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He is! We got him in January when he was 1 year old.
His past family had him when he was only 6 weeks old (wayyy too young), then when he got bigger, didn't take him out of the flat. He then had 4 months or so of not being socialised at all before he was dumped in the shelter for 4 months.
When we met him, he was very energetic, but seemed friendly with everyone.
After a few weeks of being with us, a more reactive side started to develop - barking at anything that moved, trying to bite strangers, food aggressive, aggressive with other dogs etc etc.
We luckily found an amazing trainer and have been making great progress ever since. He still has some of those traits, but stays under threshold now.
As our first dog, we definitely bit off more than we could chew, but it's been an amazing journey and you can see and feel how much he trusts my partner and me in just these 6 short months.
Definitely one of those sink or swim scenarios - especially in a busy city with a lot of dogs (Barcelona)!
ak-
Ah that sounds like some hard work! Really sad some people get a dog and do that, and they had him though the hardest stages.
The qr code, is that your details? Smart.
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Good for you for giving him such a great second chance and putting all that effort in for him! He looks lovely.
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Definitely one of those sink or swim scenarios
Thanks for sharing and good on you for putting the work in. My partner and i are at the same 6 month stage with our rescue and it's been quite the rollercoaster.
On reactivity, Nori our Staffie cross has reactivity issues with other dogs that we were not made aware of from the rescue charity beforehand. Sadly after a scrap last week where i had to pry another big dogs jaws of her face only for her to lunge back in and she has taken a real downward turn. She now disengages very quickly, looks tense, has poor recall and looks like she's brewing for a fight. In the time we've had her we've had 3 quite severe incidents and i'm worried it's taken it's toll on me and the dog. It's becoming increasingly hard not to tense up when other dogs come bundling over (which clearly makes things worse) or not feel that a disproportionate amount of other dog owners are fucking useless (which given that me and my dog are the "problem" doesn't get me very far with them).
We're trying to lock down a decent behaviourist but we're struggling to find someone that can either give us the time atm. FWIW both the trainer and the behaviourist we've seen have made very positive comments about her but it's hard to put the bad stuff out my head.
Apologies for the dump, feeling the pressure right now!
skinny
ltc
jono84
he's beautiful