Hi Freckles!

Sorry, I'm not in your area so I don't know a good behaviourist for you-- hopefully someone closer or your vet will. I know and understand perfectly well how alarming this behaviour is and I really do hope you can get it sorted out. Delivery people are major alarms for all kinds of dogs-- any decent therapist should be able to help you out.

I just wanted to clarify something: did she bite you, or did she just grab your arm? A Mastiff has a bite strength of a good few hundred pounds. Could she have been trying to keep you away from the post?

I think you were right and great not to shout or pull away. Your girl is young and you've already demonstrated your own strength of character. I hope with the right help you can work this out. I wish I could give you better advice!

Welcome to Dogsey.

This is quite common with dogs but most are not as big as your dog, owners of small dogs don't do anything about it which is wrong, they should. Safety is your first priority.

My post comes between 11.30 and 12.30 most days so I make sure my dogs can't get to the door during this time, I do have this problem if he comes at a different time or a parcel is delivered. I also have a friend who is going through this, she also gets bitten if she tries to move her dog into another room. She has had behaviourists who hadn't a clue how to solve this.

She now has a house lead on her dog during the day so if anyone comes to the door she can pick the lead up and lead her dog away, usually screaming and shouting but she hasn't had to grab his collar which to a dog can be aggression. This is much safer for her.

She is also teaching him to go onto a mat each time he is with her when she goes into the hall, she was doing really well with this and started to slip with it, her dog started to slip as well. She has now started it again and already he is a lot better.

Well done, you will have greatly reduced the damage to your arm because you didn't pull away. That is very difficult to do, it is normal for us to pull away which will rip your arm if you did.


When she is waiting on the stairs she is getting more and more stressed, you need to stop her waiting on the stairs, I try to keep my dogs at the back of the house when wating for the postman, I find it is better if they are there than in the living room.

She is redirecting her frustration because she can't do what she wants, you are there so are getting it, she isn't deliberately going for you. Think of a child who gets so frustrated that he explodes and bashes what has frustrated him, that is what your dog is doing.

Muzzling her won't stop her getting frustrated if she is allowed to continue the behaviour, you need to replace this bad behaviour with something that is acceptable and only training can do that. It won't be a quick fix, it will take quite a lot of time, months not days and maybe longer so you need to be very consistent, the more consistent you are the quicker she will learn.

I find a house lead can help us a lot, by picking up the lead and leading the dog away, also give a command to go with you as you lead her away. I use an old lead for this and undo the handle so it can't get caught anywhere.

I hope you can find someone who can help you with this problem.

Hi, sorry you are going through this. I'm glad you have gone for the behaviourist route. What you are describing sounds very much like redirected aggression. You dog is feeling this massive urge to get to the postman and stop them coming near the house but can't get to postman and you are the nearest target. It is not an unusual problem and comes in a range of degrees.

My bull Lurcher gets very frustrated when another dog gets in the car and he will try to bite my staffies face, well he used to until I found somewhere else for her to sit. It cured the face biting but not his level of frustration, that only lasts for the first five minutes a dog gets in the car, so he started ripping bits of the boot to relieve his pent up frustration. We are now managing that with a muzzle, he does take out his frustration in the muzzle but it's very short lived and his problem isn't a danger to people like your dogs is.

It's important to get someone who really knows what they are talking about so that they can assess him properly and advise you accordingly.
Try www.apdt.co.uk or www.apbc.co.uk it won't be cheap but having your dog properly behaviourally assessed and having expert professional advice on how to retrain and manage this issue is vital. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

I agree with Mattie 100%

If you can give her something else to do so you can pre-empt the postman you will save you and her a lot of stress.

I don't know if you take her training anywhere but a really good training school might be able to help.

Good luck with your girlie and well done for keeping calm with her

Whilst in my head I agree with all that has been said my heart is telling me you have a dangerous dog and should take any and all precautions to stop this ASAP and training being a long term answer won't keep you safe straight away. PTS is not the worst fate for a dog.

This is why I said she will have to manage her dog as well, good, consistent management helps the training. Sometimes I have taken a dog on and had to prioritise what I needed to train, often when I was able to work on other problems the management had solved them. At first I thought I had imagined them until I realised the problem had been there

I don't doubt you could manage this Mattie, what worries me is can Freckles manage it, I know I couldn't and I have no idea of Freckles family set up but a dog like this that has bitten several times would not be living here with us I couldn't take a chance with children in and out.

It's great to think we can turn all dogs around but we have to be realistic about everyone's safety IMO

I agree, everyone's circumstances are different and need to be taken into account, when trying to help someone we are never given all the information so the wrong advice can be give. Maybe a questionnaire at the start of a thread asking for help and advice will help.

I think with a situation as potentially dangerous as this could be, apart from giving a list of recommended experts (as has been done) it is quite dangerous to try to 'diagnose' or 'advise' over the internet without seeing the dog or the dog's owner in their home environment.

I am being mindful of the dreadful fate that befell the little girl Lexi whose mum had 'rescued' a similar type of dog and apparently that dog had shown NO previous signs of aggression.

Vet nurse has already given 3 options - Muzzle, PTS or therapy - if the therapy route is being opted for I would still keep the dog muzzled in the meantime if there is any chance at all that it could bite again.

The breed standard says
"this massive breed is often used as a guard and defender of family and property due to their protective instincts......",
so I'm not sure how much training would be needed to stop what is natural for this breed.