Hi! We are long term doggie owners, who have always had "bully" breeds - Boxers and shepards and a bulldogge ... I became involved with a FB site called Pet Pardons, and rescued a pittie from the euth list at the NY ACC. We have always been a multi-dog household, and I guess we were just lucky until now ... Although when our bulldogge first joined us there were some heated squabbles - for some reason he would go after our Boxer senior citizen, who was too old and arthritic to fight back - but anyway, these spats were mostly scary and loud, but no serious damage. So we were totally unprepared for the meltdown that has occurred since we brought Harley home. Before I go any further, let me say she is a sweetheart ... to us. She has showed no evidence of people aggression at all. But she is intermittentlydog- aggressive, and it is very unpredictable. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to some of the fights - they can happen in the blink of an eye, and while some we can attribute to a toy or food, some are just appear to be random and occur without any warning - no stare down, no warning growl. In the past week, my husband, myself and our adult son have been bitten breaking up a fight. I can't really say bitten, because we all had put our hands in her mouth to pry her jaw open - she did not lunge for us. But last night she and Belle, my little Boxer girl got into a horrible fight and now Belle has a drain in her neck. We can't go on like this ... yet we hate to give up on her, because we know what the likely outcome would be if we were to try and re-home her ... The sad part is ... she is so damn sweet in every other way. Constantly wags her tail and gives kisses to her people, crate trained, walks well on leash, good with kids ... We absolutely love her, but I could not live with myself if she killed one of my other babies. is there any hope at all for her? Any ideas? We are desperate. We live near Winchester , Va.
* Update - we have made some observations today and some adjustments that have worked out for the short term ... Harley is fine with Max the bulldog and Beezer, a Staffie puppy - both neutered males. Those three can play outside, no aggression over space, toys etc. We are keeping that group separate from our senior Boxer and our female Boxer, who is recovering from a significant injury (Harley inflicted, kill zone bite ) We talked to an animal behaviorist today who felt it was sort of 50/50 that Harley could be helped. -She was discouraged by her being a pittie from a shelter but gave us a glimmer of hope since she is not dog aggressive with all dogs. I read about the 2-week shutdown and wish I had known that before. We've had Harley for over a month so not sure how if this would work ... I guess we are doing a modified crate and rotate ... Any suggestions, ideas, referrals?