Beasties has become very naughty. He used to be pretty good with most other dogs, and only took offence at the occasional large male and the occasional small yappy type dog who would fly in his face. And by taking offence, I mean showing teeth/snarling/lunging to scare the dog off, not actually biting.
In the last 6 months or so, he is challenging pretty much every dog he comes across, and much more viciously. He bit one dog on the nose (it was only a graze, but still – made contact). It always starts off really innocent – waggy tails, no fear or aggression from either dog, few seconds of sniffing each other, and then – wham! Seemingly out of nowhere, he gets aggressive.
He is essentially a bully, and wants to be top dog 100% of the time. Thinking about it, I realised the other day that of all the dogs he has met so far, not a single one actually faced him off – they all back down and slink off as soon as he starts getting aggro (and some of them are 3 times his size!). Unfortunately, it just re-inforces his belief that he can be the boss of everybody. I also think he is worse when I’m with him, as opposed to when S is walking him.
This is all my fault essentially, as I should have spent a lot more time training and socialising him when I first got him. He can tell that other dogs make me nervous, especially large ones, which gives him additional reason to scare them off. I’ve been thinking for a while that it may help to get him another dog, to teach him some manners, but it probably won’t help with unknown dogs, and we have no space in this little house for another one.
Back to some basic training, methinks.
