Aggression breeds Aggression

Its all so sortable!!!!! but it wont sort itself.

I have to say I agree,
My first though was maybe he had an injury or illness and then I thought of his age and thought bingo....the dreaded teenage stage.
Obviously I am not condoning his actions or excusing his actions, they are totally unexceptable.
But it does sound like he is testing the water and trying to see whos boss.
The teenager stage does tend to rear its ugly head out of the blue, and your once sweet, trainned, easy goin pup seems to dissapear.

Have you ever seen ' its me or the dog' show the one with a husky, who is goin through the teenage stage.
That dog also bite its female owners face and arms when she tried to get him of the sofa, and did it more than one ocassion.
It looked very bad, basically terroized its owner.
But with trainning, and constant firm leadership and it knowing who was boss it was back on track and a lovely family pet again.I think you should watch it, it might put your mind at rest and some light at the end of the tunnel.

Really hope this helps and can put your mind at rest.

But I didn’t see a warning, if I don’t see it I cant react to it. maybe there was a warning, I expect there was but it must have been very subtle. Also, jake is my first own dog, and first ever puppy. i know i could have handled it better, but is everyone so perfect that they never have a situation they look back on and can see where they went wrong?? everyone has to learn from somewhere, and if you have never been in a situation like that, you haven’t had anything to learn from. I have never been in a situation like that, everything I did was normal for jake, its what he is used to. so I wasn’t expecting that reaction, especially when I didn’t notice any warning. Jake is extremely stubborn, and that’s what I thought he was being. Which is common for him, so I reacted in my usual way. I have learnt many things since I got jake, and this is just another of those things. But it is an ongoing process so sorry if I haven’t got it all straight away!

Thanks, my mum made sure I taught jake ‘down’, so he is usually good at that one. Earlier that night, he got told to get down off the couch twice, and both times he did it. so he does know the command, he is just so damn stubborn at times…

I think jake must have a reason behind his behaviour, coz he never does anything like this. He can be such a big wuss… fireworks and aggressive dogs don’t scare him but an unknown sound from outside will have him hiding behind the nearest person.

Thank you, I think it must be something causing him pain too and that was my first thought when it happened.

thank you.

Sorry to hear you had a similar thing with your dog, but its good you managed to stop it, and hearing your story has made me feel much better. Thanks for telling me how you managed to overcome the problems with Indy, I will give them a try with jake. Im planning on very soon, getting rid of jakes crate. So I will be getting him a big comfy bed, so im hoping he will choose that to go to, rather than my bed.

I think it could be some kind of infection too, which is why i am not happy with the vet, coz she didn’t do a skin scrape. Im kicking myself now for not saying at the time, but im terrible at not speaking out in such situations. It hasn’t been here since November, it first came in then but it went away and came back just before new year. the hair around his eyes didn’t grow completely back, but the skin was normal. I am seriously thinking of taking him to another vet to get a second opinion.

But I only 'punished' him after he bit, and that came in the form of holding him down, for my own safety, and then putting him in his crate, which was to calm him down and again, put us both in a safe situation. I didn’t want him in a place where he could bite again, so thought this was the best option until he had calmed down. i then took him out on a walk, again to calm him down and have a little normality after the previous 15 minutes.

I don’t want to punish jake, or causing him fear or anything bad like that. I love him, I love him to pieces and I never want that for him. but at the same time, I need to keep us both safe. So if punishing him is doing that, then I will punish him. I wont allow him to bite me, so I will do what is needed to stop that (within reason obviously) and if that means trying to keep his mouth shut or holding him in a position where he cant reach me, I will. Its not fair to myself to allow him to keep biting me. if some others had been in such a situation, I know the ‘punishment’ could have been much worse. i would obviously much rather avoid the situation occuring though.

thank you.

No, he has had it before, it isn’t an ongoing thing. He had it at the beginning of November, I took him to the vets and it cleared up. Then it came back just before new year.

So what warning do you think was given?

Im really not having ago, & im not trying to preach, It may be better if you read all this in the morning when youve had a nie time to "chillax" reread your oringinal post & try to see it from another persons dog, not jake, so you can take the emotion out of it. Try to think of the advice you would give that person.

With anyones dog, our love for them Clouds our judgement.

What you must not do, is fall in to the trap of thinking that Jake sees things the same way as you, what you might think was normal becos youve done it a billion times before may in thius instance been different for jake.


I KNOW its hard, I know you love him!!!!!! But you must try to see , or you cant move forward.

Apologises if im Preachy

I am really sorry to hear this has happend to you

and yup I have made big mistakes with my dogs, yup I am a human who sometimes shouts and sometimes waves my arms around and does all sorts of dumb things - our dogs are v forgiving if we try and learn from our mistakes then the trust can come back again

I think you might have hit his 'bite threashold'
Basicaly ONE of the things that is going on with him may not be the issue - its just all of them all at once is too much for him
- like you know the days, you spill toothpaste down your top, then fall down the front step, then you make dumb mistakes at work, everyone on the road home is a jerk, your best friend cancels on you, you drop and smash your fave vase then your OH leaves the loo seat up again and you totaly go off your head at him - it wanst that one thing it was all of them
So yup it could be the pain, his age, your state of mind, the weather, the lack of exercise, confused with commands, the pat to move and then gonna be picked up

all toghether too much

No its not right he bit you - its not right you did some of the things you did - you need to say sorry and forgive each other.

I wasnt there, can only go by what you say
I would say him freezing on the floor was a v big warning. I would advise getting 'calming signals' and spend lots of time watching the subtle signals a dog gives off - I find it so interesting on a walk watching my dogs, tail, bodyweight, posture, speed, ears, eyes, mouth - everything

I know Mia would bite me without hesitation if I pushed her buttons the wrong way. There have been times when I have gone to do something and you can feel the icy blast in the room, you see her stiffen, see the ears shoot back, see the whites of the eyes

When that happens I take a step back and figure out how to retrain the situation



You say he 'knows' 'down'
What do you do when he gets down?? do you reward every time? sometimes? never?
The best way I heard training described is its like making a path in a jungle, The more you walk the path the clearer it gets but it is never 100% clear and the jungle can grow back any time
a dog is never 100% on any command, they are always learning from what happens next.
You always need to train a bit more, you always need to sometimes give a treat or reward for a great performance

also dogs are VERY specific.
For example, a friend of mine was trying to show off how great his puppies 'sit' was. He said sit and she looked at him like he was crazy, he then took a treat out and stood infront of her - her face lit up and she sat - he thought sit means get in the sitting position any place any time - she thought it ment when he is stood infront of her with a treat she is to put her bum on the floor
Down might mean get off your bed and get off the sofa - but mibby he hasnt let learnt that it also means get off the other bed
If he knew it and it was well enough trained then he would have done it.

I totaly agree with the houseline - it gives you confidence
totaly up training and make it fun, and deff get a bit of help from a behaviourist who can show you how to understand eeach other a bit better

All the best - this IS fixable

I think if you follow this way of handling him Lozzi, you are in danger of escalating Jake's aggression...


You need to work with him so you dont have to deal with his feeling he needs to bit or attack you,


The more you restrain Jake, the more aggressive he will ge t, the more you will need to restrain him, and the cycle will not stop.

You will become afriad of him, and he will know it.

Using physical force to deal with this problem is only going to set you up for a fall.

You need to "close the door , before the horse bolts"

If you can work with him in a positive way, he will have no need to bite you , and you will have no need to restrain him.

I cant lead him out by his collar coz he doesn’t wear one. and I pick him up, coz he can be stubborn and it can be the only way to get him out the room (which I had to do coz my mum would have gone crazy had she seen him in there). Maybe not the best thing to do, but he is usually good with it, and doesn’t mind at all, plus he is used to it. you might not do that to your dogs, but its not hurting jake and he shows no signs of disliking it.

Thanks, I just wish other people would see it that way.

Thanks, and that link is great, it looks really good. I didn’t know you had a bull terrier, and the house lead sounds really good. i think it would be good to have that as a way to avoid confrontations, coz if he goes a place he isn’t allowed I need some way of getting him off. He does know ‘down’ but he, too, is very stubborn so sometimes he listens and sometimes he just doesn’t. i think I will definitely get the house line, as well as the long lead im getting for recall lol.

jake (who must have been about 5 or 6 months old at the time) was lying with a bone, and my niece was sitting next to him (he was the one who choose to sit next to her), she turned to clap him and he growled at her. I told her to leave him alone, which she did and she moved away from him. He has never, ever growled at me or my parents or my bf for taking food or treats off him, but he did to her and she is the only one he has ever done it too. we then started that she would give him treats a lot more (telling him a command first) and she would put his food down for him, and tell him to sit and wait, and he could only take it when she told him he could. Now, he doesn’t mind her being near him when he has a bone, and has never minded anybody near him when he is eating food, even her. I think he saw her as an equal, whereas the rest of us were in a higher position than him so that’s why we didn’t get that reaction.

I didn’t hit or smack him!! I lightly tapped him! there is a massive difference. and his listening in the house is great, today he has listened to everything I have said, it is just a few times when he chooses to be deaf.

Sorry to hear this. I think we've all probably had instances with our dogs where things go wrong, doesn't mean it can't be fixed though.

Oscar bit my Dad when he was 5 months old when my Dad tried to get him off his chair. I wasn't there at the time so I have no idea what happened and whether there were any warnings, but following the incident we made sure all rules were clear and that everybody was consistent. This seems to have paid off and we've had no further problems, Oscar is a very submissive boy which does help though.

I agree with most of the advice really, continue with the medical treatment, be consistent with training and boundaries and start training classes.

Good luck x

just a thought Lozzi
if you use 'down' to get him off things what command do you use for him to lay down?