I’ll start off by saying that he has a bad past life. He was obviously abused by his previous owners and straight up abandoned in the woods. He has bad anxiety that he is on Prozac for, and it seems to be helping for the most part.
Lately he has been grabbing random shit and snapping and growling when someone tries to take it. He’ll grab the stuff off tables and counters to chew, so it’s not like he’s finding random stuff on the floor.
Last night he grabbed tape off of a table and when my sister tried to take it, he bit her hand. It wasn’t hard and barely left a mark, but it is still incredibly concerning. I was the victim of a severe dog attack as a child, so any aggression is not okay. I don’t want to have to get rid of him because he’s my baby boy and I love him so much.
I have no idea how to stop this behavior. I’ve never had a dog act like this. It started in August and has gotten worse in the past month because our living conditions changed. I broke my ankle/leg and I’m laid up for a while at my parents’ place.
Do y’all have any suggestions?
There’s a bit of odd advice there. Not letting your dog cuddle with you and barking at them is very weird. Check your trainers qualifications. Leash corrections is a red flag too as is dominance based nonsense.
Barking is an overstatement, lol. But a rough noise to get their attention, a soft and high pitched word for praise and plenty of cuddling just on my terms, not when working at home.
It’s certainly working, can’t argue with results. Both dogs are calmer and behaving better, easier to train now. Not as reactive.
It’s just all very weird. The thing is, there’s things that work short term but ruin your dogs confidence and bond which cause bigger issues in the long term, punishing the dog falls in this box. I mean, you can train your dog by kicking it every time it does something wrong if you like, it might work, but it ruins your dog. A lot of these fake trainers fall into these things and cause real harm.
Ah. There is no punishment built in here, unless you consider removing attention to be punishment. It’s positive reinforcement when they do something right, the happy words and pets. Ignoring them sometimes to convince them you are ok and so are they, not reassuring them. Odd, sure, but not at all mean. They don’t seem ruined, I probably just am not explaining it right. Certainly not kicking them, what the heck?
Lead pops are a punishment.
As is not cuddling them.