Our family GSD just bit the father of our son’s friend. My wife feels that we have a vicious dog and is concerned. Should we be?

Question

I'm an avid reader of your web site and would appreciate your input on this question. I have a 10-month-old male GSD (neutered at age 6 months). 48 hours ago while I was away at my sons' hockey tournament, my wife heard him barking very aggressively on our front porch. My wife was expecting a playmate for my other son to be dropped off and went to the door the check out the barking. My sons' 12-year-old friend was decked out in full ski apparel including ski hat and goggles scared to come up on our porch due to the dog's barking. My wife went out (the dog is on a rope) and held the rope while the boy entered our home. He then immediately shifted his attention on the boys father who left the parked car and came to the bottom of the porch steps. This man is very terrified of dogs, as he has been bit 3-4 times before as a child. My dog greatly intensified his barking as the man approached and spoke very briefly with my wife who was restraining the dog. As the man turned to return to his car, our dog broke away from my wife and bit him in the rear end. He then backed up to the bottom of the stairs and stared and growled until the man left. This is from a dog I can take into Pet Food Ware house 3 times a week to practice heeling with all the distractions without one bit of a problem. My wife feels we have a vicious dog on our hands and I feel the combination of the strange appearance of the son in the ski outfit and the restraining of the dog without my wife attempting to calm him down lead to this very unfortunate situation. Your opinion/advise would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

Accepted Answer

I seriously doubt that you have a vicious dog on your hands. What you do have sounds like a nice dog that is not properly trained. If it had better obedience training your wife would have been able to control the dog. The dog did what you would have expected the dog to do had the person at the front door been a burglar. In fact, had it been a burglar you would have been doing “high fives” with your friends and neighbors and your wife would have been giving the dog additional treats.

But the fact is your dog is not properly obedience trained. The situation that happened triggered the dog’s territorial drive. He was trying to protect his family pack. From an obedience standpoint, this individual that was at the house was a “distraction.” The man was more of a “distraction” than your dog was trained to deal with.

If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.

So as much as you do not like to hear about it, this case falls under the category of ”handler mistakes and errors” and not a bad dog. If the necessary training is beyond your means, you owe this dog a debt of gratitude for what he thought he was doing to protect your family. Find him a home where he will get the proper training.