Monty is a lovely dog, gentle and submissive. when it got towards around 13-14 months he started growing towards intact male dogs. Other dog walkers would say it’s normal and if he was off lead he probably wouldn’t react because he would have more space. Today is was off lead playing with another lab (female) and big german shepherd came into park without warning. Monty ran over befoyI could stop him and i’m sure it looked and sounded worse than it was and he didn’t bite but he was on top of the other dog growling and showing teeth. I managed to get him off and held his harness and I think we were lucky the other dog didn’t turn and bite him. He showed zero aggression until the last couple of months and has had no bad experiences that would have caused this. He is happy to play with figs he knows that are intact. we have he booked to be neutered next month do you think this will help. I am fully prepared to keep him on a training lead until we have confidence he won’t show aggression towards intact males. Do you think it’s a training issue or because he hasn’t been neutered. If it’s training what sort of things can I do to stop him. thanks for any advice or it would be great to hear any of your experiences.
Hi Matt, welcome to the forum I'm sorry you're having difficulty with some aspects of Monty's behavior. This article on our main site might help provide a little more insight into it. To overcome aggressive or reactive behaviors, the best possible thing you can do if you can afford it is to arrange an in-person consultation with an experienced force-free behaviorist. It's very difficult to achieve the right level of nuance via an online forum - there's so much going on which is best observed in person. You can find a suitable behaviorist through the APDT in the UK, or the CCPDT in the US. There is some evidence that neutering reduces aggressive behaviors, but it's not a guarantee - you can read more about the odds in this article. Good luck, and do let us know how you get on!
Hi - I would love to hear how you’ve got on. My lab is 18 months old, in tact, and over the last couple of weeks has become aggressive towards other intact males. I keep him on a long line but can’t find any info on whether there’s any sort of training that will help with this, whether it’s something they grow out of or if we need to consider trialling chemical castration to see if that has any effect. Any info gratefully received!
