New member with aggression problem

[Stacey650]

I am new to the website. I am on my third GSD. Sam is a rescue. I adopted him at 7 mos. He is now 14 mos. I have had a few episodes with him of sudden aggression with neighbors. He seems fine, but then can lunge and snap quickly. I have been working from the start with training and he is a smart boy and a quick learner. He is adolescent and tends to listen most of the time. I have experience with this but not the sudden aggression. My other two GSD's were wary of strangers and made that known to people who tried to approach me that they did not know, but it was consistent behavior. Sam is unpredictable with this behavior and I am wondering if anyone else has had this problem. Thanks!!! Stacey

[gsdraven]

Welcome and thank you for rescuing.

It most likely isn't sudden and there is something triggering it. Really think about the different scenarios and try to find common themes. Truthfully, there is nothing we can do over the internet without being able to see the dog in action. First, get the dog checked medically including a thyroid panel and then consult a behaviorist that deals with aggression. If you go to you User CP and add your general location, someone may be able to give you some recommendations.

[ValleyGirl]

My husband and I adopted an adult Shepherd mix who lunged and nipped without warning. He was wonderful with us, our cats, and our aged Doberman. He bonded very quickly with my husband. But when people came to the farm he would let them pet him and then out of the blue lunge and nip some of them. I do not agree with the previous poster that there was a pattern.

We had a trainer come out and evaluate Rex. Also talked by phone with the trainer who worked with the rescue. Both agreed that this type of aggression is very difficult to work with because there is no warning. Rex even bit the trainer who presumably is adept at reading dog warning behavior. That trainer believes that Rex had been partially trained to guard and could be further (and expensively) trained to obey us but would never be a good campanion animal -- i.e. would have to be tightly controlled and watched. Rescue trainer could not be specific as she did not see the dog but agreed with the first trainer that his aggression was a problem that is not easy to solve.

Very reluctantly we returned Rex. I hope you have a better outcome but this may be a problem that had its origin in the dog's life before you adopted him and he does not in fact exhibit a pattern that makes it easy to correct. Susan

[gsdraven]

I said there mostly likely is a trigger. Sudden, unprovoked aggression isn't common. No one here can say for sure what is going on since we can't see it. But the first step to fixing it is to try and figure out the cause and if it turns out that it truly is unprovoked and therefore unpredictable then the safest and kindest thing to do would to be to put the dog to sleep if you aren't committed to managing every second of the rest of his life. Which again is not something that can be determined on the internet.