I’ll start off by saying that he has a bad past life. He was obviously abused by his previous owners and straight up abandoned in the woods. He has bad anxiety that he is on Prozac for, and it seems to be helping for the most part.
Lately he has been grabbing random shit and snapping and growling when someone tries to take it. He’ll grab the stuff off tables and counters to chew, so it’s not like he’s finding random stuff on the floor.
Last night he grabbed tape off of a table and when my sister tried to take it, he bit her hand. It wasn’t hard and barely left a mark, but it is still incredibly concerning. I was the victim of a severe dog attack as a child, so any aggression is not okay. I don’t want to have to get rid of him because he’s my baby boy and I love him so much.
I have no idea how to stop this behavior. I’ve never had a dog act like this. It started in August and has gotten worse in the past month because our living conditions changed. I broke my ankle/leg and I’m laid up for a while at my parents’ place.
Do y’all have any suggestions?
Not gonna call you a dumbass when you’re open about this being anecdotal only, but yes, all of the ‘assert dominance’ stuff has been pretty thoroughly debunked. At best you’ll get a dog who fears you just the ‘right’ amount to behave how you want them to when you are there, but they don’t have any actual skills and the behaviour does not transfer well to other people and situations. And if their new anxiety does overcome their fear, the resulting behaviours will be much worse than what you started with.
Do you have any literature recommendations that might cover the latest understanding?
Not on hand, I’d just be googling for it at the moment. I did recently save a super informative comment about the history of the training schools of thought, I know it’s not an actual source but it should provide enough to search for if you want to go deeper. Comment link: https://possumpat.io/comment/2354604
Thank you. It’s good enough for me, I don’t own a dog, so it’s more just a curiosity thing.