How to handle my German Shepherd's food aggression towards small dogs?

Definitely take Max into a veterinary behavioral expert for help! Aggressive dogs are not something to leave alone, and this behavior can and does get worse over time. In addition, if he did bite someone, he could seriously injure them and there could be very severe repercussions for that occurring including euthanasia. There are a number of cases where a dog has had to be put to sleep for biting people, and you do not want that to happen. Speak to your vet about a referral to a professional behavioral expert asap. I hope this helps!

I strongly recommend you consult with a professional, in-home dog trainer. You need a trainer to come to your house so they can see the behavior and the interaction of all the family members with Max. This is your best bet. Aggression problems need special care and it is not recommended that you try to correct this on your own. You may give him the wrong signals and make him worse. Especially with his breed you need to do this correctly and since his life start was not good that plays into his issues. This is a situation that definitely needs professional intervention. I suggest you call your vet to get a referral for a trainer or do an online search for trainers in your area. Best wishes.

I recommend speaking to Sammie's vet about a referral to a professional behavioral expert. I never recommend owners work with aggressive behavior on their own due to the danger associated. A behavioral expert would be best to help with this behavior. Have her seen by her vet over the holidays. Best of luck, I hope this helps!

Hello, German Shepherds are commonly aggressive and may require intense training and socialization to be good companion animals. It sounds like he has become quite a dangerous animal, especially to your mother. Please take his aggression seriously and do not allow small children or animals to be around him, as he has a history of severely hurting people. He also needs to maintain his rabies vaccinations to ensure he is not able to spread a fatal disease with his bites. I would recommend seeing a veterinary behaviorist, a good dog trainer, as well as pursuing neutering him. This will be the best way to try to make him a safe animal to live with. I hope this is helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I'm sorry to hear that this happened! How upsetting for you and your cousin. The situation you describe - a child coming up behind a dog and startling it, particularly when food is involved - is an extremely common trigger for bites. Any dog will bite if it feels scared or threatened. Our responsibility as adults is to make sure that these situations don't happen. For safety reasons, I would recommend keeping Max separated from any visiting children from now on to prevent this from happening again. Also, in the future, please don't hit him or scold him for reacting this way - the aggressive behavior was prompted by fear, so punishment will only make him more tense and defensive around kids in the future. This is likely why he growled at your friend once he was back in the house - he was stressed and upset, and already "on-edge" from everything that had happened before. If you want to try and work on this issue through training, I would strongly recommend getting help from a veterinary behaviorist who can evaluate Max in person and help you put together a detailed plan for him. Training for aggression issues is generally focused on teaching the dog to associate good things with whatever he is currently afraid of (such as children, visitors, etc.), and should not involve punishment of any kind. Management is also extremely important to ensure that everyone stays safe, for dogs with any history of biting. You can search for a board-certified veterinary behaviorist in your area here: www.dacvb.org

That's not fair to the new dog to take her back to the shelter. I would spay Angel, as aggression can be hormonally related, and then put them both into training with a professional behavioral expert. The expert can help with aggression issues to try to resolve them. Best of luck.

Aggression towards other dogs is usually a result of not being comfortable around them - it can happen due to a lack of socialization as a puppy, a bad experience with another dog at a young age, or even a genetic predisposition to this problem. It usually starts to appear around social maturity, so if Max is about a year old, this would be a very common age to begin seeing this problem. Aggression issues are complex and difficult to address succinctly in this format, so I would really recommend making an appointment with a veterinary behaviorist if at all possible - he/she can evaluate Max in person and help you put together a treatment plan to work on this problem. In general, I can tell you that treatment will involve teaching him to associate good things with seeing other dogs and behaving calmly around them - we normally use food rewards and other types of positive reinforcement to achieve this. Punishment for this behavior is not recommended, since it tends to make the dog more fearful and worsen the problem over time.