Help, Bella attacked Amber

Angelique

Well, sounds like you're hanging in there and (unfortunately) rehoming might be your only option if this can't be resolved.

Having just read on another forum where the management system failed after years of success, a person was bitten, two dogs got into a fight, one dog was seized by authorities, and the other dog was euthed by the owner...I can't stress enough that you seek resolution over management. All it takes is a split second, and disaster can happen.

I'm not in favor of management in the long term, especially if the human members of the household aren't working 100% together. Baby gates, rotation, muzzling, separating, and even medication can be helpful while you're working to resolve your dog's issues. But it's not a substitute for resolving the dog's issues.

Long term management is not resolution. It's like playing russian roulett with human error being the bullet in the chamber. Frankly, I'm surprised when I hear trainers actually teaching it as a long term or primary solution to a dog's problem.

 

Rather than being a long term or primary solution, what usually drives trainers and behaviorists to recommend management is the expression, by one of the family members, that re-homing is not an option they will consider, and/or there is lack of commitment to long term behavior modification protocols.  Long distance, when I haven't seen or evaluated dogs personally, I opt for advising management and consultation with a behavior professional who can evaluate the dogs, but I don't have much faith that most people can really adhere to the protocols for that long, or that certain dogs will change their affect toward a particular other dog in every circumstance.  Sometimes, they just plain hate one another and it's unrealistic to think that will go away.  Remember, that aggression is always present as a tool for the dog, and it's only the threshold for using it that changes.  It's easier to change that threshold in some dogs than in others, so you are *always* playing the roulette game, like it or not, when you engage in behavior modification.  I often think that, in the dogs that never attack again, we have just been lucky that the threshold was never reached again due to our intervention.  But, as in life, there are never any guarantees.