Aggressive Dog, I don't know what to do

[TerryJ2]

Tina,

VA Beach is part of Tidewater. Tidewater includes VA Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Newport News, Poquoson, Smithfield, York County, Hampton and Williamsburg. (For anyone from an area I missed, I apologize!)

How many sessions do you get for $450? It should be 2X a wk for 6-8 wks. At least. (Also, the owner of Coastal encouraged all of us to to visit every single day, when not in class, to practice sit-stays and down-stays while other dogs were taking the class. So in a sense, we had access to 7-day a wk. training.)

To use Coastal you'd have to drive an hr. so it may not be worth it. Just make sure that the people you use have dealt with-aggressive dogs and can honestly tell you that they've had both good and bad results. There are no absolutes.

One thing you can try in the meantime is to take your dog in another room (away from the kids), place her on her back, and stare her in the eye until she looks away. It's a basic dominance exercise. If she doesn't look away for a long time, she's trying to dominate you. (Certain breeds, like border collies, will stare back much longer but Spitz should look away pretty quickly.)
If she squirms, say "Stay," and keep holding her and staring at her. It won't hurt her. You can say "stay" in a nice voice if you want... just make sure she stays on her back.

 

[TerryJ2]

Oh, I just re-read that note about Prozac.
I had to put my border collie on Xanax. The vet wasn't too keen on it. He said it would just make her sleepy... but he did point out that if she slowed down, I could grab her leash (if she were human she'd have been ADHD) and it would make her easier to train.
He was right. It helped. She was only on it for 2 mo's but it did, in fact, slow her down so I could grab the leash and train her more easily. Up to that point, she was in constant motion and very hyper. She would have been fine on a farm, in fact. (Kind of sad, when you think about it... we have 4 acres but it wasn't enough.)