I’ll start off by saying that he has a bad past life. He was obviously abused by his previous owners and straight up abandoned in the woods. He has bad anxiety that he is on Prozac for, and it seems to be helping for the most part.
Lately he has been grabbing random shit and snapping and growling when someone tries to take it. He’ll grab the stuff off tables and counters to chew, so it’s not like he’s finding random stuff on the floor.
Last night he grabbed tape off of a table and when my sister tried to take it, he bit her hand. It wasn’t hard and barely left a mark, but it is still incredibly concerning. I was the victim of a severe dog attack as a child, so any aggression is not okay. I don’t want to have to get rid of him because he’s my baby boy and I love him so much.
I have no idea how to stop this behavior. I’ve never had a dog act like this. It started in August and has gotten worse in the past month because our living conditions changed. I broke my ankle/leg and I’m laid up for a while at my parents’ place.
Do y’all have any suggestions?
Not a professional and you should reach out to a dog trainer if possible.
In the meantime, negative reinforcement will not give you the desired responses. You could end up increasing reactiveness, justifying their behavior or having them only fear and listen when you’re around.
Instead a lot of the basic rules of parenting a toddler applies. Positive reinforcement and distraction techniques are preferred from trainers I’ve worked with. Treating the chewing is easier than responding to the aggression. But training overall will help both.
If you have something they want more, they should give up what they took.
- Training them the leave it command can be helpful.
- see if you can get more toys or other things they want to chew. Chewing can be a sign of boredom.
- It may be substantially easier to train in a more neutral environment, indoors, on leash, etc (such as a room they don’t normally go in)
- as others said, keep items out of reach. Only give him things they enjoy when they are in their space (such as a create or room)
This article has some information about possessive aggression that seems to provide good information.
Thank you so much for the advice! I’m looking into trainers. My boy knows “leave it” when he is actively trying to get something he shouldn’t. I think I’m going to use “drop it” when he has things in his mouth. I don’t want him to get “leave it” confused after taking almost a year to learn it.
