r/reactivedogs • u/OwnAdhesiveness5650 • 1d ago
Advice Needed Random aggression increasing in 3 yo dog
Hello! I have a 3 year old dog who I adopted about a year ago. He’s a lab staffy mix and super sweet. I delt with a lot of separation anxiety at first with him, but was able to crate train him and start him on Prozac to help. He does great now and doesn’t even need to be in the crate when I leave him home alone. I work night shift and go out of town sometimes and am lucky enough that my apartment has its own dog daycare where he goes a few times a week, it’s only roughly 5-7 dogs, many days less than that and the girl who runs it is absolutely wonderful. I would say over the past 3-4 months he’s been having increasing instances of random aggression towards other dogs with no common denominator (no food, toys, dog wasn’t bugging him etc) He’s not leash reactive at all, most of the times he straight up ignores other dogs when he’s leashed. But he’s now had 3 strikes at the daycare and other instances I’ve been there for where he randomly goes for another dog. He had some resource guarding in the past when my roommate got a dog but that only happened when the other dog went near his food bag/bin or main source of his food. He does completely fine with treats/snacks etc. He had no issues with any type of dog prior to these past few months. I have a vet appointment booked to rule out any pain or medical causes and am going to start training next week. Has anyone had this occur with an already mature dog? If so do you guys have any tips for me or sources on helping train with him? I won’t be having him go back to daycare or any sort of park anymore until I am able to really nail the source of it or just help his training improve. I’m just so sad and fear I may have caused it somehow but I can’t think of how and I am so scared of him hurting another dog. Thank you
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u/SudoSire 1d ago
Most dogs age out of the kind of play that leans toward free for all, and become dog selective as they mature into an adult. Your dog is now an adult at 3 and is probably showing that they really have no interest in being buddy buddy with every other dog in daycare and aren’t tolerant of the ones there. If they are good on leash and are managed well at home with any cohabitating dogs, I would simply accept that they are no longer dog day care material. Get a dog sitter, or find a boarding situation that will allow one on one enrichment with staff but not require any dog group play. 2/3 are extremely common ages for this to happen, and the breed mix is not known for high dog tolerance. There are exceptions of course, but doesn’t sound like your dog is one of them.
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u/OwnAdhesiveness5650 1d ago
Yes I guess that does make sense. It just felt like such a sudden switch I didn’t see it coming. I appreciate your feedback!
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u/SudoSire 1d ago
Also, make sure you “affirm” the rules pinned to the top of the main subreddit page. If you don’t, your comments and replies will be auto deleted and invisible to others til you do just fyi.
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u/CanadianPanda76 18h ago
Puberty. Adulthood
2 years is typical.
But staffy csn be prone to dog aggression and sometimes thst crops up around puberty.