... 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.
I am afraid the answer is to put the dog down. He has a track record of attacking other animals. Your baby is another animal. One the dog can kill very quickly and easily. It can happen so fast that by the time you react. Even if you are right next to the dog and baby the baby could be seriously hurt or dead.
Can you or your wife live with that for the rest of your life? I seriously doubt your marriage will survive if the dogs does something to the baby.
When my wifey and brought her two Golden Retrievers and my GSD together for the first time we expected problem between my GSD who was an alpha female and the oldest of the Golden's which was also an alpha. We watched the dogs carefully. We were sitting right next to them.
Without warning and quicker than you could snap a finger the YOUNGEST Golden attacked the oldest.
There was fur flying. I grabed the youngest while the wife grabed the oldest. It did not take two seconds. My dog just sat there with this "What the .... was that all about" look on her face.
Best we could figure is that the youngest saw the pack dynamic was changing and it was her chance to move up in ranking.
The youngest dog was the sweetist, least aggressive dog I have ever seen. My nick name for her was Lady.
That was the first and last time we ever saw any aggression from Lady. If Lady had attacked a baby the kid almost certainly would have been dead. It took NO TIME to happen.
We closely watched the dogs when we had our first child. All of the previously mentioned dogs were still alive. We never had a problem but we watched the dogs closely especially when the baby was new to the house. My GSD once kinda growled at the baby. It was not an aggressive growl. It was a "Would you please leave me alone, stop pulling my hair and climbing on me" noise. I put the dog on the ground by the scuff of her neck and we had a serious chat. She never ever made a noise at any of the kids ever again. If she had shown real aggression she would have been put down.
I don't say that lightly either. The GSD was the best dog I have ever brought into the family. I will never ever have a dog that was smarter or as loyal as that GSD. I will never have a dog that approaches the quality of that GSD. When we had our first child the GSD was about 5. If the GSD had acted aggressively towards the kids she would have been put down. It would have hurt like h....l. But it would hurt a lot less if the dog killed/maimed/injured my baby. I can live with the former but not the later.
Later,
Dan
