Hello I have a 4 year old charcoal lab. I am going to explain the beginning so you have a little bit of back ground. My vet feels she was inbred. My family had never bought a papered dog before so we really didn't know what we were doing but we trusted the owner cause he worked in my mom's workplace. So we didn't question anything really. Well I guess we learned. My mom bought her for me cause I had been dealing with and fighting cancer for 7 years she thought it would be good for me. She attached to my son. Lol but she was our dog took her for walks ,dog park we have a huge yard fenced in a good portion so she could just run and play and I wouldn't have to try to run after her ( I could in my condition anyway) so she started from the beginning to show food aggression. I tried to call the guy we got her from to asked questions but never got a answer or email or call back. So I looked up ways to try to work with her for food aggression.then she started not liking women some would be fine but she would just growl and growl. So if I had a friend come over she would go with my son to his room ( not knowing what to do I never had a dog act like this before) then the kids next door I found out were teasing her so now if a child comes in she actually backs them into a corner and growls the whole time (she has never bitten anyone just growls) so 4 years later when people (adults) come we just say ignore her and act like she isn't here and it works most of the time some friends are afraid of her so I just block her off to keep them at ease. We do not have a lot of kids around the ones that were next door moved 2 years ago. Now this is what I don't know what to do (sorry took so long to get to this point) my son is going to have a baby he is afraid how the dog is going to reached to the baby. Can she be trained somehow I am still nor well after 11 years and my disability I can not afford a trainer. I don't want to get rid of her but I don't want to block her in a room when the baby comes either. Not sure if this is important but medically I had her fixed and when she was 2 she had a lump of cancer the tool off her side. Just trying to kinda explain things I figure the more I explain someone might be able to give me advice or help. I love my Roxy but with the baby coming I am not sure what to do. She has never bitten anyone. Thank you for listening and for any advice. ( I have had 6 dogs and this is the first one that I had like this.
So: Your dog has difficulties with 1) some women 2) all children 3) sometimes random strangers/adults as well? You've described these issues as being specifically in your house. How is your dog away from the house when interacting with people? At the vet? In the street? Is she exactly the same? Still nervous but not as bad? Or ok?
My son took her to the dog park and she would run around and play when she was younger but this one time a bigger dog tried to hump her and she ran and sat down next to him and would not play any more he took her 2 more times after that and she would not leave his side. We walk her on the trail near our house and most of the time she just walks if someone or a dog comes to go by we just shorten her leash and keep walking.(Just to let you know I can not take her for walks any more cause of health issues I can not walk with out a cane and I can not walk for long and this has been for about 2 years now. I can take her out in the yard and play with her but not walks anymore☹. I will have to asked my son about how she dose now. The sad part is yes I have a huge yard 3 acres but she didn't get to go play or walk much anywhere else. I do take her for car ride she loves but again if anyone walks to the car she growls. Also when we go on vacation she dose bark and growl at other people and dogs. At the vet I have to muzzle her cause she growls and gets very stressed out.But there are a lot of people that come to the house. And most males she is fine with some females and not kids at all she has always growled at kids.i don't know if I mentioned this but besides her cancer( we operated and rthe dr got it all and it has not come back) she hurt her back leg 2 and a half years ago roxy just turned 5 and the Dr said to try keeping her less activity no running to try to heal it and if it didn't work then we would operate ( she tore muscles in her leg. Can't remember the exact name) but it took 10 months of no running on a short lease when going out to go to the bathroom I felt so bad cause she was still so young and couldn't run around and play so her going out around people was pretty much stopped when her getting better was going on and now she has aurtheritis in that leg. I hope this answered your question if you have more please asked thank you
I wanted to let you know that when we take her for walks we just always walked her on a short leash so she is next to us and she just walked once in a while she would bark but no it is not a lot cause our focused is on walking. Am I walking her right?
My Springer got grumpy as she got older she would growl at people who came to the house just randomly pick some out but not growl at others. We got them to offer her a treat this seemed to work as they became friends. The kids next door would tease her she would growl at kids boys not girls so we kept them away if anyone did fuss her I held her head and stroked her then she was fine. We suspected she was inbred as the breeder had a few Spriners they showed at crufts and said the boy and girl got together. My Springer went blind at 4 yrs and deaf at 8 maybe this was why she was grumpy.
