I see all these as good valid points on this forum. but my 1 yr old Labrador is going for me on a daily basis 3 to 4 times a day. It's me alone aswel none of the other 4 members of the house. Due to work I only walk him Saturday and Sunday for about 3hrs each day. My 17yr old son walks him in the week. So by that standard he is to the dog his primary walker. He has no one person who feeds him an we all play with him. I feel as being alpha in my house (Don't tell my wife I said that) that he is fighting for dominance. I have resulted in a mussle to stop him. But now he has just start to claw at me when it's on. Any suggestions
Hi @AsheyJ3 your dog is not vicious. Otherwise he would be attacking everyone. Please hire a dog behaviourist, who practices positive reinforcement. Make it a priority. The muzzle is not improving the situation. Avoid any dog trainer who agrees with you over your flawed thinking about dominance and alpha dogs and such. Read some books on modern dog training. The Culture Clash is a good place to start.
Hi.. Dominance and alpha-speak is outdated thinking and has been hugely discredited as a valid way to think about training dogs, as Michael says: https://www.coddledcreatures.net/Debunking.pdf So whatever your dog is doing, he's not doing it because he is 'fighting for dominance' or wants to be 'alpha'. What are you doing, at these moments when your dog is 'going for' you? Are you interacting with him at all? If so, how? Or are you just sitting there watching TV or working? I think we need a lot more information to be able to know what is going on. It's not very common for a dog to attack a single person they live with, unprovoked, and not other family members or other people. That would be a bit weird. Frequently people assume their dog is 'aggressive' when really the problem is out of control mouthing and biting and inappropriate play. But we'd need more information to know if that is the case here...
Hi, we have a young Labrador, who is 2 next week. I have experienced exactly what you are describing. We identified with Bill it was when he was over tired, over excited or too hot (he wasn’t great during this hot summer). You mention that you walk him for 3 hours a day - would be interested to hear others comments, but that might be a bit much for a one year old. Bill wouldn’t cope with that. He gets probably an hour and a half exercise a day. Here is an example of how Bill behaved recently and what I did... We had been working in the field close to the house most of the morning. Bill sat by the gate telling me that he wanted to go in. I sat down on the grass, thinking he may settle by me, but I should have realised, he was too tired and went ‘silly’, yapping, lunging and biting at me. I quickly got up, held a treat in my hand and told him to sit, which he did. I didn’t give him the treat as I don’t want to reward him for behaving like that, so then made him ‘heel’ to the house, let him in his bed, then rewarded him. It works for me as he is very food oriented. The incident was over in seconds but you do need to have treats on you all the time. Please don’t muzzle him, he sounds like he is just getting a bit hyper, or over excited. I’m not an expert, and some might say I’m not dealing with Bill correctly but as I said it works for me and it is happening far less often. a) as he is getting older, and b) we are recognising when he is likely to get hyper. Hope this helps...
