Dr. Who (03-12-2019)
Without knowing the circumstances of the growling, it's difficult to say in this instance. I agree that some dogs do have more aggressive tendencies than others. We had a half wolf female that was about 5-months-old when we got her. She was fine when hubby was at home but as soon as he wasn't she was giving me the side-eye and guarding her food. She was also really hinky with the neighbors and actually bit one - just a nip, but enough for me to say this isn't safe. Fortunately, I had the foresight to craft a sales agreement with the owner that required her to take the dog back and return my money. I had a feeling about that dog even before we bought her but hubby thought she was great. She was great with him ...
In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Mahatma Gandhi
In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Aggressive dogs do growl.
A food aggressive dog will growl if another dog or person gets close to their food bowl.
Fear bitters growl as well as bite, I had such a dog, he definitely growled, usually at the same time he was going for what/whomever....there was also, snapping and snarling involved.
The problem is Chthulu isn't an experienced dog owner, so we don't know what kind of growling it was or what may have provoked it. With male dogs, jealousy can also be a factor, as can humans displaying fear - crying, screeching, erratic movements, running away, making aggressive gestures etc. I got the impression that they got the dog at 5 mos so this is a new environment and we don't know what happened in the old environment. Lots of unknowns.
Last edited by Dr. Who; 03-12-2019 at 06:58 PM.
In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Mahatma Gandhi
We had a wolf hybrid.... biggest mistake, where a 'dog' is concerned, we ever made.
He'd escape his yard, no matter what we did to keep him in then, he'd growl and lunge at anyone, besides us, who tried to 'help' us capture him, by grabbing his collar.
We very quickly learned, you handle a wolf hybrid completely different from a dog...we did learn a lot, enough to know we'd never do it again.
That dog was hell on wheels, we had to be on our toes constantly, he did settle down enough, when he got older, that we could have people over to the house, without fear of a lawsuit, he actually became quite mellow and, enjoyable in his old age.
Dr. Who (03-12-2019)
Wow... All this speculation and such...
Anyways. We've had this dog for two months (ish?) or so. We got him when he was 12 weeks old - plenty of time to develop bite control within his previous pack.
That being said, he's been fine for the most part. But he did take a swipe at the same child a while ago towards her face and scratched her up a bit - nothing serious and pending further investigation it didn't warrant it axing the dog. The toddler in question was simply going to rough on the young puppy. He reacted and the rest is history. That one was on us for not being attentive enough. Lesson learned.
Been teaching him who is who and what is what. Short amount of turf early on, now he has access to most of the house. He's had some relapses with housebreaking - but that goes with the territory of dog ownership. Had other dogs in the past, but it has been a while.
He doesn't growl at any of the other children, just the youngest and smallest. The dog is plenty smart and knows when he is getting watched and behaves accordingly.
I'm going to try some supervised good rewards with said child and dog and try to build some positive associations there. She may have rubbed him wrong in the past and he's holding a grudge that needs to be gotten over. Regardless if he gets over it, he needs to change that behavior.
Sent from my evil cell phone.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Ephesians 6:12
Dr. Who (03-12-2019),pragmatic (03-13-2019),Sergeant Gleed (03-13-2019)
The problem with wolf hybrids is that they are actually more instinctively fearful than dogs. (something I read about after the fact!) They make terrible guard dogs because they are more likely to run away, unless they are cornered. As to being escape artists, I'll take your word for it - we didn't keep ours more than a couple of weeks and she was almost always supervised when she was out of doors. I don't think I'll repeat the experiment. We had one dog that was a very proficient escape artist - he was a terrier/$#@!er spaniel cross. He was really smart and if he couldn't climb it he tunnelled under it. The crazy thing was, he didn't want to run away, he always wanted to get back into the house. He hated being outside by himself. So he would 'escape' and show up at the front door. We should have known because when he was six-weeks-old he climbed out of a 2.5 foot tall wooden box so that he could come and sleep with us. He was about as big as an overgrown guinea pig at the time.
In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Mahatma Gandhi