Hi everyone, Larry is my 14 month old chocolate lab. I’ve had him since he was 8 weeks old. He comes from a purebred liter of I believe 9. I have socialized him from early on with friends dogs and even then we all noticed there were problems. Larry was not your normal friendly lab. I took him to training immediately and it was hard. He would lunge at the dogs and really was an all around horrible dog. I have had labs all my life and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I have a 11 y/o female white shepherd that I’ve had 10 years and he’s very mean to her. He tries to prevent her from coming in the doggy door, steps in front of her when she’s walking towards someone. Barks in her face to make her move from where she’s laying. The worst thing that I’m most worried about though is that he has tried to bite 2 people in their face . One was a friend of mine who made no movement toward him and the other was a 5 y/o who was petting him just fine and then you saw his face change and if we weren’t fast enough it would have been a horrible bite. So my question is did I get a genetically flawed lab or can I get some help? This dog loves me and is so loyal but I can’t have a disaster waiting to happen or never go in public. If anyone has an y ideas, I’m listening, thank-you, Debbie
Hi Debbie, how very stressful for you. So... safety first, for whatever reason, you've correctly spotted that your dog isn't safe around children. So it's really important that you commit to keeping him away from children and vulnerable adults (using physical barriers like a closed door) until this is resolved. Next we recommend a vet check to make sure there is no physical cause of aggression, such as pain. And if the vet gives the all clear, we recommend an in person visit from a professional canine behaviourist. I'll pop some information below on finding the right person. They will be able to assess your pup and help you make a plan to improve things. I do hope they are able to help.
You may want to talk to a professional trainer. Someone has to learn how to tell this dog he's not the boss.
Just a gentle heads up that dominance theory, or the idea that dogs are aggressive because they think they are 'in charge' has actually been disproven. Pippa has an article on this here: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/dog-dominance/ Aggression tends to be based in fear, or resource guarding - and trying to show the dog that you are the boss can make these worse, so it's important, Debbie, that any help you seek is a from a professional trainer using modern, positive only, methods. There's some more advice on choosing a trainer here - but we do recommend starting with a behaviourist, first.
