His relationship with Fly (not an easy dog) was fantastic, such a shame he lost her too soon.

Just watched the video of his Charlie Chaplin routine with Fly - absolutely brilliant.

Hi, Just to add my two cents worth in addition to all the other good advice.

I strongly suggest that before even booking an appointment with a good behaviourist that you take it for a full medical check up. Many cases of aggression have a basis in ill health and you will first need to rule out any possible physiological cause. An ethical behaviourist would not even see the dog until this was done first.

The veterinarian will most likely check for things like orthapedic problems, eyesight, hearing, low grade infections, teeth etc, block anal sacs, internal and external parasites, allergies including skin and food realted possible allergies - all of which can have a dramatic effect on a dogs behaviour.

Good luck!

Ok I am going to play Devils Advocate and I know members are going to be anti this post but it has to be said.

Any dog that bites twice for no reason should be put to sleep. First this particular dog came out of rescue,but no member has questioned why it was in rescue in the first place. My betting is the dog has bitten before and you are not going to stop it, and thats why it went into rescue before the previous owners were prosecuted .

We hear of so many cases where powerful dogs live with older people and a grandchild is staying with them and gets attacked, there are so many cases in the not so distant past where this has happened.
Don't get me wrong I am just as much a dog lover as the next person but is a childs life or perminant disfigurement of a child worth the risk of keeping an unsound dog? I think not.

The owners are going to be in constant fear and worry about this biting happening again and after a time it could make them ill.

Sorry but have to repeat " is a childs life worth less than a dogs? " far better in my opinion to be safe than sorry and have the animal put to sleep.

There are so many friendly dogs in rescue that are in desperate need of a loving home but are put to sleep because a home just can't be found for them. Give them a chance instead.

OK now I am ready to take the flack after members have read the link below

Link

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ticle65847.ece


Tumbleweed

PS
Would I do it? the answer is already have done with a dog we owned that attacked both myself and wife for no reason and it wasn't a rescue dog either. Yes we were terribly upset over having to do it but the risk was just too great .

Anton is NEVER in contact with children - as we're not sure of his history, this has been a rule from day one.

Also, as long as we provide Anton with the correct managment he needs for his problems, he will not have the chance to bite ever again.

Kiing

Believe me making such a decision is the hardest thing to do but it is the right thing. Keeping a dog in a manner where it is never going to be among people will only make it worse. Dog owners have a tendency to think that all a dog needs is exercise, TOTALLY WRONG. It need mental stimulus as well. By keeping a dog confined can only make it more dangerous, and saying that a careful watch will be kept on the dog is what everyone says until it attacks, then it is too late.

I would suggest listening to reason and not the heart.

Oh before asking about what knowledge I have, my job is being with dogs each and every day and owned dogs for the past 40 years. I my wife and my staff combined have well over 120 years of canine knowledge of all aspects of dog ownership- care- training-breeding-rescuing-racing (for fun) and advertising-showing. So its not a novice giving third party advice.

Realspeed

To be fair to the OP it IS perfectly possible to keep an anti social dog as a pet as long as both the dog and the environment are managed correctly.

This does not mean you have to keep such a dog "confined" nor being isolated from people.

However, having owned a dog that was not social, it was a huge relief when he did pop his clogs!

He will definately not be 'confined' - he has daily off lead walks, training sessions and play time. We don't have visitors every day, and when we do he is now separated from them and/or muzzled - that is a small change that we will help him adjust to.

If the behaviorist believes he is 'beyond help' or that we will be unable to cope with the problem, then we will look into rehoming Anton to a GSD-savvy home - PTS is the absolute worst case scenario.

Oh my god I can't believe what I have just read


Quote"
If the behaviorist believes he is 'beyond help' or that we will be unable to cope with the problem, then we will look into rehoming Anton to a GSD-savvy home - PTS is the absolute worst case scenario." unquote

Passing on a dog known to have bitten to another family ,possibly with young children is an absolute NO NO. To me this is no better than passing on a loaded gun.

Sorry Kiing but your attitude regarding passing on a dangerous dog to unsuspecting people is exactly what causes more trouble. Do you really want to know you could be the reason why a young child could possibly get scarred for life in the future. Personally I just couldn't live with that knowledge as careing responsible adult.
If such a thing happened to my granddaughter then god knows what Iwould do to seek revenge

I would definately not be passing him on to 'unsuspecting people'. Any prospective owners would be given a full and thorough history of his time with us - which is why it would be so difficult to rehome him, which is why we are doing our best to get his problems sorted.

I would never, ever pass Anton on to a family with young children, or to anyone that did not know the extent of his issues. To do so would be far, far worse than having him PTS, because of the potential danger those people would be put in.