Oppinions on an agressive dog

[carpenter383]

I have 2 male boxer dogs, I raised one from a puppy and he is an extreemly good dog. The other is a 2 yr old male boxer that I've had about a yr. He is agressive towards other animals. He has attacted my two goats and a couple neighbor dogs. He is okay around people for the most part, but is leary around men and makes people a bit nervous with his behavior.....I have a 4-1/2 month old baby girl. So far no issues, but my question is how likely is a dog with this behavior to ever become agressive toward her? Say she goes to him while he is eating and tries to take his food, how likley is a dog with his profile gonna be to attack her?....I'm just looking for oppinions and other people's experiences in a situation like this. Should I get rid of him just to be on the safe side?... TIA

 

[2manyrocks]

I don't know your dog, but I start to think that the risk of something extremely bad happening outweigh the benefits of keeping the aggressive dog. You can replace a goat, but you can't replace your baby girl.

 

[westcliffe01]

In my experience, most of the "Bad" dogs were taken out the litter before they learnt any social skills or they are mentally defective. Neither problem appears to get better with age. I have had a female dog that was kept in the most abusive conditions on a farm and who was going to be shot if I didn't take her. She had been kept chained with pit bulls who beat her up every time she tried to get something to eat. The "breeders" thought they could make her "mean". She wouln't even look at you and would run for her life if you made any sudden movement. She in fact recovered fine and finally over a period of 3 years became the lead dog and "knew" that she was good lookin... But she had no lack of socializing and in a stressful situation would just ignore the other dog/animal/human.

Her partner was a dalmation that came to us as a tiny pup and he never had any clue how to behave around other animals or kids. His modus operandi was apparently to bite first and ask questions later. If he got into trouble he would make such a ruccus that the female had to come over and bail him out, getting involved in something she had no interest in nor got started. The neighbors ancient harmless dog got a new ******* ripped in him (literally) by virtue of this process and cost me quite a bit of money and he died not too long afterwards. We felt really bad for the neighbors, who we actually really liked.

I have had a few occasions of dogs in the family attacking somebody we knew without warning. It was always an agressive/territorial species (rottweiler) or associated with someone making a move too close to my mother, or kids (small dogs like Jack Russels or Chiwawa).

If you don't like the way it looks, don't expect it to get better. Around 3 years of age is when the serious dominance traits start showing themselves, or when the alpha role is likely to change between like aged dogs that have grown up together with an esablished pecking order.

The more responsible thing to do is try to find a home without kids where there will be no misunderstanding regarding the dogs rank in the family and no-one to poke fingers in his eyes or pull on the ears...

Best of luck
Keith

I have 2 male boxer dogs, I raised one from a puppy and he is an extreemly good dog. The other is a 2 yr old male boxer that I've had about a yr. He is agressive towards other animals. He has attacted my two goats and a couple neighbor dogs. He is okay around people for the most part, but is leary around men and makes people a bit nervous with his behavior.....I have a 4-1/2 month old baby girl. So far no issues, but my question is how likely is a dog with this behavior to ever become agressive toward her? Say she goes to him while he is eating and tries to take his food, how likley is a dog with his profile gonna be to attack her?....I'm just looking for oppinions and other people's experiences in a situation like this. Should I get rid of him just to be on the safe side?... TIA

 

[CinderSchnauzer]

You have asked a reasonable question. Here is a quick blunt answer.

None of us know what the dog experienced in his first year.
None of us know what you / your wife have taught the dog.
None of us know your capabilities as a dog trainer.

You have a dog that attacks other animals.
You have a dog that is sort of / maybe / sometimes alright with humans.
You have a small child.

Get rid of the dog ASAP.

 

[arrow]

This is not so simple a call. If your aggressive dog bonds with the baby, it will be more of a protector than anything else. If your dog is showing aggressive tendencies toward you when you put your hand near his dish when eating, now you have a concern. The odds are 80% he will show the same tendencies toward your girl. You can get a handle on this when you observe his actions toward your baby at a regular point in time say when everyone is lying around the living room. He may absolutely love her. If he shows indifference to her at most times, then he will most likely fall in that 80 percentile and not a dog you can trust with a youngin. I raised American Staffordshires for 14 years before my kids were born and when my kids were small. Never had an incident. My kids could pull on the Alpha males ears and any of the rest when they were eating and all they'd get was licks. The male was extremely aggressive toward other dogs and killed 3 of my geese as well as a ferral pack dog. He also bit my insurance mans tire when he was parked in the yard. ( He knew I didn't like the guy much) He was totally discerning next to my kids. When my kids were babies and crawling around or lying on a blankey on the floor, my dogs would sidle up next to them, lay down and rest their heads next to theirs. They would protect those kids as well as us until they were dead. My current dogs, (boxers as well) would not think to show any aggressive tendencies toward children at any point in time.You want nothing less near your kids.

 

[Cat_Driver]

All animals are animals and no one on the planet can determine when or what an animal will do.

I had a rottweiler that I loved like a child, but the day I brought my baby home I got rid of the dog. Now I have trained dogs for the police and have trained and been around aggressive dogs for 40 years so I'm not just shooting off my mouth.

There is something about dogs and babies that does not compute with them, I don't know if it's the size of babies or what but more than often dogs attack babies.

I had one dog that was amazing and one of the best trained dogs I owned and wouldn't even eat steak without a command from me, but one day my brother did something the dog didn't like and it went for my brothers throat, I had to kill it on the spot to get him off my brother.

Oh sure the next 100 posts will say I've had a so and so and I've had no problems....it's you choice, but you have been warned.

 

[Birdhunter1]

My answer is anything above a .204 and anything up to and including a 375 H&H magnum. .243 Winchester works well.

I don't take chances with problematic dogs anymore, got attacked by three last year in my own woods squirrel hunting when i got back to my truck and had put my gun away. Managed to get one of them that day and the rest over the course of a few months.

 

[aczlan]

This is not so simple a call. If your aggressive dog bonds with the baby, it will be more of a protector than anything else. If your dog is showing aggressive tendencies toward you when you put your hand near his dish when eating, now you have a concern.

The thing that would worry me with a dog that is very protective of your family is if (for example) your kids are playing with someone else's kids out in the yard, they get into an argument over a toy and the dogs feel that they need to defend your kids from the other kids.
We had a friend who had german shepherds and they had to get rid of one of them because it was overprotective of their kids. IIRC, the last straw was when it broke its chain and attacked a neighbors kid after he got into a "fight" (these were 8 year olds) with one of the families kids.

Aaron Z

 

[carpenter383]

Thanks for your repies so far.
I should have thrown in a few more details: Brutus my "trustworthy" dog is neutered and Oz the one in question is not.
For the most part Brutus is further up the scale in pecking order than Oz in our family or "pack"
Oz has never been agressive toward me, if I get onto him he will run from me.
Neither dog would eat a steak in front of them unless I said "OKAY"
Oz has been agressive toward Brutus once over food, but never toward me.
Oz is alot more leary of men than women.
Brutus will bark at strangers but I've never saw him become agressive toward ANYTHING
My thinking is since we raised Brutus from a puppy, he has bonded to us better than Oz. Oz was kept in about a 5x8 ft pen for most of his first year.
I don't want to take a chance on Oz but the ol' lady wants to keep him.

 

[tallyho8]

It sounds like nothing that anyone says will convince your wife that the dog has to go so you must figure out how to keep the dog away from the baby, neuter it, and read some dog training books.