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The positives sounds like the owners of Bazza recognise this is an issue. They seem to at least be communicating. Sounds like you’d both benefit from resolving it?
How well trained is Barry generally? Could some de-sensitisation work help?
Could they turn him away on lead, return, repeat?
GoatandTricycle-
The communication isn't great. In the past week I've had another "I think we should just let them settle this themselves", then the chap got upset because I put Owen on lead when Barry charged over, then grabbed him by the collar as he started aggressing towards Owen. His point was "you set this up to happen, Owen can easily outrun him" - this is undoubtedly true, but ignores the fact that Owen submits to most other dogs and a couple of times has laid down in the face of Barry's aggression which just exposes his bellow. If that happened at distance no-one would be able to intervene.
I do appreciate that this is almost certainly an excess of caution, but the chances are certainly not 0 that Barry puts his teeth on Owen, so there's no real reason for me to do anything other than ask them to control their dog and step in when I need to. If they came up to me constructively and asked about desensitisation I'd be thrilled! TBH, if they muzzled him I'd be up for all sorts of attempted introductions/solutions etc. I do appreciate that this must be really annoying for them. And stressful. But they're not handling it very well.
owl
He def is.
You mean urgency from the owners? That is absolutely all I want or expect. They can't control barry's ravings, but they can at least look like they're trying to intervene at a reasonable pace.... and not advocate fight club as a reasonable resolution!
Owen will most likely have his balls off after christmas, so hopefully that chills Barry out. It is definitely more than the normal 'small dog growling at big dog' which is a vibe you get and I reckon that's what you're talking about @Oliver Schick - I think this is some sort of hormonal aggression which has got stuck in the mind of this particular terrier. they are monomaniacal at the best of times - I mean, we've literally bred that instinct into them, but it's coming out here in Bazza's fixation with Owen.