5 seconds is too long. After he bit, a whole string of events occured to which a dog could attribute the correction. Corrections have to be immediate or not done at all. I agree wholeheartedly whith the other posters regarding the crate issues. If the dog starts to show aggression when he is in his own crate (no other new dogs), then you do have an issue you need to deal with.

This is not meant to be harsh but if you only have room for one crate, you don't have enough room to appropriately handle these two dogs. I don't think that dogs shouldn't have to get used to crate sharing but it sounds like an accident waiting to happen (again) in such tight quarters.

Susan, I totally understand what you mean as I am well aware that in any kind of training, timing is everything, even more so when you are not expecting a bite. But to not do something in that particular case doesn't make sense to me. What would you have suggested I have done in that particular case right after he bit me?

On another note, I got a great PM suggesting the stacking Vari Kennels. I had totally forgotten they can stack on top of each other. I'll give that a try until I move into the bigger house.

First, I wouldn't have a dog with another dog the way you described. When my dog is in his crate, I don't reach in & pull him out. I open the door & call him out. If for some reason I reached in my dogs' crate & he snapped at me, I would NOT get his leash, attach it to the collar, then crank on him, I WOULD call him out, attach his leash, then practice letting him go in the crate, then come out when I told him to. After some practice, if he did it again, you bet I'd give him one hell of a pop, BUT the leash would already be on. The thing is, I am not saying what you did was not a normal human response. I'm saying, with dogs, if you can't give a good correction IMMEDIATELY, they don't know what you are correcting them for, dog brains aren't wired like that. With this particular dog, in the future, I wouldn't let him in the crate, unless you have a leash on him, so that if it happens again, you can give him an immediate correction.

I forgot to add I applaud your efforts with this dog. If not for you, he most probably would have been put down. I know how it feels to take two really hard earned steps forward, only to have to take one back!

Yeah, normally I don't try to pull him out and he usually comes out with just a bit of prompting, but it was one of those moments where I wasn't thinking cause I was in a hurry and irritated. And I didn't mean to sound confrontational in tone with that previous post. I re-read it a couple hours later and I thought I sounded kinda well...yeah. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

And you're absolutely right. He had 3 failed adoptions while I was fostering him (2 because they had cats and he chased them as he is of course part husky and 1 because the lady's toddler yanked on his fur and he growled at her) and he would have been PTS if I wouldn't have taken him back. *sigh* Not exactly my ideal dog, but I have no doubt he'd be toast if he would have come to just about any other foster besides me since a lot of the folks at the humane society are nice people and they love dogs, but most don't have a clue about dog behavior and training. And you're also right about two steps forward and one step back. Just within the last month or so, he's willingly rolled on his back for a belly scratch in front of the other dogs. Crazy spooky dog...