My male and still intact chocolate lab will be 3 1/2 in February 2025. Over the last 9 months he has lashed out at (growled, snapped at) four children and one adult. He has yet to draw blood or actually latch onto anyone. Three of these instances were out of my sight, but my granddaughter was present for one of them. A young girl got right in his face and was vigorously rubbing both sides of his head. Grizz growled at her and when she didn't stop, he snapped at her. About three weeks ago Grizz growled at an adult male friend of mine who was petting Grizz. The two know each other well, but my friend apparently got his face too close to Grizz's. This past Thursday evening Grizz barked at and went after a little boy who is not quite one year old. It was completely unprovoked and there was no warning. My wife and I were sitting on the floor about 8 feet from one another. The little boy was crawling/scooting between us and Grizz went after him unprovoked and without any warning at all. I tackled Grizz and pinned him against the wall. The baby was screaming. My wife and the mother of the child were crying as they tried to assess the damage. Fortunately, only a tooth mark on his cheek. This morning when purchasing food at a local kennel, I spoke with one the employees asking for advice. She said that his allergy medicine Apoquel has recently been linked to increased aggression. I used three different search engines trying to find out if this is true but could find only one uncontrolled study of about 223 dogs where a 1.1% increase was documented. The majority of results were related to cancer after being on Apoquel for a few months to a couple of years. Called my vet and they say there is no correlation. Anyone else have experience with this? Any recommendations? Last resort is euthanasia. Next resort is surrendering him to a no-kill shelter. I would break my heart to put him down and I really don't want to surrender him. I am also considering purchasing a muzzle to wear whenever we are around children.
Hi David, I am so very sorry to hear that you are dealing with situation. I can't imagine how distressing it must be for you all. I hate to write this but I feel it's important to be honest - in your situation I would talk to the veterinarian about euthanasia. This is because your dog is not safe around children and sadly you will never be able to be confident now that they will be, even supervised. You'd need an (ideally double) barrier between them and any child. When you surrender a dog to a shelter that has previously bitten a child you cannot be sure that the new owner would be able to keep this from happening again. It's also possible that if they for a time have good experiences with him, that they will even doubt the story they have been told and become more lax in who they let him interact with. I realise it's (relatively) easy to say this online when I don't know your dog, and that no decision to euthanise is ever going to be taken lightly. I wish you all the very best in making this incredibly difficult decision, and I'm so sorry.
