&E ward!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

It is the difficulties with forums, I can only guess what others might class as aggressive and not, for some an aggressive dog means that the dog is trying to kill you and for others it means that the dog growled but still allowed the cat to eat the dog's own food.



Also, to be honest,

I'm so stupid and stubborn that in the heat of the moment, I would most likely still not let go. Not my proudest moment but the last dog, hopefully *touches wood*, that bit me out of aggression, I bit back...
It happened years ago but I can promise you that I did not have as much as one thought in my head about my own safety when it happened, actually my only thought, as I recall it, was that if she thought she could win by biting, I could bite too.

As said, I'm not the most intellingent person in the heat of the moment. And I want to make it absolutely clear that, though I suppose that I "won", I don't advice anybody else, to bite aggressive dogs.

 

[Galupy]

Somebody on there (sorry, can't remember who) suggested that free feeding might help with food aggression which a couple of mine can have on occasion. I haven't tried it yet though but it might be a good topic to discuss with the behaviorist you use to see if he or she thinks that might help.

 

[kirkton]

What is 'free feeding'? Do you mean like I do with the cats, ie they always have food available? If so how does it work when you have 4 dogs?

 

[CorvusCorax]

Well done for not giving up oh him, second a behaviourist and second like Finny I would change my mindset. This is not a crisis, I do not feel sorry for you, I am not going to worry about it, but I am sure as hell not going to tolerate it. He will respect you more for it.

I'm the kind of contrary cow that would wrap myself in cardboard, bubble wrap and hessian sack - you wanna bite me? Come on then! But nothing good happens, until you stop, wise up and calm down. Do not try this at home.....

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I don't remember which HHO:er it was but she had several dogs and food was always available indoors. As I recall it, the first day or two they ate a whole 20 kg bag with food, then nobody of them could bare the sight of food for a few days but after that, they all only eat what they need and have a very sensible attitude towards all food.

The point is that if the dogs knows that there is always food available, they hopefully decide to not waste any of their energy on arguing over one little piece of food, when it is so much easier to just go and eat one of all the other pieces of food that is available.


That was sort of how Anders Hallgren, the first dog psychologist in Europe, cured a dog, D, who was aggressive over food and gnaw bones. They had a "truckload" full of raw roe-deer bones or similar that they had gotten from a local hunt, D got one of the bones, it was the first raw bone D had ever gotten and D became more aggressive than ever before but acting as if he did not notice the aggression, Hallgren just threw a new bone to D.

D continued to be aggressive, someone threw a new bone to D, D was still aggressive, they threw a new bone etc. As I recall it, when D was lying surrounded by a pile of 38 bones, it was as if somebody had turned off the light switch and D stopped bothering about being aggressive over the bones any more.

So then Hallgren went over and took a bone from the pile, D didn't bother about it, one and one D's owners and some of the other people there, went over and took bones from the pile, then they threw the bones back, went and took them again, went and laid them back in the pile etc.
Eventually they tried to take the bone D was gnawing on and D remained calm, he just picked another bone out of the pile and began gnawing on that instead.




But in D's and similar cases that I've heard of, the basic reason for their behaviour was not dominance, it was a behaviour that they developed due to circumstances. For example, sometimes (not always) perhaps as puppies, owners maybe handled possible growling over gnaw bones in such a way that they increased the stress and ended up teaching their puppies to feel unsafe, confused and stressed around food and gnaw bones.

Let's say the puppy have two gnaw bones and a toy, the puppy growls over one gnaw bone and that is removed, then later perhaps the other bone and the toy is also removed and not given back that day. The next day, perhaps with teeth that is itching and no gnaw bones available, the puppy will gnaw on something else, e.g. a furniture, then it gets reprimanded for that and since it has been naughty, it doesn't get the gnaw bones or toy back this day either.

After x days, the puppy does get one gnaw bone, only to find that moments later the owner takes it back, if the puppy then growls, the bone is gone again and maybe the puppy learns that growling makes gnaw bones disappear and not growling makes them come back.

But sometimes, especially if adding stress over other things, some puppies learns that they can never feel safe with a tasty bone, because they never know when somebody will come and take it away from them and once it is gone, it can be gone for ages and that can teach some (not all) puppies to be aggressive over food and gnaw bones.



Once a puppy/young dog shows an aggressive behaviour around food and gnaw bones, people begin telling the owner that they have a dominance problem with their dog and that their dog doesn't respect them as a leader. Sometimes people are correct and the puppy/young dog was born to be dominant and simply needs to learn that their behaviour is not acceptable, but with some puppies, it only adds more stress when the owner begins to try to teach it who the boss is, if it then responds with anything that seems aggressive, the owner maybe also becomes convinced that the puppy truly doesn't respect them and that it really is time to take the smooth gloves off and from there, it can escalate like a rocket ready for take off.




So I'm really not always advocating going into the situation with your guns blazing and a last man standing wins attitude, I prefer to first teach my bitches that I provide them with lots and lots of gnaw bones, before teaching them that I sometimes also might take away a gnaw bone from them. But if the generous method fails, then I don't back down.

 

[kirkton]

Thanks for all the info on free ffeeding. We have a behaviouist coming from the dogs trust, I'll certainly suggest it to him as it works well with our cats.

I'll hopefully have a positive update to post in a few weeks - and a happy spaniel and a happy OH!

 

[CorvusCorax]

Good luck.

Just for future reference, if he gets scrappy again in the mean time, forget using feet or hands, while instinctive to us it can aggravate the situation, try and grab his collar and lift his front feet right off the ground for a few seconds. It's how we would get zoned-out dogs to let go of anything they had locked onto physically, or mentally, animal, vegetable or mineral!
No fuss, shouting, panic, just 'up'.