My 4 year old dog bit me this morning. Would training classes or getting him fixed help? I don't want to put him to sleep.

Question

Hi,

    I was bitten by my dog, Chili this morning. He is a 4 year old, 1/2 Rottweiler and 1/2 greyhound. I have had him since he was about 8 weeks old. He has never been beaten or abused. We have 2 other dogs also. Popeye, a 8 year old Chihuahua and Toby, a 4 year old pit/basset mix. All 3 are spoiled. Chili has really gotten aggressive since he went to the pound a couple of years ago, for a 10 day quarantine for biting a man that came on our property and kicked him. He has shown aggression towards a neighbor boy and we suspect that he has thrown rocks at Chili. The boy's uncle told us that he has done it to other dogs in the neighborhood. Chili acts like he doesn't trust anyone. His eyes get wide and darting. Once I had him in the back of my pickup and we were at a red light when this man came up next to us on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Chili went ballistic! It was a good thing I had him attached to a steel cable that runs side to side across the bed of the truck and he has just enough slack to hang his head over the side.

    I think you are going to tell me "Put him to sleep." I haven't tried training yet. Would that help? Would having him "fixed" him help? I don't want to kill my dog. I have had to kill 2 other dogs that I had for many years. One for kidney disease and the other because his guts got twisted up. I feel like I just killed a family member or something. My eyes are watering just at the thought of it.

    Respectfully Yours,
 Chris

Accepted Answer

Killing a dog is always the last option. This is an owner problem not a dog problem. Because of your lack of understanding of pack behavior and training you have allowed this dog to become dominant aggressive.

If you want to put in the work it can be controlled – maybe not fixed but controlled. But this means handler education and changing the way you live with your dog.

I recommend that you go to my web site and read the article I wrote on My Philosophy of Dog Training. I think you will get some good ideas there.

My web site is 10,000 printed pages. There is a ton of information on dominance – start educating yourself.

Read the article titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT DOGS.

I recommend that you visit my web site and read a training article I recently wrote titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.

The reason I wrote this article was to help people understand how to motivate their dogs in training. Most people either use the wrong kind of correction or over correct dogs in training. I am not a fan of “force training” (although I most defiantly believe that every dog needs to go through a correction phase). By exploring corrections in training you will become a better dog trainer.

I recommend that you get the DVD I did on my Basic Obedience program.

You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the training steps for training your dog. A dog must go through training steps before it can be considered fully trained.

When you read the description of the DVD on my web site you will find out why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes. No professional dog trainer would ever take his dog to an obedience class with 15 or 20 untrained dogs and try and train it there. Dogs cannot learn when faced with this kind of distraction.

If you read the testimonials on my DVD you will see that my customers feel the same way.

I am almost finished with a new DVD on Dominant and Aggressive Dogs. YOU NEED THIS INFORMATION!!!