i have a 22 & 14 month old female labs, recently my older lab has been aggressive to male labs on walks to the point she’s trying to lunge for them and she’s barking, growling also. She has never shown any type of aggression to other dogs until I had my 2nd child, and I go on social dog walks so she is well socialised so I am very confused to why she is trying to lunge for male dogs who are much bigger than her and I have never seen her do this before so I am very worried as I have 2 small children.
Hi @Tuka Welcome to the forum. I'm trying to work out what significance, if any, should be placed on your statement that it only started happening when you had your second child. How many months ago did you have the second child, that is how old was the dog in question when she first stated being aggressive? Did the older dog have an incident with another dog when she was very young.Does your dog act so when you don't have your baby with you? What do you do when she is aggressive? Sorry for all the questions.
Sorry I should of explained this so much better but I’m not good at explaining so I apologise in advance. I had my baby 4 months ago, but I only noticed a change in her behaviour when I went on a walk after I had my baby. She has never had an incident with another dog before, I adopted her when she was 8 weeks old. She is quite relaxed around my baby and just wants to lick her etc. She is honestly the sweetest dog to all people and my all my pets as I have quite a few. But it was an incident when a man was walking his bullmastiff through the dog park and she immediately sat in between my legs(as I was sitting on a bench) and her back fur was all puffed up, she was growling and barking and if I didn’t have her on a lead she would of done something terrible. I ended up walking away. She has never done it before, she is well socialised, she gets on with all female dogs, but it is certain male dogs she will react too which I don’t understand why as she never done this before. I don’t know if it was because the dog was twice her size and she isn’t used to other big dogs as she’s really big herself♀️
No they are not spayed, but I do plan on doing so but scared too as her behaviour has changed recently and I am worried it would change more when I spray them.
I think you're wise to wait, well done. Rather than it being male dogs, I think it probably is just the type of dog - a bullmastiff is a very large and intimidating-looking dog, for most dogs. It is probably just a coincidence that they are male so far (and of course male dogs tend to be bigger). Please don't worry that she is going to start doing this to your children - dogs are reactive because they are scared in 95% of cases and she isn't going to suddenly become scared of your kids if she has currently shown no sign of that. But it would be good to figure out how to help her around dogs she shows signs of fear towards. You would probably benefit from learning how to do Look At That: https://thelabradorforum.com/threads/look-at-that.22184/
